mm 
Wm 

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lili::; 


THE 


HISTORY  OF  ROME. 


BT 


THOMAS  ARNOLD,  D.  D., 

LATE  REGIUS  PROFESSOR   OF  MODERN  HISTORY  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY   Of   OXFORD, 

HEAD   MASTER  OF  RUGBY  SCHOOL, 
AND  MEMBER   OF  THK  ARCHAEOLOGICAL  SOCIETY   OV  ROME. 


\ 

THBEE  VOLUMES  IN  ONE. 


REPRINTED   ENTIRS,   FROM   THE   LAST   LONDON    EDITION. 


NEW-YORK : 
D.    APPLETON    &    COMPANY 

443    &    445     BROADWAY. 
1866. 


PREFACE. 


IN  attempting  to  write  the  History  of  Rome,  I  am  not  afraid  of  incur- 
ring the  censure  pronounced  by  Johnson  upon  Blackwell,*  that  he  had 
chosen  a  subject  long  since  exhausted ;  of  which  all  men  knew  already 
as  much  as  any  one  could  tell  them.  Much  more  do  I  dread  the  re- 
proach of  having  ventured,  with  most  insufficient  means,  upon  a  work 
of  the  greatest  difficulty ;  and  thus  by  possibility  deterring  others  from 
accomplishing  a  task  which  has  never  yet  been  fulfilled,  and  which  they 
might  fulfil  more  worthily.  The  great  advances  made  within  the  last 
thirty  years  in  historical  knowledge  have  this  most  hopeful  symptom, 
that  they  have  taught  us  to  appreciate  the  amount  of  our  actual  igno- 
rance. As  we  have  better  understood  what  history  ought  to  be,  we  are 
become  ashamed  of  that  scanty  information  which  might  once  have 
passed  for  learning  ;  and  our  discovery  of  the  questions  which  need  to 
be  solved  has  so  outrun  our  powers  of  solving  them,  that  we  stand  hu- 
miliated rather  than  encouraged,  and  almost  inclined  to  envy  the  con- 
dition of  our  fathers,  whose  maps,  so  to  speak,  appeared  to  them  com- 
plete and  satisfactory,  because  they  never  suspected  the  existence  of  a 
world  beyond  their  range. 

Still,  although  the  time  will,  I  trust,  arrive,  when  points  now  alto- 
gether obscure  will  receive  their  full  illustration,  and  when  this  work 
must  be  superseded  by  a  more  perfect  history,  yet  it  may  be  possible  in 
the  mean  while  to  render  some  service,  if  I  shall  be  able  to  do  any  jus- 
tice to  my  subject  up  to  the  extent  of  our  present  knowledge.  And 
we,  who  are  now  in  the  vigor  of  life,  possess  at  least  one  advantage 
which  our  children  may  not  share  equally.  We  have  lived  in  a  period 
rich  in  historical  lessons  beyond  all  former  example ;  we  have  witnessed 
one  of  the  great  seasons  of  movement  in  the  life  of  mankind,  in  which 
the  arts  of  peace  and  war,  political  parties  and  principles,  philosophy 
and  religion,  in  all  their  manifold  forms  and  influences,  have  been  de- 
veloped with  extraordinary  force  and  freedom.  Our  own  experience 
has  thus  thrown  a  bright  light  upon  the  remoter  past :  much  which  our 
fathers  could  not  fully  understand,  from  being  accustomed  only  to 

*  In  Lls  review  of  BlackwelTs  Memoirs  of  the  Court  of  Augustus.— Works,  Vol.  IL 
9vo.  1800. 

54 1557 


VI 


PREFACE. 


quieter  times,  and  which  again,  from  the  same  cause,  may  become  ob- 
scure to  our  children,  is  to  us  perfectly  familiar.  This  is  an  advantage 
common  to  all  the  present  generation  in  every  part  of  Europe  ;  but  it 
is  not  claiming  too  much  to  say,  that  the  growth  of  the  Roman  com- 
monwealth, the  true  character  of  its  parties,  the  causes  and  tendency  of 
its  revolutions,  and  the  spirit  of  its  people  and  its  laws,  ought  to  be  un- 
derstood by  none  So  well  as  by  those  who  have  grown  up  under  the 
laws,  who  have  been  engaged  in  the  parties,  who  are  themselves  citi- 
zens of  our  kingly  commonwealth  of  England. 

Long  before  Niebuhr's  death  I  had  formed  the  design  of  writing  the 
History  of  Rome  ;  not,  it  may  well  be  believed,  with  the  foolish  notion 
of  rivalling  so  great  a  man,  but  because  it  appeared  to  me  that  his  work 
was  not  likely  to  become  generally  popular  in  England,  and  that  its 
discoveries  and  remarkable  wisdom  might  best  be  made  known  to  Eng- 
lish readers  by  putting  them  into  a  form  more  adapted  to  our  common 
taste.  It  should  be  remembered,  that  only  the  two  first  volumes  of 
Niebuhr's  History  were  published  in  his  lifetime ;  and  although  careful 
readers  might  have  anticipated  his  powers  of  narration  even  from  these, 
yet  they  were  actually,  by  the  necessity  of  the  case,  more  full  of  dis- 
sertations than  of  narrative ;  and  for  that  reason  it  seemed  desirable  to 
remould  them  for  the  English  public,  by  assuming  as  proved  many  of 
those  results  which  Niebuhr  himself  had  been  obliged  to  demonstrate 
step  by  step.  But  when  Niebuhr  died,  and  there  was  now  no  hope  of 
seeing  his  great  work  completed  in  a  manner  worthy  of  its  beginning, 
I  was  more  desirous  than  ever  of  executing  my  original  plan,  of  pre- 
senting in  a  more  popular  form  what  he  had  lived  to  finish,  and  of  con- 
tinuing it  afterwards  with  such  advantages  as  I  had  derived  from  a 
long  study  and  an  intense  admiration  of  his  example  and  model. 

It  is  my  hope,  then,  if  God  spares  my  life*  and  health,  to  carry  on 
this  history  to  the  revival  of  the  western  empire,  in  the  year  800  of  the 
Christian  era,  by  the  coronation  of  Charlemagne  at  Rome.  This  point 
appears  to  me  its  natural  termination.  "We  shall  then  have  passed 
through  the  chaos  which  followed  the  destruction  of  the  old  western 
empire,  and  shall  have  seen  its  several  elements,  combined  with  others 
which  in  that  great  convulsion  had  been  mixed  with  them,  organized 
again  into  their  new  form.  That  new  form  exhibited  a  marked  and 
recognized  division  between  the  so-called  secular  and  spiritual  powers, 
and  thereby  has  maintained  in  Christian  Europe  the  unhappy  distinc- 
tion which  necessarily  prevailed  in  the  heathen  empire  between  the 
church  and  the  state ;  a  distinction  now  so  deeply  seated  in  our  laws, 
our  language,  and  our  very  notions,  that  nothing  less  than  a  miraculous 
interposition  of  God's  providence  seems  capable,  within  any  definite 

*  Dr.  Arnold  died  June  12th,  1842.  He  had  completed  the  present  volume,  with  the  ex 
ception  of  adding  a  running  commentary  to  the  last  part  of  it. 


PREFACE.  vil 

time,  of  eradicating  it.  The  Greek  empire,  in  its  latter  years,  retained 
so  little  of  the  Roman  character,  and  had  so  little  influence  upon  what 
was  truly  the  Roman  world,  that  it  seems  needless,  for  the  sake  of  a 
mere  name,  to  protract  the  story  for  six  hundred  and  fifty  years  fur 
ther,  merely  to  bring  it  down  to  the  conquest  of  Constantinople  by  the 
Turks. 

For  the  whole  of  the  period,  from  the  origin  down  to  the  capture  of 
Rome  by  the  Gauls,  in  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century  before  the 
Christian  era,  I  have  enjoyed  Niebuhr's  guidance  ;  I  have  everywhere 
availed  myself  of  his  materials  as  well  as  of  his  conclusions.  ~No  ac- 
knowledgment can  be  too  ample  for  the  benefits  which  I  have  derived 
from  him  :  yet  I  have  not  followed  him  blindly,  nor  compiled  my  work 
from  his.  It  seemed  to  be  a  worthier  tribute  to  his  greatness,  to  en- 
deavor to  follow  his  example  ;  to  imitate,  so  far  as  I  could,  his  manner 
of  inquiry  ;  to  observe  and  pursue  his  hints  ;  to  try  to  practise  his  mas- 
ter-art of  doubting  rightly  and  believing  rightly ;  and,  as  no  man  is 
infallible,  to  venture  sometimes  even  to  differ  from  his  conclusions,  if  a 
compliance  with  his  own  principles  of  judgment  seemed  to  require  it. 
But  I  can  truly  say,  that  I  never  differ  from  him  without  a  full  con- 
sciousness of  the  probability  that  further  inquiry  might  prove  him  to 
be  right. 

The  form  and  style  in  which  I  have  given  the  legends  and  stories  of 
the  first  three  centuries  of  Rome  may  require  some  explanation.  I 
wished  to  give  these  legends  at  once  with  the  best  effect,  and  at  the 
same  time  with  a  perpetual  mark,  not  to  be  mistaken  by  the  most  care- 
less reader,  that  they  were  legends  and  not  history.  There  seemed  a 
reason,  therefore,  for  adopting  a  more  antiquated  style,  which,  other- 
wise, of  course  would  be  justly  liable  to  the  charge  of  affectation. 

It  might  seem  ludicrous  to  speak  of  impartiality  in  writing  the  his- 
tory of  remote  times,  did  not  those  times  really  bear  a  nearer  resem- 
blance to  our  own  than  many  imagine ;  or  did  not  Mitford's  example 
sufficiently  prove  that  the  spirit  of  modern  party  may  affect  our  view 
of  ancient  history.  But  many  persons  do  not  clearly  see  what  should 
be  the  true  impartiality  of  an  historian.  If  there  be  no  truths  in  moral 
and  political  science,  little  good  can  be  derived  from  the  study  of  either : 
if  there  be  truths,  it  must  be  desirable  that  they  should  be  discovered 
and  embraced.  Skepticism  must  ever  be  a  misfortune  or  a  defect :  a 
misfortune,  if  there  be  no  means  of  arriving  at  truth ;  a  defect,  if  while 
there  exist  such  means  we  are  unable  or  unwilling  to  use  them.  Be- 
lieving that  political  science  has  its  truths  no  less  than  moral,  I  cannot 
regard  them  with  indifference,  I  cannot  but  wish  them  to  be  seen  and 
embraced  by  others. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  these  truths  have 
been  much  disputed ;  that  they  have  not,  like  moral  truths,  received 


Tin  PREFACE. 

that  universal  assent  of  good  men  which  makes  us  shrink  from  submit- 
ting them  to  question.  And,  again,  in  human  affairs,  the  contest  has 
never  been  between  pure  truth  and  pure  error.  Neither,  then,  may  we 
assume  political  conclusions  as  absolutely  certain ;  nor  are  politica^ 
truths  ever  wholly  identical  with  the  professions  or  practice  of  any 
party  or  individual.  If,  for  the  sake  of  recommending  any  principle, 
we  disguise  the  errors  or  the  crimes  with  which  it  has  been  in  practice 
accompanied,  and  which,  in  the  weakness  of  human  nature,  may  per- 
haps be  naturally  connected  with  our  reception  of  it,  then  we  are  guilty 
of  most  blamable  partiality.  And  so  it  is  no  less,  if,  for  the  sake  of 
decrying  an  erroneous  principle,  we  depreciate  the  wisdom,  and  the 
good  and  noble  feelings  with  which  error  also  is  frequently,  and  in 
some  instances  naturally,  joined.  This  were  to  make  our  sense  of 
political  truth  to  overpower  our  sense  of  moral  truth  ;  a  double  error, 
inasmuch  as  it  is  at  once  the  less  certain,  and,  to  those  who  enjoy  a 
Christian's  hope,  by  far  the  less  worthy. 

While,  then,  I  cannot  think  that  political  science  contains  no  truths, 
or  that  it  is  a  matter  of  indifference  whether  they  are  believed  or  no,  I 
have  endeavored  also  to  remember,  that  be  they  ever  so  certain,  there 
are  other  truths  no  less  sure  ;  and  that  one  truth  must  never  be  sacri- 
ficed to  another.  I  have  tried  to  be  strictly  impartial  in  my  judgments 
of  men  and  parties,  without  being  indifferent  to  those  principles  which 
were  involved  more  or  less  purely  in  their  defeat  or  triumph.  I  have 
desired  neither  to  be  so  possessed  with  the  mixed  character  of  all  things 
human,  as  to  doubt  the  existence  of  abstract  truth ;  nor  so  to  dote  on 
any  abstract  truth,  as  to  think  that  its  presence  in  the  human  mind  is 
incompatible  with  any  evil,  its  absence  incompatible  with  any  good. 

In  the  first  part  of  my  History,  I  have  followed  the  common  chro- 
nology without  scruple ;  not  as  true,  but  as  the  most  convenient. 
Where  the  facts  themselves  are  so  uncertain,  it  must  be  a  vain  labor 
to  try  to  fix  their  dates  minutely.  But  when  we  arrive  at  a  period  of 
greater  certainty  as  to  the  facts,  then  it  will  be  proper  to  examine,  as 
far  as  possible,  into  the  chronology. 

Those  readers  who  are  acquainted  with  Niebuhr,  or  with  the  history 
written  by  Mr.  Mai  don,  for  the  Society  for  the  Diffusion  of  Useful 
Knowledge,  may  be  surprised  to  find  so  little  said  upon  the  antiquities 
of  the  different  nations  of  Italy.  The  omission,  however,  was  made 
deliberately  :  partly,  because  the  subject  does  not  appear  to  me  to  be- 
long essentially  to  the  early  history  of  Kome,  and  still  more,  because 
the  researches  now  carried  on  with  so  much  spirit  in  Italy,  hold  out 
the  hope  that  we  may  obtain,  ere  long,  some  more  satisfactory  knowl- 
edge than  is  at  present  attainable.  Pelasgian  inscriptions,  written  in  a 
character  clearly  distinguishable  from  the  Etruscan,  have  been  discov- 
ered very  recently,  as  I  am  informed,  at  Agylla  or  Caere.  And  the 


PREFACE.  ij 

study  and  comparison  of  the  several  Lido-Germanic  languages  is  making 
such  progress,  that  if  any  fortunate  discovery  comes  in  to  aid  it,  we 
may  hope  to  see  the  mystery  of  the  Etruscan  inscriptions  at  length  un- 
ravelled. I  was  not  sorry,  therefore,  to  defer  any  detailed  inquiry  into 
the  antiquities  of  the  Italian  nations,  in  the  expectation  that  I  might  be 
able  hereafter  to  enter  upon  the  subject  to  greater  advantage. 

Amongst  the  manifold  accomplishments  of  Niebuhr's  mind,  not  the 
least  extraordinary  was  his  philological  knowledge.  His  acquaintance 
with  the  manuscripts  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  writers  was  extensive 
and  profound ;  his  acuteness  in  detecting  a  corrupt  reading,  and  his 
sagacity  in  correcting  it,  were  worthy  of  the  critical  ability  of  Bentley. 
On  no  point  have  I  been  more  humbled  with  a  sense  of  my  own  infe- 
riority, as  feeling  that  my  own  professional  pursuits  ought,  in  this 
respect,  to  have  placed  me  more  nearly  on  a  level  with  him.  But  it  is 
far  otherwise.  I  have  had  but  little  acquaintance  with  manuscripts, 
nor  have  I  the  means  of  consulting  them  extensively ;  and  the  common 
editions  of  the  Latin  writers  in  particular,  do  not  intimate  how  much  of 
their  present  text  is  grounded  upon  conjecture.  I  have  seen  references 
made  to  Festus,  which,  on  examination,  have  been  found  to  rest  on  no 
other  authority  than  Scaliger's  conjectural  piecing  of  the  fragments  of 
the  original  text.  But,  besides  this,  we  often  need  a  knowledge  of  the 
general  character  of  a  manuscript  or  manuscripts,  in  order  to  judge 
whether  any  remarkable  variations  in  names  or  dates  are  really  to  be 
ascribed  to  the  author's  having  followed  a  different  version  of  the  story, 
or  whether  they  are  mere  blunders  of  the  copyist.  For  instance,  the 
names  of  the  consuls,  as  given  at  the  beginning  of  each  year  in  the 
present  text  of  Diodorus,  are  in  many  instances  so  corrupt,  that  one  is 
tempted  to  doubt  how  far  some  apparent  differences  in  his  Fasti  from 
those  followed  by  Livy,  are  really  his  own  or  his  copyist's. 

There  are  some  works  which  I  have  not  been  able  to  consult ;  and 
there  are  points  connected  with  the  topography  of  Rome  and  its  neigh- 
borhood, on  which  no  existing  work  gives  a  satisfactory  explanation. 
On  these  points  I  have  been  accustomed  to  consult  my  valued  friend 
Bunsen,  Niebuhr's  successor  in  his  official  situation  as  Prussian  minis- 
ter at  Rome,  and  his  worthy  successor  no  less  in  the  profoundness  of 
his  antiquarian,  and  philological,  and  historical  knowledge. 

There  has  lately  appeared  in  the  second  volume  of  ISTiebuhr's  life 
and  letters,  a  letter  written  by  him  to  a  young  student,  containing 
various  directions  and  suggestions  with  respect  to  his  philological 
studies.  Amongst  other  things,  he  says,  "  I  utterly  disapprove  of  the 
common  practice  of  adopting  references,  after  verifying  them,  without 
naming  the  source  whence  they  are  taken  ;  and,  tedious  as  the  double 
reference  is,  I  never  allow  myself  to  dispense  with  it.  When  I  cite  a 
passage  simply,  I  have  found  it  out  myself.  He  who  does  otherwise, 


X  PREFACE. 

assumes  the  appearance  of  more  extensive  reading  than  belongs  tc 
him." 

The  perfect  uprightness  of  Niebuhr's  practice  in  this  point  is  well 
worthy  of  him,  and  is  deserving  of  all  imitation.  But  I  should  find  it 
difficult  in  all  cases  to  say  whether  I  had  first  noticed  a  passage  my- 
self, or  had  been  led  to  it  by  a  quotation  in  another  writer.  I  have 
availed  myself  continually  of  Niebuhr's  references,  and  of  those  made 
by  Freinsheim  in  his  supplement  of  Livy  ;  but  it  has  happened,  also, 
that  passages  referred  to  by  them  had  been  taken  by  myself  directly 
from  the  original  source,  without  recollecting,  or,  indeed,  without  know- 
ing, that  they  had  been  quoted  previously  by  others.  Niebuhr's  read- 
ing was  so  vast,  and  his  memory  so  retentive,  that  he  may  be  presumed 
never  to  have  overlooked  any  thing  which  could  illustrate  his  subject : 
it  is  probable,  therefore,  that  every  quotation  made  in  this  volume  may 
be  found  previously  made  by  Niebuhr,  unless  it  happen  to  relate  to  a 
matter  which  he  has  not  written  on.  But  yet,  some  quotations  were 
made  by  me  with  so  little  consciousness  of  their  existing  in  Mebuhr, 
that  in  one  instance  I  searched  his  volume  to  see  whether  he  had  noticed 
a  passage,  because  I  did  not  remember  to  have  observed  any  quotation 
of  it  by  him,  and  yet  I  felt  sure,  as  proved  to  be  the  case,  that  he  had 
not  overlooked  it. 

I  have  only,  therefore,  to  state  that  many  passages  have  been  quoted 
by  me  from  Pliny,  Valerius  Maximus,  Frontinus,  and  other  writers,  for 
the  knowledge,  or  at  least  for  the  recollection  of  which,  I  was  indebted 
either  to  ISTiebuhr  or  to  Freinsheim,  or  to  some  other  modern  writer. 
And  yet  I  can  truly  say,  that  not  a  single  paragraph  has  been  written 
on  a  mere  verifying  of  the  references  made  by  preceding  writers,  but 
that  my  own  reading  and  comparison  of  the  ancient  authorities  has 
been  always  the  foundation  of  it.  This  is  not  said  as  laying  claim  to 
any  remarkable  degree  of  diligence  or  of  learning,  but  simply  to  estab- 
lish my  right  to  call  this  history  an  original  work,  and  not  a  mere  com- 
pilation from  Niebuhr  or  from  others  who  have  gone  over  the  ground 
previously. 

But  I  shall  be  believed  by  all  who  are  acquainted  with  Niebuhr's 
third  volume,  when  I  say  that  the  composition  of  this  period  in  mine 
has  been  throughout  a  most  irksome  labor;  inasmuch  as  I  was  but 
doing,  with  manifest  inferiority  in  every  point,  what  Niebuhr  had  done 
in  all  points  admirably.  In  the  first  part,  although  all  the  substance 
of  it  and  much  more,  was  to  be  found  in  Niebuhr,  yet  in  its  form  I 
might  hope  to  have  some  advantage,  as  putting  his  matter  into  a  more 
popular  shape.  But  his  third  volume  is  no  less  eloquent  than  wise ; 
and  is  as  superior  in  the  power  of  its  narrative  as  in  the  profoundness 
of  its  researches.  And  yet,  this  portion  of  the  history  was  to  be  written 
as  a  necessary  part  of  my  own  work.  I  was  obliged,  therefore,  to  go 


PREFACE.  xi 

through  with  it  as  well  as  I  could,  feeling  most  keenly  all  the  while  the 
infinite  difference  between  ISTiebuhr's  history  and  mine. 

It  may  be  thought  by  some  that  this  volume  is  written  at  too  great 
length.  But  I  am  convinced,  by  a  tolerably  large  experience,  that  most 
readers  find  it  almost  impossible  to  impress  on  their  memory  a  mere 
abridgment  of  history  :  the  number  of  names  and  events  crowded  into 
a  small  space  is  overwhelming  to  them,  and  the  absence  of  details  in  the 
narrative  makes  it  impossible  to  communicate  to  it  much  of  interest ; 
neither  characters  nor  events  can  be  developed  with  that  particularity 
which  is  the  best  help  to  the  memory,  because  it  attracts  and  engages 
us,  and  impresses  images  on  the  mind  as  well  as  facts.  At  the  same 
time  I  am  well  aware  of  the  great  difficulty  of  giving  liveliness  to  a 
narrative  which  necessarily  gets  all  its  facts  at  second-hand.  A:  d  a 
writer  who  has  never  been  engaged  in  any  public  transactions,  either 
of  peace  or  war,  must  feel  this  especially.  One  who  is  himself  a  states- 
man and  orator,  may  relate  the  political  contests  even  of  remote  ages 
with  something  of  the  spirit  of  a  contemporary;  for  his  own  experience 
realizes  to  him,  in  great  measure,  the  scenes  and  the  characters  which 
he  is  describing.  And,  in  like  manner,  a  soldier  or  a  seaman  can  enter 
fully  into  the  great  deeds  of  ancient  warfare;  for,  although  in  out- 
ward form  ancient  battles  and  sieges  may  differ  from  those  of  modern 
times,  yet  the  genius  of  the  general  and  the  courage  of  the  soldier,  the 
call  for  so  many  of  the  highest  qualities  of  our  nature  which  constitutes 
the  enduring  moral  interest  of  war,  are  common  alike  to  all  times,  and 
he  who  has  fought  under  Wellington  has  been  in  spirit  an  eye-witness 
of  the  campaigns  of  Hannibal.  But  a  writer  whose  whole  experience 
has  been  confined  to  private  life  and  to  peace,  has  no  link  to  connect 
him  with  the  actors  and  great  deeds  of  ancient  history,  except  the  feel- 
ings of  our  common  humanity.  He  cannot  realize  civil  contests  or 
battles  with  the  vividness  of  a  statesman  and  a  soldier ;  he  can  but 
enter  into  them  as  a  man ;  and  his  general  knowledge  of  human  nature, 
his  love  of  great  and  good  actions,  his  sympathy  with  virtue,  his  abhor- 
rence of  vice,  can  alone  assist  him  in  making  himself,  as  it  were,  a  wit- 
ness of  what  he  attempts  to  describe.  But  these  even  by  themselves 
will  do  much  ;  and  if  an  historian  feels  as  a  man  and  as  a  citizen,  there 
is  hope  that,  however  humble  his  experience,  he  may  inspire  his 
readers  with  something  of  his  own  interest  in  the  events  of  his  history : 
he  may  hope,  at  least,  that  a  full  detail  of  these  events,  however  feebly 
represented,  will  be  worth  far  more  than  a  mere  brief  summary  of  them, 
made  the  text  for  a  long  comment  of  his  own. 

RUGBY,  May  2&/i,  1840. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

MM 
Early  Legends  of  Borne  1 

CHAPTER  II. 
The  early  History  of  Rome 8 

CHAPTER  III. 
Of  the  city  of  Rome,  its  territory,  and  its  scenery 12 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Stories  of  the  later  Kings 15 

CHAPTER  V. 
The  History  of  the  later  Kings  of  Rome,  and  of  the  greatness  of  the  Monarchy 19 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Miscellaneous  notices  of  the  state  of  the  Romans  under  their  Kings 82 

CHAPTER  VII. 

The  Story  of  the  Banishing  of  King  Tarquiiiius  and  his  House,  and  of  their  attempts  to  get 
themselves  brought  back  again 89 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Rome  after  the  end  of  the  Monarchy — the  Dictatorship — the  Tribunes  of  the  Commons. . .    47 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Spurius  Cassius — the  League  with  the  Latins  and  Hernicans — the  Agrarian  Law — A.U.C. 
261-269 57 

CHAPTER  X. 

Ascendency  of  the  Aristocracy — the  Fabii  and  their  Seven  Consulships — the  Publilian 
Law— A.U.O.  269-283 62 

CHAPTER  XL 

Wars  with  the  ^Equians  and  Volscians — Legends  connected  with  these  Wars — Stories  of 
Coriolanus,  and  of  Cincinnatus 68 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Wars  with  the  Etruscans — Veii — Legend  of  the  slaughter  of  the  Fabii  at  the  river 
Cremera 71 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Internal  History — the  Terentilian  Law — Appointment  of  the  ten  High  Commissioners  to 
frame  a  Code  of  written  Laws.— A.U.C.  284r-303 81 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

FAOI 

The  first  Decemvirs,  and  the  Laws  of  the  Twelve  Tables 96 

CHAPTER  XV. 
The  second  Decemvirate — Story  of  Virginia — Revolution  of  305 114 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Internal  History — Constitution  of  the  Year  306 — Valerian  Laws,  and  Trials  of  the  Decem- 
virs— Reaction  in  favor  of  the  Patricians  —  Canuleian  Law — Constitution  of  312 — • 
Counter-Revolution ...  121 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

Internal  History  from-  312  to  350 — the  Censorship,  and  the  limitation  of  it  by  Mamercus 
^Emilius — Sp.  Maslius  and  C.  Ahala — the  QuEestorship  laid  open  to  the  Commons — Six 
Tribunes  of  the  Soldiers  appointed,  and  pay  issued  to  the  Soldiers 132 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Wars  of  the  Romans  from  300  to  363 — the  JSquians  and  Volscians — the  Etruscans — Siege 
and  Capture  of  Veii 148 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
Internal  History  from  350  to  364— Plebeian  Military  Tribunes — Banishment  of  Camillus. . .  156 

CHAPTER  XX. 
State  of  foreign  Nations  at  the  period  of  the  Gaulish  invasion — Italy,  Sardinia,  Corsica  . . .  161 

CHAPTER  XXI. 
Dionysius  the  Elder,  Tyrant  of  Syracuse 168 

CHAPTER  XXII. 
Carthage — Barbarians  of  Western  Europe — East  of  Europe — Greece — Macedonia — Illyria. .  182 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 
Miscellaneous — Physical  History 190 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

The  Gauls  invade  Central  Italy — Battle  of  the  Alia — Burning  of  Rome — Ransom  of  the 
Capitol  and  of  the  City — Retreat  of  the  Gauls 197 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

History,  foreign  and  domestic,  from  the  year  365  to  378 — Rome  after  the  retreat  of  the 
Gauls — its  weaknr»s,  and  the  great  misery  of  the  Commons — Popularity  and  death  of 
M.  Manlius — Wars  with  the  neighboring  Nations 210 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 
JLlie  Licinian  Laws. — 378-334: 222 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

General  History,  domestic  and  foreign,  from  the  admission  of  the  Commons  to  the  Consul- 
ship to  the  beginning  of  the  first  Samnite  War — Evasion  of  the  Licinian  Laws — Wars 
with  the  Gauls,  Tarquiniensians,  and  Volscians.  — A.U.O.  389-412,  Livy  :  384-407, 
Niebuhr 284 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

The  first  Samnite  War — Sedition  of  the  year  408 — Genucian  Laws. — A.U.O.  407-409,  Nie- 
buhr :  410^12,  Fasti  Capit. :  412-414,"  Livy 247 


CONTENTS. 


XV 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

FAOB 

The  great  Latin  War — Battle  under  Mount  Vesuvius — The  Publilian  Laws — Final  settle- 
ment of  Latium.— A.U.C.  415-417 :  410-412,  Niebuhr 260 

CHAPTER  XXX. 

General  History  to  the  beginning  of  the  second  Samnite  "War — Privernum — Palaepoli». — 
A.U.C.  418-428 :  413-423,  Niebuhr 27fi 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 

Second  Samnite  War — L.  Papirius  Cursor — Affair  of  the  Forks  or  Pass  of  Caudium — Battle 
of  Lautulae —  Q.  Fabius,  and  the  war  with  Etruria. — A.U.C.  428-450:  423-444,  Nie- 
buhr 254 

CHAPTER  XXXII. 

Internal  History  from  428  to  454 — Abolition  of  Personal  Slavery  for  Debt — Dictatorship  of 
C.  Meenius — Censorship  of  Appius  Claudius — Censorship  of  Q.  Fabius  and  P.  Decius 
—the  Ogulnian  Law 818 

« 

CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

Foreign  History  from  460  to  464  (443  to  456,  Niebuhr)— Conquest  of  the  JEquians— Third 
Samnite  War — Coalition  of  the  Etruscans,  Samnites,  and  Gauls — Great  battle  of  Scn- 
tinum,  and  death  of  P.  Decius — Final  victory  of  Q.  Fabius  over  the  Saninites — C. 
Pontius  is  led  in  triumph,  and  put  to  death  in  cold  blood 328 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

Internal  History  from  the  passing  of  the  Ogulnian  Law  to  the  landing  of  Pyrrhus  in  Italy 
— Secession  to  the  Janiculum — Dictatorship  of  Q.  Hortensius — Hortensian  and  Ma>- 
nian  Laws — From  A.U.O.  454  to  474 850 

CHAPTER  XXXV. 

State  of  the  East — Kingdoms  of  Alexander's  Successors — Sicily — Greece — Kingdom  of 
Epirus,  and  early  fortunes  of  Pyrrhus 889 

CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

Rome  and  the  Roman  People  at  the  beginning  of  the  War  with  the  Tarentines  and  with 
Pyrrhus 880 

CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

Foreign  History  from  464  to  479  —  Wars  with  the  Etruscans,  Gauls,  and  Tarentines — 
Fourth  Samnite  war — Pyrrhus,  king  of  Epirus,  in  Italy — Battles  of  Heraclea,  Asculum, 
and  Beneventum 887 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

General  History  from  the  departure  of  Pyrrhus  from  Italy  to  the  beginning  of  the  flrst 
Punic  War — Final  submission  of  Samnium — Conquest  of  Tarentum — Picentian  and 
Volsinian  Wars — Rome  acquires  the  sovereignty  of  all  Italy — Detached  events  and 
anecdotes  relating  to  this  Period— 479  to  489,  A.U.C.  275  to  265,  A.c 408 

CHAPTER  XXXIX. 
Constitution  and  power  of  Carthage 418 

CHAPTER  XL. 

First  Punic  War — the  Romans  invade  Sicily — Submission  of  Hiero — the  Romans  create  a 
Navy — Naval  victories  of  Mylae  and  Ecnomus — Expedition  of  M.  Regulus  to  Africa ; 
his  successes,  his  arrogance  in  victory,  his  defeat  and  captivity — War  in  Sicily — Siege 
of  Lilybaeum  and  naval  actions  connected  with  it — Hamilcar  Barca  at  Eircte  and  Eryx 
—Naval  battle  of  the  Agates— Peace  concluded.— A.U.C.  490  to  513— A.C.  204  to  241 424 


xvi  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XLI. 

FAOI 

State  of  Italy  after  the  Eoman  conquest— Political  relations  of  the  inhabitants,  and  dif- 
i'erent  tenures  of  land— Latin  Colonies 448 

CHAPTER  XLII. 

General  History  from  the  first  to  the  second  Punic  War — Illyrian  War — Great  Gaulish  in- 
vasion— Muster  of  the  forces  of  all  Italy — Defeat  of  the  Gauls — Roman  invasions  of 
Cisalpine  Gaul — M.  Marcellus  and  C.  Flaminius. — A.U.C.  513  to  535 — A.C.  241  to  219 456 

CHAPTER  XLIII. 

Second  Punic  War — Hannibal — March  of  Hannibal  from  Spain  to  Italy — Passage  of  the 
Alps — Battles  of  the  Trebia,  and  of  Thrasymenus — Q.  Fabius  Maximus  Dictator — Bat- 
tle of  Cannce— A.U.C.  535  to  538 470 

CHAPTER  XLIV. 

Progress  of  the  war  in  Italy  after  the  battle  of  Cannae — Revolt  of  Capua,  and  of  the  people 
of  Southern  Italy,  to  Hannibal — Great  exertions  of  the  Romans — Surprise  of  Tarentum 
— Siege  of  Capua — Hannibal  marches  on  Rome — Reduction  and  punishment  of  Capua 
—A.U.C.  538  to  543 500 

CHAPTER  XLV. 

Progress  of  the  war  in  Spain,  Sicily,  and  Greece — Operations  of  the  Scipios  in  Spain — 
Their  defeat  and  death — Macedon  and  Greece — Revolutions  of  Syracuse — Marcellus  in 
Sicily — Siege  of  Syracuse — Archimedes — Sack  of  Syracuse,  and  reduction  of  Sicily — 
Mutines,  the  Numidian,  in  Sicily — A.U.C.  538  to  543 512 

CHAPTER  XL VI. 

State  of  Italy — Distress  of  the  people  —  Twelve  colonies  refuse  to  support  the  war  — 
Eighteen  colonies  oifer  all  their  resources  to  the  Romans — Events  of  the  war — Death 
of  Marcellus — Fabius  recovers  Tarentum — March  of  Hasdrubal  into  Italy — He  reaches 
the  coast  of  the  Adriatic — Great  March  of  C.  Nero  from  Apulia  to  oppose  him — Battle 
of  the  Metaurus,  and  death  of  Hasdrubal — A.U.C.  543  to  A.U.C.  547 504 

CHAPTER  XLVII. 

P.  Cornelius  Scipio — His  operations  in  Spain — Siege  and  capture  of  New  Carthage — Battle 
of  Baecula — the  Carthaginians  evacaate  the  Spanish  peninsula — Scipio  returns  to  Rome, 
and  is  elected  Consul — A.U.C.  543  to  A.U.C.  548 586 

SUPPLEMENT 608 

TABLE  of  CONSULS  and  MILITARY  TRIBUNES  from  the  beginning  of  the  Commonwealth  to 

the  taking  of  Rome  by  the  Gauls 618 

ADDENDA 649 

APPENDIX ..665 


HISTORY  OF  ROME. 


CHAPTER  I, 

EAELY  LEGENDS  OF  KOME, 


"  The  old  songs  of  every  people,  which  bear  the  impress  of  their  character  »nd  of  which  the 
beauties,  whether  few  or  manv,  must  he  genuine,  because  they  arise  only  from  feeling,  have 
always  been  valued  by  men  of  masculine  and  comprehensive  taste." — SIB  J.  MACKINTOSH,  Hist, 
of  England,  vol.  I.  p.  86. 


THE  LEGEND    OF  AENEAS. 

WHEN  the  fatal  horse  was  going  to  be  brought  within  the  walls  of  Troy,1  and 
when  Laocoon  had  been  devoured  by  the  two  serpents  sent  by  the 
gods  to  punish  him  because  he  had  tried  to  save  his  country 
against'  the  will  of  Fate,  then  JEneas  and  his  father  Anchises,  with  their  wives,1 
and  many  who  followed  their  fortune,  fled  from  the  coming  of  the  evil  day.  But 
they  remembered  to  carry  their  gods  with  them,3  who  were  to  receive  their 
worship  in  a  happier  land.  They  were  guided  in  their  flight  from  the  city4  by 
the  god  Hermes,  and  he  built  for  them  a  ship  to  carry  them  over  the  sea.  When 
they  put  to  sea,  the  star  of  Venus,5  the  mother  of  ^neas,  stood  over  their  heads, 
and  it  shone  by  day  as  well  as  by  night,  till  they  came  to  the  shores  of  the  land 
of  the  west.  But  when  they  landed,  the  star  vanished  and  was  seen  no  more ; 
and  by  this  sign,  .^Eneas  knew  that  he  was  come  to  that  country,  wherein  fate 
had  appointed  him  to  dwell. 

The  Trojans,  when  they  had  brought  their  gods  on  shore,  began  to  sacrifice.' 
But  the  victim,  a  milk-white  sow  just  ready  to  farrow,  broke  from  or  the  sign  which  he 
the  priest  and  his  ministers,  and  fled  away.  ./Eneas  followed  her ;  "^  heThoSd  ^13 
for  an  oracle  had  told  him,  that  a  four-footed  beast  should  guide  hi*city- 
him  to  the  spot  where  he  was  to  build  his  city.  So  the  sow  went  forwards  till 
she  came  to  a  certain  hill,  about  two  miles  and  a  half  from  the  shore  where  they 
had  purposed  to  sacrifice,  and  there  she  laid  down  and  farrowed,  and  her  litter 
was  of  thirty  young  ones.  But  when  JEneas  saw  that  the  place  was  sandy  and 
barren,7  he  doubted  what  he  should  do.  Just  at  this  time  he  heard  a  voice 

1  Arctinus.  'iXi'ou  iripots,  quoted  by  Proclns,  <  Tabula  Hiensis  and  Neevius,  quoted  by  Ser- 

Chrestomathia,   p.   483.     See  Fynes  Clinton,  vius,  ^En.  I.  170.  Edit.  Lion.  1826. 

Fasti  Hellen.  Vol.  I.  p.  356.  *  Varro  de  Rebus  divinis,  II.  quoted  by  Ser- 

1  Kevins,  Fragm.  Bell.  Pun.  I.  15-20.  vius,  .jEn.  I.  381. 

'  See  the  Tabula  Hiensis,  taken  from  Stesi-  6  Dionysius,  I.  56. 

chorus.     [Annali  dell'  Institute  di  Corrispond.  7  Q.   Fabius,   apud  Servium,  Virg.  .<En.  I 

Archeolog.  1829,  p.  232.]  v.  3. 
1 


HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  1 

which  said,  —  "  The  thirty  young  of  the  sow  are  thirty  years  ;  when  thirty  years 
are  passed,  thy  children  shall  remove  to  a  better  land  ;  meantime  do  thou  obey 
the  gods,  and  build  thy  city  in  the  place  where  they  bid  thee  to  build."  So  the 
Trojans  built  their  city  on  the  spot  where  the  sow  had  farrowed. 

Now  the  land  belonged  to  a  people  who  wore  the  children  of  the  soil,8  and  their 
of  hi.  wa™  with  the  king  was  called  Latinus.  He  received  the  strangers  kindly,  and 
p«opie  vf  the  country.  granted  to  them  seven  hundred  jugera  of  land,9  seven  jugera  to 
each  man,  for  that  was  a  man's  portion.  But  soon  the  children  of  the  soil  and 
the  strangers  quarrelled  ;  and  the  strangers  plundered  the  lands  round  about 
them  ;10  and  king  Latinus  called  upon  Turnus,  the  king  of  the  Rutulians  of  Ardea. 
to  help  him  against  them.  The  quarrel  became  a  war  ;  and  the  strangers  took 
the  city  of  king  Latinus,  and  Latinus  was  killed  ;  and  ./Eneas  took  his  daughter 
Lavinia  and  married  her,  and  became  king  over  the  children  of  the  soil  ;  and 
they  and  the  strangers  became  one  people,  and  they  were  called  by  one  name, 
Latins. 

But  Turnus  called  to  his  aid  Mezentius,  king  of  the  Etruscans  of  Caere.11  There 
HOW  he  disappeared  m  was  then  another  battle  on  the  banks  of  the  river  Numicius,  and 
w^riworr^ip^duira  Turnus  was  killed,  and  ./Eneas  plunged  into  the  river  and  was 
K0d-  seen  no  more.  However,  his  son  Ascanius  declared  that  he  was 

not  dead,  but  that  the  gods  had  taken  him  to  be  one  of  themselves  ;12  and  his 
people  built  an  altar  to  him  on  the  banks  of  the  Numicius,  and  worshipped  him 
by  the  name  of  Jupiter  Indiges,  which  means,  "the  God  who*  was  of  that  very 
land."13 

THE    LEGEND    OF    ASCANIUS. 

The  war  went  on  between  Mezentius  and  Ascanius,  the  son  of  ^Eneas  ;  and 
slew  Mezentius  pressed  hard  upon  the  Latins,  till  at  last  Ascanius  met 
LO"!  him  man  to  man,  and  slew  him14  in  single  fight.  At  that  time 
Ascanius  was  very  young,  and  there  were  only  the  first  soft  hairs 
of  youth  upon  his  cheeks  ;  so  he  was  called  lulus,  or  "  the  soft-haired,"  because, 
when  he  was  only  a  youth,  he  had  vanquished  and  slain  his  enemy,  who  was  a 
grown  man.  At  length  the  thirty  years  came  to  an  end,  which  were  foreshown 
by  the  litter  of  thirty  young  ones  of  the  white  sow.  Ascanius  then  removed 
with  his  people  to  a  high  mountain,  which  looks  over  all  the  land  on  every  side, 
and  one  side  of  it  runs  steep  down  into  a  lake  :  there  he  hewed  out  a  place  for 
his  -city  on  the  side  of  the  mountain,  above  the  lake  ;  and  as  the  city  was  long 
and  narrow,  owing  to  the  steepness  of  the  hill,  he  called  it  Alba  Longa,  which 
is,  the  "  White  Long  City  ;"  and  he  called  it  white,  because  of  the  sign  of  the 
white  sow.15 

THE    LEGEND    OF    ROMULUS. 

Numitor15  was  the  eldest  son  of  Procas,  king  of  Alba  Longa,  and  he  had  a 


HOW   Romuiu.    and  younger  brother  called  Amulius.     When  Procas  died,  Amulius 

Remus  were   born,  and          •        ?•«/«  j.1        i  •          i  i   i     t>±  -VT          -i  T      i  •        i 

.uckied  by  »  she-wolf  seized  by  force  on  the  kingdom,  and  left  to  N  umitor  only  his  share 

and    fed    by   a   wood-        *    i   •      /•      i         »  •  •     i         •  i  /*  1-1  i    -XT          • 

pecker.  of  his  father  s  private  inheritance.     After  this  he  caused  .Numi- 

tor's  only  son  to  be  slain,  and  made  his  daughter  Silvia  become  one  of  the  vir- 
gins who  watched  the  ever-burning  fire  of  the  goddess  Vesta.  But  the  god 
Manners,  who  is  called  also  Mars,  beheld  the  virgin  and  loved  her,  and  it  was 
found  that  she  was  going  to  become  the  mother  of  children.  Then  Amulius 
ordered  that  the  children,  when  born,  should  be  thrown  into  the  river.  It  hap- 

8  "  Aborigines."—  Cato,  Origines.  apud  Ser-  »  Cato,  apudServium,  Mn.  I.  267. 

vium,  Mn.  I.  v.  6.  »«  Servius,  JEa.  IV.  620.    Mu.  XII.  794. 

•  Cato,  apud  Scrvium,  JEn.  XI.  v.  316.—  But  1S  Livy,  I.  2. 

it  should  be  observed  that  the  MSS.  of  Servius  "  Cato,  apud  Servium,  JEn.  I.  267. 

give  the  number  of  jugera  variously.  u  Servius,  J2n.  I.  v.  270. 

10  Cato,  npud  Servium,  Mn.  I.  267,  et  Mn.  IV.  18  Livy,  I.  3.    Dionysius,  I.  76,  et  seqq.    Pin- 

620  torch,  in  Eomulo 


CHAP.  I]  EARLY  LEGENDS.  3 

pencd  that  the  river  at  that  time  had  flooded  the  country ;  when,  therefore,  the 
two  children  in  their  basket  were  thrown  into  the  river,  the  waters  carried  them 
as  far  as  the  foot  of  the  Palatine  Hill,  and  there  the  basket  was  upset,  near  the 
roots  of  a  wild  fig-tree,  and  the  children  thrown  out  upon  the  land.  At  this 
moment  there  came  a  she-wolf  down  to  the  water  to  drink,  and  when  she  saw 
the  children,  she  carried  them  to  her  cave  hard  by,  and  gave  them  to  suck ;  and 
whilst  they  were  there,  a  woodpecker  came  backwards  and  forwards  to  the  cave, 
and  brought  them  food."  At  last  one  Faustulus,  the  king's  herdsman,  saw  the 
wolf  suckling  the  children ;  and  when  he  went  up,  the  wolf  left  them  and  fled  ;18 
so  he  took  them  home  to  his  wife  Larentia,  and  they  were  bred  up  along  with 
her  own  sons  on  the  Palatine  Hill ;  and  they  were  called  Romulus  and  Remus.19 

When  Romulus  and  Remus  grew  up,  the  herdsmen  of  the  Palatine  Hill  chanced 
to  have  a  quarrel  with  the  herdsmen  of  Numitor,  who  stalled  their  How  it  wM  found  out 
cattle  on  the  hill  Aventinus.  Numitor's  herdsmen  laid  an  ambush,  who  ihey  were- 
and  Remus  fell  into  it,  and  was  taken  and  carried  off  to  Alba.  But  when  the 
young  man  was  brought  before  Numitor,  he  was  struck  with  his  noble  air  and 
bearing,  and  asked  him  who  he  was.  And  when  Remus  told  him  of  his  birth, 
and  how  he  had  been  saved  from  death,  together  with  his  brother,  Numitor 
marvelled,  and  thought  whether  this  might  not  be  his  own  daughters  child.  In 
the  mean  while,  Faustulus  and  Romulus  hastened  to  Alba  to  deliver  Remus ; 
and  by  the  help  of  the  young  men  of  the  Palatine  Hill,  who  had  been  used  to 
follow  him  and  his  brother,  Romulus  took  the  city,  and  Amulius  was  killed  ;  and 
Numitor  was  made  king,  and  owned  Romulus  and  Remus  to  be  born  of  his  own 
blood. 

The  two  brothers  did  not  wish  to  live  at  Alba,  but  loved  rather  the  hill  on  the 
banks  of  the  Tiber,  where  they  had  been  brought  up.  So  they  said,  HOW^  tjej^  ^^ 
that  they  would  build  a  city  there  ;  and  they  inquired  of  the  gods  "ai"e  A  *• <$£*«* 

i  •    i         /•    ,1  i          u        •  i  •  L        J.L        ofthe  "fe'n  of  the  vul- 

by  augury,  to  know  which  of  them  should  give  his  name  to  the  ture». 
city.  They  watched  the  heavens  from  morning  till  evening,  and  from  evening 
till  morning  ;20  and  as  the  sun  was  rising,  Remus  saw  six  vultures.21  This  was 
told  to  Romulus ;  but  as  they  were  telling  him,  behold  there  appeared  to  him 
twelve  vultures.  Then  it  was  disputed  again,  which  had  seen  the  truest  sign  of 
the  god's  favor  :  but  the  most  part  gave  their  voices  for  Romulus.  So  he  began 
to  build  his  city  on  the  Palatine  Hill.  This  made  Remus  very  angry ;  and  when 
he  saw  the  ditch  and  the  rampart  which  were  drawn  round  the  space  where  the 
city  was  to  be,  he  scornfully  leapt  over  them,22  saying,  "Shall  such  defences  as 
these  keep  your  city  ?"  As  he  did  this,  Celer,  who  had  the  charge  of  the  build- 
ing, struck  Remus  with  the  spade  which  he  held  in  his  hand,  and  slew  him ;  and 
they  buried  him  on  the  hill  Remuria,  by  the  banks  of  the  Tiber,  on  the  spot 
where  he  had  wished  to  build  his  city. 

But  Romulus  found  that  his  people  were  too  few  in  numbers ;  so  he  set  apart 
a  place  of  refuge,23  to  which  any  man  mio-ht  flee,  and  be  safe  from  HO*T  Romuiu  opened 

i-  °ct  a     J     Ii  vi  f  AI  ±   '  J     »  place  of  refuge,  and 

his  pursuers,     bo  many  fled  thither  from  the   countries  round  bow  hiB  p*oPie  c»med 

,        l  •,  11111111  !/!!/•  i  °ff  tne  women  of  the 

about ;  those  who  had  shed  blood,  and  fled  trom  the  vengeance  neighboring  people. 
of  the  avenger  of  blood ;  those  who  were  driven  out  from  their  own  homes 
by  their  enemies,  and  even  men  of  low  degree  who  had  run  away  from  their 
lords.  Thus  the  city  became  full  of  people ;  but  yet  they  wanted  wives,  and 
the  nations  round  about  would  not  give  them  their  daughters  in  marriage.  So 
Romulus  gave  out  that  he  was  going  to  keep  a  great  festival,  and  there  were 
to  be  sports  and  games  to  draw  a  multitude  together.24  The  neighbors  came  to 
see  the  show,  with  their  wives  and  their  daughters :  there  came  the  people  of 

-'  Ovid,  Fasti,  III.  54.    Servius,  JEn.  I.  v.  273.  2I  Livy,  I.  7. 

M  Ennius,  Annal.  I.  78.  *  Ovid,  Fasti,  IV.  842. 

19  GclliuB,  Npct.  Attic.  VI.  c.  7,  quoted  from  *  The  famous  Asylum.    See  Livy,  I.  8. 

Uessurius  Sabinus.  **  Livy,  I.  9. 
»  Ennius,  Annal.  I.  v.  106, 107. 


4  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  4 

Csenina,  and  of  Crustumerium,  and  of  Antemna,  and  a  great  multitude  of  the 
Sabines.  But  while  they  were  looking  at  the  games,  the  people  of  Romulu? 
rushed  out  upon  them,  and  carried  off  the  women  to  be  their  wives. 

Upon  this  the  people  of  Csenina  first  made  war  upon  the  people  of  Romu- 
HOW  for  this  cau.e  the  lus  I25  but  they  were  beaten,  and  Romulus  with  his  own  hand 
fh'm'I'Mdrfthefai'MS  s^ew  tneir  king  Acron.  Next  the  people  of  Crustumerium,  and 
ofthefairTarpeia.  of  Antemna,  tried  their  fortune,  but  Romulus  conquered  both  of 
them.  Last  of  all  came  the  Sabines  with  a  great  army,  under  Titus  Tatius, 
their  king.  There  is  a  hill  near  to  the  Tiber,  which  was  divided  from  the  Palatine 
Hill  by  a  low  and  swampy  valley ;  and  on  this  hill  Romulus  made  a  fortress,  to 
keep  off  the  enemy  from  his  city.  But  when  the  fair  Tarpeia,  the  daughter  of 
the  chief  who  had  charge  of  the  fortress,  saw  the  Sabines  draw  near,  and  marked 
their  bracelets  and  their  collars  of  gold,  she  longed  after  these  ornaments,  and 
promised  to  betray  the  hill  into  their  hands  if  they  would  give  her  those  bright 
things  which  they  wore  upon  their  arms.26  So  she  opened  a  gate,  and  let  in  the 
Sabines ;  and  they,  as  they  came  in,  threw  upon  her  their  bright  shields  which 
they  bore  on  their  arms,  and  crushed  her  to  death.  Thus  the  Sabines  got  the 
lavrdtheecitgofrom*the  fortress  which  was  on  the  hill  Saturnius;  and  they  and  the  Ro- 
sobinet..ecity  rfl  e  mans  joined  battle  in  the  valley  between  the  hill  and  the  city  of 
Romulus.27  The  Sabines  began  to  get  the  better,  and  came  up  close  to  one  of 
the  gates  of  the  city.  The  people  of  Romulus  shut  the  gate,  but  it  opened  of 
its  own  accord ;  once  and  again  they  shut  it,  and  once  and  again  it  opened.  But 
as  the  Sabines  were  rushing  in,  behold,  there  burst  forth  from  the  Temple  of 
Janus,  which  was  near  the  gate,  a  mighty  stream  of  water,  and  it  swept  away  the 
Sabines,  and  saved  the  city.  For  this  it  was  ordered  that  the  Temple  of  Janus 
should  stand  ever  open  in  time  of  war,  that  the  god  might  be  ever  ready,  as  on 
this  day,  to  go  out  and  give  his  aid  to  the  people  of  Romulus. 

After  this  they  fought  again  in  the  valley ;  and  the  people  of  Romulus  were 
"adwwnwca?ri"dwl?ff  t>egmmn&  *°  ^6e»  when  Romulus  prayed  to  Jove,  the  stayer  of 
made  p«M»  tetmu  flight,  that  he  might  stay  the  people  ;28  and  so  their  flight  was 

their  fathers  and  their         »       '  1^1°  j J          •       f     .f       S     ,,i  *?        /;     i    , 

hu.band»;andhowthe  stayed,  and  they  turned  again  to  the  battle.     And  now  the  fight 

Roman,  and    the    Sa-  *   -  •••          J  i    °  i  j  .1         c,    i  •  °i 

bines  lived  together,  was  fiercer  than  ever :  when,  on  a  sudden,  the  Sabme  women  who 
had  been  carried  off  ran  down  from  the  hill  Palatinus,  and  ran  in  between  their 
husbands  and  their  fathers,  and  prayed  them  to  lay  aside  their  quarrel.29  So 
they  made  peace  with  one  another,  and  the  two  people  became  as  one :  the  Sa- 
bines with  their  king  dwelt  on  the  hill  Saturnius,  which  is  also  called  Capitolium, 
and  on  the  hill  Quirinalis ;  and  the  people  of  Romulus  with  their  king  dwelt  on 
the  hill  Palatinus.  But  the  kings  with  their  counsellors  met  in  the  valley  between 
Saturnius  and  Palatinus,  to  consult  about  their  common  matters ;  and  the  place 
where  they  met  was  called  Comitium,  which  means  "  the  place  of  meeting." 

Soon  after  this,  Tatius  was  slain  by  the  people  of  Laurentum,  because  some  of 
his  kinsmen  had  wronged  them,  and  he  would  not  do  them  justice.30  So  Romu- 
lus reigned  by  himself  over  both  nations ;  and  his  own  people  were  called  the 
Romans,  for  Roma  was  the  name  of  the  city  on  the  hill  Palatinus ;  and  the 
Sabines  were  called  Quirites,  for  the  name  of  their  city  on  the  hills  Saturnius  and 
Quirinalis  was  Quirium.31 

86  Livy,  I.  10.  Annal.  XII.  24.     Yet  Macrobius  relates  tht 

w  Livy,  I.  11.             .  wonder  as  having  happened  at  one  of  the  gate& 

77  Macrobius,  Saturnalia,  1.  9.     Macrobius  of  the  Roman  city,  when  the  Romans  were  at 

places  the  scene  of  this  wonder    at  a  gate  war  with  Tatius ;  and  it  seemed  needless  to 

"  which  stood  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  Vimma-  destroy  the  consistency  of  the  whole  story  bv 

Us."    It  would  be  difficult  to  reconcile  this  the  unseasonable  introduction  of  a  topograplu. 

story  with  the  other  accounts  of  the  limits  of  cal  difficulty, 

the  two  cities  of  Romulus  and  Tatius ;  and  cer-  28  Livy,  I.  12. 

tainly  a  gate  at  the  foot  of  the  Viminal  could  w  Livy,  I.  13. 

not  have  existed  in  the  walls  of  the  city  of  *°  Livy,  I.  14. 

Bomulus,  according  to  the  historical  account  of  81  Perhaps  I  hardly  ought  to  have  embodied 

their  direction  and  extent,  as  given  by  Tacitus,  Niebuhr's  conjecture  in  the  legend,  for  certain- 


CHAP.  I]  EARLY  LEGENDS.  fi 

The  people  were  divided  into  three  tribes  ;32  the  Ramnenses,  and  the  Titienses, 
and  the  Luccres:  the  Ramnenses  were  called  from  Romulus,  HOW  Romuliu  Ordere4 
and  the  Titienses  from  Tatius ;  and  the  Luceres  were  called  from  ^P60?16- 
Lucumo,  an  Etruscan  chief,  who  had  come  to  help  Romulus  in  his  war  with  the 
Sabines,  and  dwelt  on  the  hill  called  Caelius.  In  each  tribe  there  were  ten  curise, 
each  of  one  hundred  men  ;33  so  all  the  men  of  the  three  tribes  were  three  thou- 
sand, and  these  fought  on  foot,  and  were  called  a  legion.  There  were  also  three 
hundred  horsemen,  and  these  were  called  Celerians,  because  their  chief  was  that 
Celer  who  had  slain  Remus.  There  was  besides  a  council  of  two  hundred  men, 
which  Avas  called  a  senate,  that  is,  a  council  of  elders. 

Romulus  was  a  just  king,  and  gentle  to  his  people :  if  any  were  guilty  of 
crimes,  he  did  not  put  them  to  death,  but  made  them  pay  a  fine  How  he  vnni.hed  ,ud. 
of  sheep  or  of  oxen.34  In  his  wars  he  was  very  successful,  and 
enriched  his  people  with  the  spoils  of  their  enemies.  At  last,  af- 
ter  he  had  reigned  nearly  forty  years,  it  chanced  that  one  day  he  called  his  people 
together  in  the  field  of  Mars,  near  the  Goats'  Pool  :35  when,  all  on  a  sudden,  there 
arose  a  dreadful  storm,  and  all  was  as  dark  as  night ;  and  the  rain,  and  thunder 
and  lightning,  were  so  terrible,  that  all  the  people  fled  from  the  field,  and  ran  to 
their  several  homes.  At  last  the  storm  was  over,  and  they  came  back  to  the  field  of 
Mars,  but  Romulus  was  nowhere  to  be  found ;  for  Mars,  his  father,  had  carried 
him  up  to  heaven  in  his  chariot.36  The  people  knew  not  at  first  what  was  become 
of  him  ;  but  when  it  was  night,  as  one  Proculus  Julius  was  coming  from  Alba  to 
the  city,  Romulus  appeared  to  him  in  more  than  mortal  beauty,  and  grown  to 
more  than  mortal  stature,  and  said  to  him,  "  Go,  and  tell  my  people  that  they 
weep  not  for  me  any  more ;  but  bid  them  to  be  brave  and  warlike,  and  so  shall 
they  make  my  city  the  greatest  in  the  earth."  Then  the  people  knew  that  Rom- 
ulus was  become  a  god  ;  so  they  built  a  temple  to  him,  and  offered  sacrifice  to 
him,  and  worshipped  mm  evermore  by  the  name  of  the  god  Quirinus. 

THE  LEGEND  OF  NUMA  POMPILIUS. 

When  Romulus  was  taken  from  the  earth,  there  was  no  one  found  to  reign  in 
his  place.37    The  Senators  would  choose  no  king,  but  they  divided  HOW  for  one  whole 

..         J  f    year  the  Roman*  had 

themselves  into  tens  ;  and  every  ten  was  to  have  the  power  or  no  king. 

king  for  five  days,  one  after  the  other.     So  a  year  passed  away,  and  the  people 

murmured,  and  said,  that  there  must  be  a  king  chosen. 

Now  the  Romans  and  the  Sabines  each  wished  that  the  king  should  be  one  of 
them ;  but  at  last  it  was  agreed  that  the  king  should  be  a  Sabine,  How.  Numa  pompiiiul 
but  that  the  Romans  should  choose  him.33     So  they  chose  Numa  ™*<*«*u>v> 
Pompilius ;  for  all  men  said  that  he  was  a  just  man,  and  wise,  and  holy. 

Some  said  that  he  had  learnt  his  wisdom  from  Pythagoras,  the  famous 
philosopher  of  the  Greeks  ;39  but  others  would  not  believe  that  of  his  wiso  and  ion, 
he  owed  it  to  any  foreign  teacher.  Before  he  would  consent  S5ftS™jS£SytS 
to  be  king,  he  consulted  the  gods  by  augury,  to  know  whether  it  nymi>h  Eseria- 
was  their  pleasure  that  he  should  reign.40  And  as  he  feared  the  gods  at  first,  so 
did  he  even  to  the  last.  He  appointed  many  to  minister  in  sacred  things,41  such 
as  the  Pontifices,  who  were  to  see  that  all  things  relating  to  the  gods  were  duly 
observed  by  all ;  and  the  Augurs,  who  taught  men  the  pleasure  of  the  gods 
concerning  things  to  come ;  and  the  Flamens,  who  ministered  in  the  temples ; 

ly  no  ancient  writer  now  extant  speaks  of  the  M  Livy,  I.  16. 

town  '•  Quirium."    Yet  it  seems  so  probable  a  M "Quirinus 

conjecture,  and  gives  so  much  consistency  to  Martis  equis  Acheronta  fugit." 

the  story,  that  I  have  ventured  to  adopt  it.  Horat.  III.  Carm.  3. 

w  Livy,  I.  13.    Varro  de  Lin.  Lat.  §  55.  Ed.  »  Livy,  I.  17. 

MKiller.  Servius,  &n.  V.  560.  *  Dionysius,  II.  58. 

83  Pate  runs,  quoted  by  Lydus,  de  Magistra-  89  Livy,  I.  18.    Dionysius,  I.  59. 

libus,  c.  9.  *°  Livy,  I.  18. 

94  Cicero  de  Eepublica,  II.  9.  41  Livv,  I.  19. 


6  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  1 

and  the  virgins  of  Vesta,  who  tended  the  ever-burning  fire ;  and  the  Sulii,  who 
honored  the  god  of  arras  with  solemn  songs  and  dances  through  the  city  on 
certain  days,  and  who  kept  the  sacred  shield  which  fell  down  from  heaven.  And 
in  all  that  he  did,  he  knew  that  he  should  please  the  gods ;  for  he  did  every  thing 
by  the  direction  of  the  nymph  Egeria,  who  honored  him  so  much  that  she  took 
him  to  be  her  husband,  and  taught  him  in  her  sacred  grove,  by  the  spring  that 
welled  out  from  the  rock,  all  that  he  was  to  do  towards  the  gods  and  towards 
men.42  By  her  counsel  he  snared  the  gods  Picus  and  Faunus  in  the  grove  on  the 
hill  Aventinus,  and  made  them  tell  him  how  he  might  learn  from  Jupiter  the 
knowledge  of  his  will,  and  might  get  him  to  declare  it  either  by  lightning  or  by 
the  flight  of  birds.43  And  when  men  doubted  whether  Egeria  had  really  given 
him  her  counsel,  she  gave  him  a  sign  by  which  he  mjght  prove  it  to  them.  He 
called  many  of  the  Romans  to  supper,  and  set  before  them  a  homely  meal  in 
earthen  dishes  j44  and  then  on  a  sudden  he  said,  that  now  Egeria  was  come  to 
visit  him ;  and  straightway  the  dishes  and  the  cups  became  of  gold  or  precious 
stones,  and  the  couches  were  covered  with  rare  and  costly  coverings,  and  the 
meats  and  drinks  were  abundant  and  most  delicious.  But  though  Numa  took  so 
much  care  for  the  service  of  the  gods,  yet  he  forbade  all  costly  sacrifices  ;45  neither 
did  he  suffer  blood  to  be  shed  on  the  altars,  nor  any  images  of  the  gods  to  be 
made.46  But  he  taught  the  people  to  offer  in  sacrifice  nothing  but  the  fruits  of 
the  earth,  meal  and  cakes  of  flour,  and  roasted  corn. 

For  he  loved  husbandry,  and  he  wished  his  people  to  live  every  man  on  his 
or  MS  goodnew  towards  own  inheritance  in  peace  and  in  happiness.  So  the  lands  which 
tkerepwepre'nonwar80^  Romulus  had  won  in  war,  he  divided  out  amongst  the  people,  and 
hi8  reign.  gave  a  certam  portion  to  every  man.47  He  then  ordered  land- 

marks to  be  set  on  every  portion  ;48  and  Terminus,  the  god  of  landmarks,  had  them 
in  his  keeping,  and  he  who  moved  a  landmark  was  accursed.  The  craftsmen  of 
the  city,49  who  had  no  land,  were  divided  according  to  their  callings ;  and  there 
were  made  of  them  nine  companies.  So  all  was  peaceful  and  prosperous  through- 
out the  reign  of  king  Numa;  the  gates  of  the  temple  of  Janus  were  never  opened, 
for  the  Romans  had  no  wars  and  no  enemies ;  and  Numa  built  a  temple  to  Faith, 
and  appointed  a  solemn  worship  for  her  ;50  that  men  might  learn  not  to  lie  or  to 
deceive,  but  to  speak  and  act  in  honesty.  And  when  he  had  lived  to  the  age  ot 
fourscore  years,  he  died  at  last  by  a  gentle  decay,  and  he  was  buried  under  the 
hill  Janiculum,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Tiber ;  and  the  books  of  his  sacred  laws 
and  ordinances  were  buried  near  him  in  a  separate  tomb.61 

THE   LEGEND    OF   TULLUS    HOSTILIUS. 

When  Numa  was  dead,  the  Senators  again  for  a  while  shared  the  kingly  power 
HOW  TUH™  HostJiius  amongst  themselves.  But  they  soon  chose  for  their  king  Tullus 
*u  chosen  king.  Hostilius,  whose  father's  father  had  come  from  Medullia,  a  city  of 
the  Latins,  to  Rome,  and  had  fought  with  Romulus  against  the  Sabines.62  Tullus 
loved  the  poor,  and  he  divided  the  lands  which  came  to  him,  as  king,  amongst 
those  who  had  no  land.  He  also  bade  those  who  had  no  houses  to  settle  them- 
selves on  the  hill  Cselius,  and  there  he  dwelt  himself  in  the  midst  of  them. 

Tullus  was  a  warlike  king,  and  he  soon  was  called  to  prove  his  valor ;  for  the 
of  h-,8  war  with  the  countrymen  of  the  Alban  border  and  of  the  Roman  border  plun- 
batb^tVeodn?hehHor°aTii  dered  one  another.53  Now  Alba  was  governed  by  Caius  Cluilius, 
*nd  the  cunatii.  wno  wag  tne  di^ator ;  and  Cluilius  sent  to  Rome  to  complain  of 

49  Livy,  I.  19,  20.    Ovid,  Fasti,  III.  276.  47  Cicero  de  Eop.  II.  14. 

43  Ovid,  Fasti,  III.  289,  et  seqq.    Plutarch,  48  Dionysius,  II.  74.    Plutarch,  Numa,  16. 
Numa,  15.  49  Plutarch,  Numa,  17. 

44  Plutarch,  Numa,  15.    Dionysius,  II.  60.  M  Livy,  I.  21. 

**  Cicero  de  Repub.  II.  14.  61  Plutarch,  Numa,  22. 

-  Plutarch,  Numa,  8.    Varro,  apud  Augus-        M  Dionysius,  III.  1. 
tin.    Civit.  Dei,  IV.  31.  63  Livy,  I.  22,  et  seqq. 


CHAP.  I]  EARLY  LEGENDS.  7 

the  wrongs  done  to  his  people,  and  Tullus  sent  to  Alba  for  the  same  purpose. 
So  there  was  a  war  between  the  two  nations,  and  Cluilius  led  his  people  against 
Rome,  and  lay  encamped  within  five  miles  of  the  city,  and  there  he  died.  Met- 
tius  Fufetius  was  then  chosen  dictator  in  his  room ;  and  as  the  Albans  still  lay 
in  their  camp,  Tullus  passed  them  by,  and  marched  into  the  land  of  Alba.  But 
when  Mettius  came  after  him,  then,  instead  of  giving  battle,  the  two  leaders 
agreed  that  a  few  in  either  army  should  fight  in  behalf  of  the  rest,  and  that  the 
event  of  this  combat  should  decide  the  quarrel.  So  three  twin  brothers  were 
chosen  out  of  the  Roman  army,  called  the  Horatii,  and  three  twin  brothers  out 
of  the  Alban  army,  called  the  Curiatii.  The  combat  took  place  in  the  sight  of 
both  armies  ;  and  after  a  time  all  the  Curiatii  were  wounded,  and  two  of  the 
Horatii  were  slain.  Then  the  last  Horatius  pretended  to  fly,  and  the  Curiatii 
each,  as  they  were  able,  followed  after  him.  But  when  Horatius  saw  that  they 
were  a  great  way  off  from  one  another,  he  turned  suddenly  and  slew  the  first  of 
them  ;  and  the  second  in  like  manner,  and  then  he  easily  overcame  and  slew  the 
third.  So  the  victory  remained  to  the  Romans. 

Then  the  Romans  went  home  to  Rome  in  triumph,54  and  Horatius  went  at  the 
head  of  the  army,  bearing  his  triple  spoils.  But  as  they  were  HOW  Horotiua  Av?r  y, 
drawing  near  to  the  Capenian  gate,  his  sister  came  out  to  meet  nTentr>p"Ldu^nuw^ 
him.  Now  she  had  been  betrothed  in  marriage  to  one  of  the  fortheUeed- 
Curiatii,  and  his  cloak,  which  she  had  wrought  with  her  own  hands,  was  borne 
on  the  shoulders  of  her  brother ;  and  she  knew  it,  and  cried  out,  and  wept  for 
him  whom  she  had  loved.  At  the  sight  of  her  tears  Horatius  was  so  wroth  that 
he  drew  his  sword,  and  stabbed  his  sister  to  the  heart ;  and  he  said,  "  So  perish 
the  Roman  maiden  who  shall  weep  for  her  country's  enemy."  But  men  said 
that  it  was  a  dreadful  deed,  and  they  dragged  him  before  the  two  judges  who 
judged  when  blood  had  been  shed.  For  thus  said  the  law, 

"  The  two  men  shall  give  judgment  on  the  shedder  of  blood. 
If  he  shall  appeal  from  their  judgment,  let  the  appeal  be  tried. 
If  their  judgment  be  confirmed,  cover  his  head. 
Hang  him  with  a  halter  on  the  accursed  tree ; 
Scourge  him  either  within  the  sacred  limit  of  the  city  or  without." 

So  they  gave  judgment  on  Horatius,  and  were  going  to  give  him  over  to  be  put 
to  death.  But  he  appealed,  and  the  appeal  was  tried  before  all  the  Romans,  and 
they  would  not  condemn  him  because  he  had  conquered  for  them  their  enemies, 
and  because  his  father  spoke  for  him,  and  said,  that  he  judged  the  maiden  to 
have  been  lawfully  slain.  Yet  as  blood  had  been  shed,  which  required  to  be 
atoned  for,  the  Romans  gave  a  certain  sum  of  money  to  offer  sacrifices  to  atone 
for  the  pollution  of  blood.  These  sacrifices  were  duly  performed  ever  afterwards 
by  the  members  of  the  house  of  the  Horatii. 

The  Albans  were  now  become  bound  to  obey  the  Romans  ;M  and  Tullus  called 
upon  them  to  aid  in  a  war  against  the  people  of  Veii  and  Fidenae.  &  the  fe(lrful  puni.h 
But  in  the  battle  the  Alban  leader,  Mettius  Fufetius,  stood  aloof,  ^^L^Sef^ 
and  gave  no  true  aid  to  the  Romans.  So,  when  the  Romans  had  lion'of  Alba< 
won  the  battle,  Tullus  called  the  Albans  together  as  if  he  were  going  to  make  a 
speech  to  them  ;  and  they  came  to  hear  him,  as  was  the  custom,  without  their 
arms ;  and  the  Roman  soldiers  gathered  round  them,  and  they  could  neither 
fight  nor  escape.  Then  Tullus  took  Mettius  and  bound  him  between  two  chari- 
ots, and  drove  the  chariots  different  ways,  and  tore  him  asunder.  After  this  he 
sent  his  people  to  Alba,  and  they  destroyed  the  city,  and  made  all  the  Albans 
come  and  live  at  Rome ;  there  they  had  the  hill  Caelius  for  their  dwelling-place, 
and  became  one  people  with  the  Romans. 

After  this,  Tullus  made  war  upon  the  Sabines,  and  gained  a  victory  over 

M  Livy,  I.  26.  °°  Livy,  1.  27,  et  seqq. 


HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP  IX 

But  now»  whether  it  were  that  Tullus  had  neglected  the 
worship  of  the  gods  whilst  he  had  been  so  busy  in  his  wars,  the 
signs  of  the  wrath  of  heaven  became  manifest.  A  plague  broke  out  among  the 
people,  and  Tullus  himself  was  at  last  stricken  with  a  lingering  disease.  Then 
he  bethought  him  of  good  and  holy  Numa,  and  how,  in  his  time,  the  gods  had 
been  so  gracious  to  Rome,  and  had  made  known  their  will  by  signs  whenevei 
Numa  inquired  of  them.  So  Tullus  also  tried  to  inquire  of  Jupiter,  but  the  god 
was  angry,  and  would  not  be  inquired  of,  for  Tullus  did  not  consult  him  rightly ; 
so  he  sent  his  lightnings,  and  Tullus  and  all  his  house  were  burnt  to  ashes.  This 
made  the  Romans  know  that  they  wanted  a  king  who  would  follow  the  example 
of  Numa ;  so  they  chose  his  daughter's  son,  Ancus  Marcius,  to  reign  over  them 
in  the  room  of  Tullus. 

THE   STORY  OF  ANCUS  MARCIUS. 

Ancient  story  does  not  tell  much  of  Ancus  Marcius.  He  published  the  reli- 
<x  the  good  reign  of  gious  ceremonies  which  Numa  had  commanded,  and  had  them 
Aocus  Marrius.  written  out  upon  wliited  boards,  and  hung  up  round  the  forum, 

that  all  might  know  and  observe  them.67  He  had  a  war  with  the  Latins  and 
conquered  them,  and  brought  the  people  to  Rome,  and  gave  them  the  hill  Aven- 
tinus  to  dwell  on.58  He  divided  the  lands  of  the  conquered  Latins  amongst  all 
the  Romans  ;59  and  he  gave  up  the  forests  near  the  sea  which  he  had  taken  from 
the  Latins,  to  be  the  public  property  of  the  Romans.  He  founded  the  colony 
at  Ostia,  by  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber.60  He  built  a  fortress  on  the  hill  Janiculum, 
and  joined  the  hill  to  the  city  by  a  wooden  bridge  over  the  river.61  He  secured 
the  city  in  the  low  grounds  between  the  hills  by  a  great  dyke,  which  was  called 
the  dyke  of  the  Quirites.62  And  he  built  a  prison  under  the  hill  Saturnius, 
towards  the  forum,  because,  as  the  people  grew  in  numbers,  offenders  against 
the  laws  became  more  numerous  also.63  At  last  king  Ancus  died,  after  a  reign 
of  three-and- twenty  years.64 


CHAPTER  II, 

THE  EAELY  HIS  TOE  Y  OF  ROME. 


'K/c  T&V  elprinivwv  TCK[tt)pl<av  roiaVra  av  ru  voyii^v  nd\iara  2  $irj\0ov,  011%  tipaprdvoi '  Kat  oUre 
irotfjral  i/juj/cafft  ircpl  abr&v,  inl  rb  ptl^ov  Kofffiovvres,  //aXAov  iciaTriuv,  OVTE  a>j  \oyoypd<f>oi  £vviOcaav 
rb  irpoffay<i)y6repov  rjj  axpodati  %  a\t)QioTtpov,  Ivra  dvefcAlvxra  Kat  ra  TroXXa  bird  %p6vov  avrdv  dTrto 
/irt  rJ  pvOufcs  tKvt.viKT)K6ra^  elprjaSai  tie  fjytiadficvos  IK  TUV  tiri(j>ai' tardruv  ffrjpeluiv,  wj  ira\aia  ttvai,  O 
THUCYDIDES,  I.  21. 


I  HAVE  given  the  stories  of  the  early  kings  and  founders  of  Rome,  in  their 
_  srn  proper  form ;  not  wishing  any  one  to  mistake  them  for  real  history,  but 
thinking  them  far  too  famous  and  too  striking  to  be  omitted.  But  what  is  the 
real  history,  in  the  place  of  which  we  have  so  long  admired  the  tales  of  Romulus 
and  Numa  ?  This  is  a  question  which  cannot  be  satisfactorily  answered  :  I  shall 

M  Livy,  I.  31.  "  Livy,  I.  33. 

67  Livy,  I.  32.    Dionysius,  III.  36.  *  Livy,  I.  33. 

68  Cicero  de  Repub.  II.  18.    Livy,  I.  33.  "  Livy,  I.  33. 

*  Cicero  de  Repub.  II.  18.  M  Cicero  de  Repub.  II.  18.  Livy  says,  "  twen 

'  Cicero,  ib.    Livy,  I.  33.    Diouys.  III.  44.      ty-four  years."  I.  35. 


CHAT.  II.]  EARLY  HISTORY.  9 

content  myself  here  with  giving  the  few  points  that  seem  sufficiently  established ; 
referring  those  who  desire  to  go  deeply  into  the  whole  question,  to  that  immortal 
work  of  Niebuhr,  which  has  left  other  writers  nothing  else  to  do,  except  either 
to  copy  or  to  abridge  it. 

The  first  question  in  the  history  of  every  people  is,  What  was  their  race  and 
language  ?  the  next,  What  was  the  earliest  form  of  their  society,  their  social  and 
political  organization  ?  Let  us  see  how  far  we  can  answer  these  questions  with 
respect  to  Rome. 

The  language  of  the  Romans  was  not  called  Roman,  but  Latin.  Politically, 
Rome  and  Latium  were  clearly  distinguished,  but  their  language  impure  Of  the  RO- 
appears  to  have  been  the  same.  This  language  is  different  from  mfln8- 
the  Etruscan,  and  from  the  Oscan ;  the  Romans,  therefore,  are  so  far  marked 
out  as  distinct  from  the  great  nations  of  central  Italy,  whether  Etruscans,  Umbri- 
ans,  Sabines,  or  Samnites. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  connection  of  the  Latin  language  with  tho  Greek  is 
manifest.  Many  common  words,  which  no  nation  ever  derives  rartly  connected  with 
from  the  literature  of  another,  are  the  same  in  Greek  and  Latin;  that °f Greece^ 
the  declensions  of  the  nouns  and  verbs  are,  to  a  great  degree,  similar.  7t  is 
probable  that  the  Latins  belonged  to  that  great  race  which,  in  very  early  times, 
overspread  both  Greece  and  Italy,  under  the  various  names  of  Pelasgians,  Tyrse- 
nians,  and  Siculians.  It  may  be  believed,  that  the  Hellenians  were  anciently  a 
people  of  this  same  race,  but  that  some  peculiar  circumstances  gave  to  them  a 
distinct  and  superior  character,  and  raised  them  so  far  above  their  brethren,  that 
in  after  ages  they  disclaimed  all  connection  with  them.1 

But  in  the  Latin  language  there  is  another  element  besides  that  which  it  has  in 
common  with  the  Greek.  This  element  belongs  to  the  languages  Partly  ^th  that  of  the 
of  central  Italy,  and  may  be  called  Oscan.  Further,  Niebuhr  has  °8caii8' 
remarked,  that  whilst  the  terms  relating  to  agriculture  and  domestic  life  are 
mostly  derived  from  .the  Greek  part  of  the  language,  those  relating  to  arms  and 
war  are  mostly  Oscan.2  It  seems,  then,  not  only  that  the  Latins  were  a  mixed 
people,  partly  Pelasgian  and  partly  Oscan ;  but  also  that  they  arose  out  of  a 
conquest  of  the  Pelasgians  by  the  Oscans :  so  that  the  latter  were  the  ruling 
class  of  the  united  nation ;  the  former  were  its  subjects. 

The  Latin  language,  then,  may  afford  us  a  clue  to  the  origin  of  the  Latin  peo- 
ple, and  so  far  to  that  of  the  Romans.  •  But  it  does  not  explain  ^^^S6^*6^ 
the  difference  between  the  Romans  and  Latins,  to  which  the  pecu-  Latins!8 
liar  fates  of  the  Roman  people  owe  their  origin.  We  must  inquire,  then,  what 
the  Romans  were,  which  the  other  Latins  were  not ;  and  as  language  cannot  aid 
us  here,  we  must  have  recourse  to  other  assistance,  to  geography  and  national 

1  The  Pelasgians,  in  the  opinion  of  Herod o-  The  word  "scutum"  was,  in  the  first  edition 
tus,  were  a  barbarian  race,  and  spoke  a  barba-  of  this  work,  introduced  inadvertently  into  the 
rian  language. — I.  57,  58.  This  merely  means  list  of  Latin  military  terms,  unconnected  with 
that  they  did  not  speak  Greek.  No  one  doubts  Greek  ;  as  it  is  evidently  of  the  same  family 
the  connection  between  Greek  and  Latin ;  yet  with  OKVTOS  :  but  yet  there  are  so  many  words 
Plautus,  speaking  of  one  of  his  own  comedies,  of  the  same  family  in  the  other  languages  of  the 
the  story  of  which  was  borrowed  from  Phile-  Indo-Gerir.anic  stock,  that  the  connection  be- 
mon,  says,  longs  rather  to  the  general  resemblance  sub- 
"Philemo  scripsit,  Plautus  vertit  barbare." —  sisting  between  all  those  languages,  than  to  the 
Trinummus,  Prolog,  v.  19.  closer  likeness  which  may  subsist  between  any 
That  is,  "  translated  into  Latin."  The  discov-  two  of  them  towards  one  another.  And  this 
ery  of  Affinities  in  languages,  when  they  are  not  more  distant  relationship  exists,  I  doubt  not, 
so  close  ~^  to  constitute  merely  a  difference  of  between  the  Oscan  and  even  the  Etruscan  Ian- 
dialect,  belongs  only  to  philologers.  Who,  till  guages,  and  the  other  branches  of  the  Indo- 
very  lately,  suspected  that  Sanskrit  and  English  Germanic  family ;  and  so  far  Greek,  as  well  as 
aid"  any  connection  with  each  other  ?  Sanskrit,  Persian,  or  German,  maybe  rightly 

3  He  instances,  on  the  one  hand,  Domus,  used  as  an  instrument  to  enable  us  to  deci- 

Ager,  Aratrum,  Vinum,  Oleum.  Lac,  Bos,  Sus,  pher  the  Etruscan  inscriptions.  Lanzi's  fault 

Ovis:  while  on  the  other  hand,  Duellum,  En-  consisted  in  assuming  too  close  a  resemblance 

sis,  Haste,  Sagitta,  &c.,  are  quite  different  from  between  Greek  and  Etruscan  ;  in  supposing 

the  corresponding  Greek  terms.  See  Niebuhr,  that  they  were  sisters,  rather  than  distant 

Rom.  Geseh.  Vol.  I.  p.  82.  Ed.  1827.  cousins. 


10  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAT.  H 

traditions.  And  thus,  at  the  same  time,  we  shall  arrive  at  an  answer  to  the 
second  question  in  Roman  history,  What  was  the  earliest  form  of  civil  society  at 
Rome? 

If  we  look  at  the  map,  we  shall  see  that  Rome  lies  at  the  farthest  extremity 
Distinct  geographical  of  Latium,  divided  from  Etruria  only  by  the  Tiber,  and  having  the 
petition  of  Rome.  Sabmes  close  on  the  north,  between  the  Tiber  and  the  Anio.  No 
other  Latin  town,  so  far  as  we  know,  was  built  on  the  Tiber;3  some  were  clus- 
tered on  and  round  the  Alban  hills,  others  lined  the  coast  of  the  Mediterranean, 
but  from  all  these  Rome,  by  its  position,  stood  aloof. 

Tradition  reports  that  as  Rome  was  thus  apart  from  the  rest  of  the  Latin 
intermixture  of  Sabine  cities,  and  so  near  a  neighbor  to  the  Etruscans  and  Sabines,  so  its 

and    Etruscan    institu-  '.  .  »  ,  ,  ,.  „,  . 

tion.  and  people,  population  was  in.  part  formed  out  of  one  of  these  nations,  and 
many  of  its  rites  and  institutions  borrowed  from  the  other.  Tradition  describes 
the  very  first  founders  of  the  city  as  the  shepherds  and  herdsmen  of  the  banks  of 
the  Tiber,  and  tells  how  their  numbers  were  presently  swelled  by  strangers  and 
outcasts  from  all  the  countries  round  about.  It  speaks  of  a  threefold  division  of 
the  Roman  people,  in  the  very  earliest  age  of  its  history ;  the  tribes  of  the  Ram- 
nenses,  Titienses,  and  Luceres.  It  distinctly  acknowledges  the  Titienses  to  have 
been  Sabines ;  and  in  some  of  its  guesses  at  the  origin  of  the  Luceres,  it  connects 
their  name  with  that  of  the  Etruscan  Lucumones,4  and  thus  supposes  them  to 
have  been  composed  of  Etruscans. 

We  know  that  for  all  points  of  detail,  and  for  keeping  a  correct  account  of 
time,  tradition  is  worthless.  It  is  very  possible  that  all  Etruscan  rites  and  usages 
came  in  with  the  Tarquinii,  and  were  falsely  carried  back  to  an  earlier  period. 
But  the  mixture  of  the  Sabines  with  the  original  people  of  the  Palatine  Hill  can- 
not be  doubted  ;  and  the  stories  of  the  asylum,  and  of  the  violence  done  to  the 
Sabine  women,  seem  to  show  that  the  first  settlers  of  the  Palatine  were  a  mixed 
race,  in  which  other  blood  was  largely  mingled  with  that  of  the  Latins.  We 
may  conceive  of  this  earlier  people  of  Mamers,  as  of  the  Mamcrtini  of  a  more 
historical  period :  that  they  were  a  band  of  resolute  adventurers  from  various 
parts,  practised  in  arms,  and  little  scrupulous  how  they  used  them.  Thus  the 
origin  of  the  highest  Roman  nobility  may  have  greatly  resembled  that  larger 
band  of  adventurers  who  followed  the  standard  of  William  the  Norman,  and  were 
the  founders  of  the  nobility  of  England. 

The  people  or  citizens  of  Rome  were  divided  into  the  three  tribes  of  the  Ram- 
Division  of  the  Roman  nenses,  Titienses,  and  Luceres,5  to  whatever  races  we  may  suppose 
people  into  three  tri>.  them  to  belong,  or  at  whatever  time  and  under  whatever  circum- 
stances they  may  have  become  united.  Each  of  these  tribes  was  divided  into 
ten  smaller  bodies  called  curise ;  so  that  the  whole  people  consisted  of  thirty 
curia) :  these  same  divisions  were  in  war  represented  by  the  thirty  centuries 
which  made  up  the  legion,  just  as  the  three  tribes  were  represented  by  the 
three  centuries  of  horsemen ;  but  that  the  soldiers  of  each  century  were  exactly 
a  hundred,  is  apparently  as  unfounded  a  conclusion,  as  it  would  be  if  we 
were  to  argue  in  the  same  way  as  to  the  military  force  of  one  of  our  English 
hundreds. 

I  have  said  that  each  tribe  was  divided  into  ten  curise ;  it  would  be  more  cor- 

*  I  had  forgotten  what  may  be  the  single        B  These  in  Livy's  first  book  are  called  merely 

exception  of  Ficana,  which,  according  to  Fes-  "  Centurise  equitum,"  ch.  13.     But  in  the  ten tr 

tus,  stood  on  the  road  to  Ostia,  at  the  eleventh  book,  ch.  6,  they  appear  as  "  Antiques  tribus." 

milestone  from  Rome :  that  is,  according  to  Sir  Both  expressions  come  to  the  same  thing,  for 

W.  Gell  and  others,  at  the  spot  now  called  the  three  centuries  of  horsemen,  as  appears 

Tenuta  di  Dragoncella.    But  Westphal  places  by  the  story  of  Tarquinius  Priscus  and  the 

Ficana  at  Traphusa,  which  is  at  some  distance  augur,  Attus  Navius,  were  supposed  to  rep- 

from  the  Tiber ;  so  that,  according  to  him,  the  resent  the  three  tribes,  and  their  number  was 

statement  in  the  textwould  be  absolutely  correct,  fixed  upon  that  principle:  just  as  the  thirty 

4  So  Junius  Gracchanus,  as  quoted  b'y  Varro,  centuries  of  foot  soldiers  represented  the  thirty 

do  L.  L.,  V.  sec.  55 ;  and  so  also  Cicero,  do  lie-  curise. 
publica,  II.  8. 


CHAP.  IL]  EARLY  HISTORY.  1] 


p  of  c« 
uriasofhou»0«- 


rect  to  say,  that  the  union  of  ten  curise  formed  the  tribe.  For  the  ^bes 
state  grew  out  of  the  junction  of  certain  original  elements  ;  and  nas;  c 
these  were  neither  the  tribes,  nor  even  the  curiae,  but  the  gentes  or  houses  which 
made  up  the  curiae.  The  first  element  of  the  whole  system  was  the  gens  or 
house,  a  union  of  several  families  who  were  bound  together  by  the  joint  perform- 
ance of  certain  religious  rites.  Actually,  where  a  system  of  houses  has  existed 
within  historical  memory,  the  several  families  who  composed  a  house  were  not 
necessarily  related  to  one  another  ;  they  were  not  really  cousins  more  or-less 
distant,  all  descended  from  a  common  ancestor.  But  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
that  in  the  original  idea  of  a  house,  the  bond  of  union  between  its  several  families 
was  truly  sameness  of  blood  :  such  was  likely  to  be  the  earliest  acknowledged 
tie  ;  although  afterwards,  as  names  are  apt  to  outlive  their  meanings,  an  artificial 
bond  may  have  succeeded  to  the  natural  one  ;  and  a  house,  instead  of  consisting 
of  families  of  real  relations,  was  made  up  sometimes  of  families  of  strangers, 
whom  it  was  proposed  to  bind  together  by  a  fictitious  tie,  in  the  hope  that  law, 
and  custom,  and  religion,  might  together  rival  the  force  of  nature. 

Thus  the  state  being  made  up  of  families,  and  every  family  consisting  from  the 
earliest  times  of  members  and  dependents,  the  original  inhabitants  ^e  houses  ^  their 
of  Rome  belonged  all  to  one  of  two  classes  :  they  were  either  cUents- 
members  of  a  family  ;  and  if  so,  members  of  a  house,  of  a  curia,  of  a  tribe,  and 
so,  lastly,  of  the  state  :  or  they  were  dependents  on  a  family  ;  and,  if  so,  their 
relation  went  no  further  than  the  immediate  aggregate  of  families,  that  is,  the 
house  :  with  the  curia,  with  the  tribe,  and  with  the  state,  they  had  no  connection. 

These  members  of  families  were  the  original  citizens  of  Rome  ;  these  depend- 
ents on  families  were  the  original  clients. 

The  idea  of  clientship  is  that  of  a  wholly  private  relation  ;  the  clients  were 
something  to  their  respective  patrons,  but  to  the  state  they  were 

.   .  O  _.  ,     .          .  .  J        f  Tho  commons,  or  plebs. 

nothing.  But  wherever  states  composed  in  this  manner,  01  a 
body  of  houses  with  their  clients,  had  been  long  established,  there  grew  up 
amidst  or  close  beside  them,  created  in  most  instances  by  conquest,  a  population 
of  a  very  distinct  kind.  Strangers  might  come  to  live  in  the  land,  or  more  com- 
monly the  inhabitants  of  a  neighboring  district  might  be  conquered,  and  united 
with  their  conquerors  as  a  subject  people.  Now  this  population  had  no  connec- 
tion with  the  houses  separately,  but  only  with  a  state  composed  of  those  houses  : 
this  was  wholly  a  political,  not  a  domestic  relation  ;  it  united  personal  and  pri- 
vate liberty  with  political  subjection.  This  inferior  population  possessed  property, 
regulated  their  own  municipal  as  well  as  domestic  affairs,  and  as  free  men  fought 
in  the  armies  of  what  was  now  their  common  country.  But,  strictly,  they  were 
not  its  citizens  ;  they  could  not  intermarry  with  the  houses,  they  could  not  belong 
to  the  state,  for  they  belonged  to  no  house,  and  therefore  4o  no  curia,  and  no 
tribe  ;  consequently  they  had  no  share  in  the  state's  government,  nor  in  the  state's 
property.  What  the  state  conquered  in  war  became  the  property  of  the  state, 
and  therefore  they  had  no  claim  to  it  ;  with  the  state  demesne,  with  whatever,  in 
short,  belonged  to  the  state  in  its  aggregate  capacity,  these,  as  being  its  neighbors 
merely,  and  not  its  members,  had  no  concern. 

Such  an  inferior  population,  free  personally,  but  subject  politically,  not  slaves, 
yet  not  citizens,  were  the  original  Plebs,  the  commons  of  Rome. 

The  mass  of  the  Roman  commons  were  conquered  Latins.6  These,  besides 
receiving  grants  of  a  portion  of  their  former  lands,  to  be  held  by  Their  settlement  on  tha 
them  as  Roman  citizens,  had  also  the  hill  Aventinus  assigned  as  Aveuthw  ml- 
a  residence  to  those  of  them  who  removed  to  Rome.  The  Aventine  was  without 
the  walls,  although  so  near  to  them  :  thus  the  commons  were,  even  in  the  nature 
of  their  abode,  like  the  Pfalburger  of  the  middle  ages,  —  men  not  admitted  to 
live  within  the  city,  but  enjoying  its  protection  against  foreign  enemies. 

•  See  Niebuhrs  chapter  "  Die  Gemeinde  und  die  plebeischen  Tribus." 


12  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  llL 

It  will  be  understood  at  once,  that  whatever  is  said  of  the  people  in  these 
MeiuDemofthehou.es  early  times,  refers  only  to  the  full  citizens,  that  is,  to  the  mem- 
were  the  only  citizen..  bers  of  ^Q  houses.  The  assembly  of  the  people  was  the  assembly 
of  the  curiifi ;  that  is,  the  great  council  of  the  members  of  the  houses ;  while  the 
senate,  consisting  of  two  hundred  senators,  chosen  in  equal  numbers  from  the 
two  higher  tribes  of  the  Ramnenses  and  Titienses,  was  their  smaller  or  ordinary 
council. 

The  power  of  the  king  was  as  varied  and  ill-defined  as  in  the  feudal  monarch- 
Th«  king's  power  over  ies  of  the  middle  ages.  Over  the  commons  he  was  absolute  ; 

the  citizens,  and   over    •,       .  . ,  i  i         j  i      i    •  jii  i  • 

•he  commons.  but  over  the  real  people,  that  is,  over  the  houses,  his  power  was 

absolute  only  in  war,  ana  without  the  city.  Within  the  walls  every  citizen  was 
allowed  to  appeal  from  the  king,  or  his  judges,  to  the  sentence  of  his  peers  ;  that 
is,  to  the  great  council  of  the  curias.  The  king  had  his  demesne  lands,7  and  in 
war  would  receive  his  portion  of  the  conquered  land,  as  well  as  of  the  spoil  of 
movables 


CHAPTEli  III, 
OF  THE  CITY  OF  ROME,  ITS  TERRITORY,  AND  ITS  SCENERY. 


Tecta  vident. 


Muros,  arcemque  procul,  ac  rara  dornorum 


Hoc  nenniSj  hunc,  inquit,  frondoso  vertice  collcm, 
Quis  Deus  incertum  est,  habitat  Deus." 

Vmon,  Mn.  VIII. 


IF  it  is  hard  to  carry  back  our  ideas  of  Rome  from  its  actual  state  to  the 
E*riy  state  of  the  dty  period  of  its  highest  splendor,  it  is  yet  harder  to  go  back  in 
»fRome.  fancy  to  a  time  still  more  distant,  a  time  earlier  than  the  begin- 

ning of  its  authentic  history,  before  man's  art  had  completely  rescued  the  very 
soil  of  the  future  city  from  the  dominion  of  nature.  Here  also  it  is  vain  to 
attempt  accuracy  in  the  details,  or  to  be  certain  that  the  several  features  in  our 
description  all  existed  at  the  same  period.  It  is  enough  if  we  can  image  to  our- 
selves some  likeness-  of  the  original  state  of  Rome,  before  the  undertaking  of 
those  great  works  which  are  ascribed  to  the  later  kings. 

The  Pomoerium  of  the  original  city  on  the  Palatine,  as  described  by  Tacitus,1 
The  original  Pomce-  included  not  only  the  hill  itself,  but  some  portion  of  the  ground 
rium>  immediately  below  it ;  it  did  not,  however,  reach  as  far  as  any  of 

the  other  hills.  The  valley  between  the  Palatine  and  the  Aventine,  afterwards 
the  site  of  the  Circus  Maximus,  was  in  the  earliest  times  covered  with  water ; 

T  Cicero  de  Republics,  V.  3.  timius  Severus,  at  the  Jamis  Quadrifons  "  (this 

1  Tacitus,  Annal.  XII.  24. — It  is  evident,  by  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  Arch  of  Sev- 

the  minuteness  of  his  description,  that  the  con-  erus  on  the  Via  Sacra,  just  under  the  capitol), 

pecrated  limits  of  the  original  city  had  been  "and  passed  through  the  valley  of  the  circus, 

carefully  preserved  by  tradition ;   and  this  is  so  as  to  include  the  Ara  Maxima,  as  far  as  the 

exactly  one  of  the  points  on  which,  as  we  know  Ara  Consi,  at  the  foot  of  the  hill.     It  then  pro- 

by  our  own  experience  with  regard  to  parish  cceded  from  the  Septizonium  (just  opposite 

boundaries,  a  tradition  kept  up  r>y  yearly  cere-  the  church  of  S.  Gregorio,  at  the  foot  of  the 

monies  may  safely  be  trusted.     The  exact  line  Palatine),  till  it  came  under  the  baths  of  Tra- 

of  this  original  Pomoerium  is  thus  marked  by  jan  (or  Titus),  which  were  the  Curias  Veteres. 

Bunsen  in  his  description  of  Rome,  Vol.  I.  From  thence  it  passed  on  to  the  top  of  the 

p.  137 :  "It  set  out  from  the  Forum  Boarinm,  Velia,  on  which  the  Arch  of  Titus  now  stands. 

*he  eite  of  which  is  fixed  by  the  Arch  of  Sep-  and  where  Tacitus  places  the  Sacellum  Larium." 


CHAP.  III.]  CITY  OF  ROME,  ETC.  13 

so  also  was  the  greater  part  of  the  valley  between  the  Palatine  and  the  Capito- 
line, the  ground  afterwards  occupied  by  the  Roman  forum. 

But  the  city  of  the  Palatine  Hill  grew  in  process  of  time,  so  as  to  become  a 
city  of  seven  hills.  Not  the  seven  famous  hills  of  imperial  or  The  original  Mr<at 
republican  Rome,  but  seven  spots  more  or  less  elevated,  and  all  hiUs- 
belonging  to  three  only  of  the  later  seven  hills,  that  is,  to  the  Palatine,  the  Ccelian, 
and  the  Esquiline.  These  first  seven  hills  of  Rome  were  known  by  the  names  of 
Palatium,  Velia,  Cermalus,  Caelius,  Fagutal,  Oppius,  and  Cispius.8  Of  this  tmva 
the  Aventine  formed  a  suburb ;  and  the  dyke  of  the  Quirites,  ascribed  in  the  story 
to  Ancus  Marcius,  ran  across  the  valley  from  the  edge  of  the  Aventine  to  that 
of  the  Cselian  Hill  near  the  Porta  Capena.3 

At  this  time  Rome,  though  already  a  city  on  seven  hills,  was  distinct  from  the 
Sabine  city  on  the  Capitoline,  Quirinal.  and  Viminal  Hills.     The  Thev  aid  not  mdud* 

..-',,  1-11  i       i        MI  all  the  wven  hill*  <rf  th« 

two  cities,  although  united  under  one  government,  had  still  a  sep-  later  city, 
arate  existence ;   they  were  not  completely  blanded  into  one  till  that  second 
period  in  Roman  history  which  we  shall  soon  have  to  consider,  the  reigns  of  the 
later  kings. 

The  territory  of  the  original  Rome  during   its  first  period,  the  true  Ager 
Romanus,  could  be  gone  round  in  a  single  day.4      It  did  not  ex- 
tend beyond  the  Tiber  at  all,  nor  probably  beyond  the  Anio  ;  and, 
on  the  east  and  south,  where  it  had  most  room  to  spread,  its  limit  "'as  between 
five  and  six  miles  from  the  city.     This  Ager  Romanus  was  the  exclusive  property 
of  the  Roman  people,  that  is,  of  the  houses ;   it  did  not  include  the  lands  con- 
quered from  the  Latins,  and  given  back  to  them  again  when  the  Latins  became  the 
plebs  or  commons  of  Rome.      According  to  the  augurs,5  the  Ager  Romanus 
was  a  peculiar  district  in  a  religious  sense  ;   auspices  could  be  taken  within  its 
bounds,  which  could  be  taken  nowhere  without  them. 

And  now  what  was  Rome,  and  what  was  the  country  around  it,  which  have 
both  acquired  an  interest  such  as  can  cease   only  when  earth  Seenery  of  the  neigh. 
itself  shall  perish  ?      The  hills  of  Rome  are  such  as  we  rarely  borhood  of  Rorae- 
see  in  England,  low  in  height,  but  with  steep  and  rocky  sides.6      In  early  times 
the  natural  wood  still  remained  in  patches  amidst  the  buildings,  as  at  this  day 

It  followed  nearly  the  line  of  the  Via  Sacra,  as  inal  Hills,  near  the  church  of  S.  Francesco  di 
fur  as  the  eastern  end  of  the  Forum  Komanum.  Paola,  where  a  miserable  sort  of  square  is  stUJ 
But  Tacitus  does  not  mention  it  as  going  on  to  called  Piazza  Suburra)  may  have  joined  in  the 
join  the  Forum  Boarium,  because  in  the  earli-  festival  of  the  inhabitants  of  these  seven  hills 
est  times  this  valley  was  either  a  lake  or  a  or  heights,  although  they  were  not  themselves 
swamp,  and  the  Pomoerium  could  not  descend  "Montani"  (see  Varro  de  L.  L.,VI.  24.  Ed. 
below  the  edge  of  the  Palatine  Hill.  Nibby.  in  Miiller),  to  show  that  they  belonged  to  the  city 
his  work  on  the  walls  of  Koine,  places  the  of  the  Palatine,  nnd  not  to  the  Sabine  city  of 
Curiae  Veteres  on  the  Palatine,  and  the  Sacel-  the  Capitoline  Hill.  For  the  exact  situations  of 
lum  Larium  between  the  Arch  of  Titus  and  the  the  other  seven  spots,  see  Bunsen,  description 
Forum  on  the  Via  Nova.  The  position  of  the  of  Kome,  Vol.  I.  p.  141.  Velia  was  the  ascent 
Curias  Veteres  is  certainly  doubtful.  Niebuhr  on  the  northeast  side  of  the  Palatine,  where  the 
himself  (Vol.  I.  p.  283.  Note  735.  Eng.  Tr.)  Arch  of  Titus  now  stands.  Cermalus,  or  Ger- 
thinks  that  the  Pomoerium  can  scarcely  be  car-  malus,  was  on  the  northwest  side  of  the  Pala- 
ried  so  far  as  the  foot  of  the  Esquiline ;  and  the  tine,  just  above  the  Velabrum :  Fagutal  is 
authority  for  identifying  the  Curise  Veteres  thought  to  have  been  the  ground  near  the 
with  the  site  of  the  Baths  of -Titus  or  Trajan  is  Porta  Esquilina,  between  the  Arch  of  Galli- 
not  decisive ;  for  it  only  appears  that  Biondo,  enus  and  the  Sette  Sale.  Oppius  and  Cispiua 
writing  in  1440,  calls  the  ruins  of  the  Baths  were  also  parts  of  the  Esquiline ;  the  former  is 
"Curia  Vecchia,"  and  says  that  in  old  legal  marked  by  the  present  church  of  S.  Maria  Mag- 
instruments  they  were  commonly  so  called,  giore,  and  the  latter  lay  between  that  church 
(Beschreibung  Koms,  Vol.  III.  part  2,  p.  222.)  and  the  baths  of  Diocletian. 
Now  considering  the  general  use  of  the  word  3  See  Niebuhr,  Vol.  I.  p.  403.  Ed.  2d.  and 
Curia,  and  that  the  name  is  in  the  singular  num-  Bunsen.  Beschreibung  Koms,  Vol.  I.  p.  620. 
ber,  it  by  no  means  follows  that  Biondo's  Curia  *  See  Strabo,  Lib.  V.  p.  253.  Ed.  Aylaud, 
Vetus  must  be  the  Curise  Vctcrcs  of  Tacitus.  and  compare  Livy,  I.  23.  "Fossa  Cluilia,  ab 
a  For  the  account  of  this  old  Septimontium.  Urbe  hand  plus  quinque  millia."  And  II.  89. 
see  Festus,  under  the  word  "  Septimontio.  "  Ad  Fossas  Cluilias  V.  ab  Urbe  M.  P.  castris 
Festus  adds  an  eighth  name,  Suburra.  Niebuhr  positis,  populatur  inde  Agrum  Momanvm. 
conjectures  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  Pagus  5  See  Varro  de  L.  L.,  V.  33.  Ed.  Muller. 
Sucusanus  (which  was  the  same  district  as  the  '  The  substance  of  this  description,  taken 
Buburra,  ami  lay  under  the  Esquiline  and  Vim-  from  my  journals  and  recollections  of  my  visit 


14  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  Ill 

it  grows  here  and  there  on  the  green  sides  of  the  Monte  Testacco.  Across  the 
Tiber  the  ground  rises  to  a  greater  height  than  that  of  the  Roman  hills,  but  its 
summit  is  a  level  unbroken  line,  while  the  heights,  which  opposite  to  Rome 
itself  rise  immediately  from  the  river,  under  the  names  of  Janiculus  and  Vati- 
canus,  then  sweep  away  to  some  distance  from  it,  and  returned  in  their  highest 
and  boldest  form  at  the  Monte  Mario,  just  above  the  Milvian  bridge  and  the 
Flaminian  road.  Thus  to  the  west  the  view  is  immediately  bounded  ;  but  to 
the  north  and  northeast  the  eye  ranges  over  the  low  ground  of  the  Campagna 
to  the  nearest  line  of  the  Apennines,  which  closes  up,  as  with  a  gigantic  wall, 
all  the  Sabine,  Latin,  and  Volscian  lowlands,  while  over  it  are  still  distinctly  to 
be  seen  the  high  summits  of  the  central  Apennines,  covered  with  snow,  even  at 
this  day.  for  more  than  six  months  in  the  year.  South  and  southwest  lies  the 
wide  plain  of  the  Campagna  ;  its  level  line  succeeded  by  the  equally  level  line 
of  the  sea,  which  can  only  be  distinguished  from  it  by  the  brighter  light  re- 
flected from  its  waters.  Eastward,  after  ten  miles  of  plain,  the  view  is  bounded 
by  the  Alban  hills,  a  cluster  of  high,  bold  points  rising  out  of  the  Campagna, 
like  Arran  from  the  sea,  on  the  highest  of  which,  at  nearly  the  same  height  with 
the  summit  of  Helvellyn,7  stood  the  Temple  of  Jupiter  Latiaris,  the  scene  of  the 
common  worship  of  all  the  people  of  the  Latin  name.  Immediately  under  this 
highest  point  lies  the  crater-like  basin  of  the  Alban  lake  ;  and  on  its  nearer  rim 
might  be  seen  the  trees  of  the  grove  of  Ferentia,  where  the  Latins  held  the 
great  civil  assemblies  of  their  nation.  Further  to  the  north,  on  the  edge  of  the 
Alban  hills  looking  towards  Rome,  was  the  town  and  citadel  of  Tusculum  ;  and 
beyond  this,  a  lower  summit,  crowned  with  the  walls  and  towers  of  Labicum, 
seems  to  connect  the  Alban  hills  with  the  line  of  the  Apennines  just  at  the  spot 
where  the  citadel  of  Pneneste,  high  upon  the  mountain  side,  marks  the  opening 
into  the  country  of  the  Hernicans,  and  into  the  valleys  of  the  streams  that  feed 
the  Liris. 

Returning  nearer  to  Rome,  the  lowland  country  of  the  Campagna  is  broken 
character  of  the  Cam-  by  long  green  swelling  ridges,  the  ground  rising  and  falling,  as 
P*6"*-  in  the  heath  country  of  Surrey  and  Berkshire.  The  streams  are 

dull  and  sluggish,  but  the  hill  sides  above  them  constantly  break  away  into 
little  rocky  cliffs,  where  on  every  ledge  the  wild  fig  now  strikes  out  its  branches, 
and  tufts  of  broom  are  clustering,  but  which  in  old  times  formed  the  natural 
strength  of  the  citadels  of  the  numerous  cities  of  Latium.  Except  in  these  nar- 
row dells,  the  present  aspect  of  the  country  is  all  bare  and  desolate,  with  no 
trees  nor  any  human  habitation.  But  anciently,  in  the  time  of  the  early  kings  of 
Rome,  it  was  full  of  independent  cities,  and  in  its  population  and  the  careful  cul- 
tivation of  its  little  garden-like  farms,  must  have  resembled  the  most  flourishing 
parts  of  Lombardy  or  the  Netherlands. 

Such  was  Rome,  and  such  its  neighborhood  ;  such  also,  as  far  as  we  can  dis- 
cover, was  the  earliest  form  of  its  society,  and  such  the  legends  which  fill  up  the 
place  of  its  lost  history.  Even  for  the  second  period,  on  which  we  are  now 
going  to  enter,  we  have  no  certain  history  ;  but  a  series  of  stories  as  beautiful  as 
they  are  unreal,  and  a  few  isolated  political  institutions,  which  we  cannot  con- 
fidently connect  with  their  causes  or  their  authors.  As  before,  then,  I  must  first 
give  the  stories  in  their  oldest  and  most  genuine  form  ;  and  then  offer,  in  meagre 
contrast,  all  that  can  be  collected  or  conjectured  of  the  real  history. 

to  Rome  in  1827,  was  inserted  some  time  since  7  The  height  of  Monte  Cavo  is  variously  given 

in  the  History  of  Rome  published  by  the  So-  at  2938  or  2965  French  feet.      See  Bunsen, 

ciety  for  the  Diffusion  of  Useful  Knowledge.  Vol.  I.  p.  40.    Helvellyn  is  reckoned  at  3055 

I  am  obliged  to  mention  this,  lest  I  might  oe  English  feet,  by  Col.  Mudge;  by  Mr.  Otley,  in 

suspected  of  having  borrowed  from  another  his  Guide  to  the  Lakes,  it  is  estimated   at 

work  without  acknowledgment  what  was  in  3070. 
feet  furnished  to  that  work  by  myself. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

STOEIES  OF  THE  LA  PER  KINGS. 


£  Quis  novus  hie  nostris  successit  sedibus  hospes  ? 
Quern  sese  ore  ferens,  quam  forti  pectore  et  arinis  ?" 

VIRGIL,  J^n.  IV. 


STORY    OF    L.    TARQUINIUS    PRJSCUB. 

IN  the  days  of  Ancus  Marcius  there  came  to  Rome  from  Tarquinii,  a  city  of 
Etruria,  a  wealthy  Etruscan  and  his  wife.1  The  father  of  this  stranger  was  a 
Greek,2  a  citizen  of  Corinth,  who  left  his  native  land  because  it  wtiwWrth^fjvqMtah 
was  oppressed  by  a  tyrant,  and  found  a  home  at  Tarquinii.  to'kome.  ow 
There  he  married  a  noble  Etruscan  lady,  and  by  her  he  had  two  sons.  But  his 
son  found,  that  for  his  father's  sake  he  was  still  looked  upon  as  a  stranger  ;  so 
he  left  Tarquinii,  and  went  with  his  wife  Tanaquil  to  Rome,  for  there,  it  was  said, 
strangers  were  held  in  more  honor.  Now  as  he  came  near  to  the  gates  of  Rome, 
as  he  was  sitting  in  his  chariot  with  Tanaquil  his  wife,  an  eagle  came  and  plucked 
the  cap  from  his  head,  and  bore  it  aloft  into  the  air  ;  and  then  flew  down  again 
and  placed  it  upon  his  head,  as  it  had  been  before.  So  Tanaquil  was  glad  at 
this  sight,  and  she  told  her  husband,  for  she  was  skilled  in  augury,  that  this  was 
a  sign  of  the  favor  of  the  gods,  and  she  bade  him  be  of  good  cheer,  for  that  he 
would  surely  rise  to  greatness. 

Now  when  the  stranger  came  to  Rome,  they  called  him  Lucius  Tarquinius  ;3 
and  he  was  a  brave  man  and  wise  in  council  ;  and  his  riches  won  of  his  fuvor  with  king 
the  good  word  of  the  multitude  ;  and  he  became  known  to  the  Ancus- 
king.  He  served  the  king  well  in  peace  and  war,  so  that  Ancus  held  him  in 
reat  honor,  and  when  he  died  he  named  him  by  his  will  to  be  the  guardian  of 
is  children. 

But  Tarquinius  was  in  great  favor  with  the  people,  and  when  he  desired  to  be 
king,  they  resolved  to  choose  him  rather  than  the  son  of  Ancus. 

<-,      s  .  iii.i  iii-  i    Of  his  deeds  in  war. 

bo  he  began  to  reign,  and  he  did  great  works,  both  m  war  and 
peace.  He  made  war  on  the  Latins,  and  took  from  them  a  great  spoil.4  Then 
he  made  war  on  the  Sabines,  and  he  conquered  them  in  two  battles,  and  took 
from  them  the  town  of  Collatia,  and  gave  it  to  Egerius,  his  brother's  son,  who 
had  come  with  him  from  Tarquinii.  Lastly,  there  was  another  war  with  the 
Latins,  and  Tarquinius  went  round  to  their  cities,  and  took  them  one  after 
another  ;  for  none  dared  to  go  out  to  meet  him  in  open  battle.  These  were  his 
acts  in  war. 

He  also  did  great  works  in  peace  ;5  for  he  made  vast  drains  to  carry  off  the 
water  from  between  the  Palatine  and  the  Aventine,  and  from  be-  Ofhiiworktiii 
tween  the  Palatine  and  the  Capitoline  Hills.      And  in  the  space 
between  the  Palatine  and  the  Aventine,  after  he  had  drained  it,  he  formed  the 
Circus,  or  great  race-course,  for  chariot  and  for  horse  races.      Then  in  the  space 
between  the  Palatine  and  the  Capitoline  he  made  a  forum  or  market-place,  and 
divided  out  the  ground  around  it  for  shops  or  stalls,  and  made  a  covered  walk 
round  it.     Next  he  set  about  building  a  wall  of  stone  to  go  round  the  city  ;  and 

1  Livy,  I.  34.  •  Cicero,  Livy,  and  Dionysius,  in  locis  citatis. 

8  Livy,  ibid.    Dionys.  III.  46-48.     Cicero  de        *  Livy,  I.  35-38. 
Republic*,  II.  19.  •  Livy,  I.  38.  35.    Dionysius,  III.  6?,  68, 


g 
h 


16  BISTORT  OF  ROME.  [CiiAr.  IV 

he  laid  the  foundations  of  a  great  temple  on  the  Capitoline  Hill,  which  was  to  be 
the  temple  of  the  gods  of  Rome.  He  also  added  a  hundred  new  senators  to  the 
senate,  and  doubled  the  number  of  the  horsemen  in  the  centuries  of  the  Ram- 
nenses,  Titienses,  and  Luceres,  for  he  wanted  to  strengthen  his  force  of  horse- 
men ;  and  when  he  had  done  so,  his  horse  gained  him  great  victories  over  his 
enemies. 

Now  he  first  had  it  in  his  mind  to  make  three  new  centuries  of  horsemen,  and 
of  the  famou.  augur,  to  call  them  after  his  own  name.  But  Attus  Navius,  who  was 

greatly  skilled  in6  augury,  forbade  him.  Then  the  king  mocked 
at  his  art,  and  said,  "  Come  now,  thou  augur,  tell  me  by  thy  auguries,  whether 
the  thing  which  I  now  have  in  my  mind  may  be  done  or  not."  And  Attus 
Navius  asked  counsel  of  the  gods  by  augury,  and  he  answered,  "It  may." 
Then  the  king  said,  "  It  was  in  my  mind  that  thou  shouldst  cut  in  two  this 
whetstone  with  this  razor.  Take  them,  and  do  it,  and  fulfil  thy  augury  if  thou 
canst."  But  Attus  took  the  razor  and  the  whetstone,  and  he  cut,  and  cut  the 
whetstone  asunder.  So  the  king  obeyed  his  counsels,  and  made  no  new  cen- 
turies ;  and  in  all  things  afterwards  he  consulted  the  gods  by  augury,  and  obeyed 
their  bidding. 

Tarquinius  reigned  long  and  prospered  greatly  ;    and  there  was  a  young  man 

brought  up  in  his  household,  of  whose  birth  some  told  wonderful 

How  Tnrqumiiu  ehoto          -'  i          •  t      t      ,    t  11  /»  11  «  ia 

serviusjuiiius to behit  tales,  and  said  that  he  was1  the  son  of  a  god;  but  others  said* 
nZ'deTed  b^tho  MM  that  his  mother  was  a  slave,  and  his  father  was  one  of  the  king's 
clients.  But  he  served  the  king  well,  and  was  in  favor  with  the 
people,  and  the  king  promised  him  his  daughter  in  marriage.  The  young  man 
was  called  Servius  Tullius.  But  when  the  sons  of  king  Ancus  saw  that  Servius 
was  so  loved  by  king  Tarquinius,  they  resolved  to  slay  the  king,  lest  he  should 
make  this  stranger  his  heir,  and  so  they  should  lose  the  crown  forever.  So  they9 
set  on  two  shepherds  to  do  the  deed,  and  these  went  to  the  king's  palace,  and 
pretended  to  be  quarrelling  with  each  other,  and  both  called  on  the  king  to  do 
them  right.  The  king  sent  for  them  to  hear  their  story  ;  and  while  he  was  hear- 
ing one  of  them  speak,  the  other  struck  him  on  the  head  with  his  hatchet,  and 
then  both  of  them  fled.  But  Tanaquil,  the  king's  wife,  pretended  that  he  was 
not  dead,  but  only  stunned  by  the  blow ;  and  she  said  that  he  had  appointed 
Servius  Tullius  to  rule  in  his  name,  till  he  should  be  well  again.  So  Servius 
went  forth  in  royal  state,  and  judged  causes  amidst  the  people,  and  acted  in  all 
things  as  if  he  were  king,  till  after  a  while  it  was  known  that  the  king  was  dead, 
and  Servius  was  suffered  to  reign  in  his  place.  Then  the  sons  of  Ancus  saw  that 
there  was  no  hope  left  for  them ;  and  they  fled  from  Rome,  and  lived  the  rest  of 
their  days  in  a  foreign  land. 

THE    STORY    OF    SERVIUS    TULLIUS. 

"  Long  live  the  Commons'  King,  King  James." 

LADY  OF  THE  LAKE. 

Servius  Tullius  was  a  just  and  good  king  ;10  he  loved  the  commons,  and  he  di- 
HOW  kin?  serviut  en-  vided  among  them  the  lands  which  had  been  conquered  in  war, 
urged  the  city.  an(j  ^e  made  many  wise  and  good  laws,  to  maintain  the  cause  of 
the  poor,  and  to  stop  the  oppression  of  the  rich.  He  made  war  with  the  Etrus- 
cans,11 and  conquered  them.  He  added  the  Quirinal  and  the  Viminal  Hills12  to 
the  city,  and  he  brought  many  new  citizens  to  live  on  the  Esquiline  ;  and  there 
he  lived  himself  amongst  them.  He  also  raised  a  great  mound  of  earth  to  join 
the  Esquiline  and  the  Quirinal  and  the  Viminal  Hills  together,  and  to  cover  them 
from  the  attacks  of  an  enemy. 

•  Livy,  I.  86.    Dionysius,  III.  70,  71.     Ci-         •  Livy,  I.  40. 

cero  de  Divinat.  1. 17,  §  32.  »  Dionysius,  IV.  13-15.  40. 

1  Dionysius,  IV.  2.    Ovid,  Fasti,  VI.  627.  "  Livy,"  I.  42. 

•  Cicero  de  Eepub.  II.  21.  n  Livy,  I.  43. 


CHAP,  IV.]  STORIES  OF  THE  LATER  KINGS.  17 

He  built  a  temple13  of  Diana  on  the  Aventine,  where  the  Latins,  and  the  Sabines, 
and  the  Romans,  should  offer  their  common  sacrifices ;  and  the  Romans  were  the 
chief  in  rank  amongst  all  who  worshipped  at  the  temple. 

He  made  a  new  order  of  things  for  the  whole14  people  ;  for  he  divided  the  peo- 
ple of  the  city  into  four  tribes,  and  the  people  of  the  country  into  Of  his -rood  iaw«-  ond 
six-and-twenty.  Then  he  divided  all  the  people  into  classes,  accord-  Je0op!e',ntodcuiM»an3 
ing  to  the  value  of  their  possessions ;  and  the  classes  he  divided  ceiuunes- 
into  centuries  ;  and  the  centuries  of  the  several  classes  furnished  themselves  wEh 
arms,  each  according  to  their  rank  and  order :  the  centuries  of  the  rich  classes 
had  good  and  full  armor,  the  poorer  centuries  had  but  darts  and  slings.  And 
when  he  had  done  all  these  works,  he  called  all  the  people  together  in  their  cen- 
turies, and  asked  if  they  would  have  him  for  their  king ;  and  the  people  answered 
that  he  should  be  their  king.  But  the  nobles  hated  him,  because  he  was  so  loved 
by  the  commons :  for  he  had  made  a  law  that  there  should  be  no  king  after  him, 
but  two  men  chosen  by  the  people  to  govern  them  year  by  year.  Some  even  said 
that  it  was  in  his  mind  to  give  up  his  own  kingly  power,  that  so  he  might  see 
with  his  own  eyes  the  fruit  of  all  the  good  laws  that  he  had  made,  and  might 
behold  the  people  wealthy,  and  free,  and  happy. 

Now  king  Servius  had  no  son,15  but  he  had  two  daughters ;  and  he  gave  them 
in  marriage  to  the  two  sons  of  king  Tarquinius.  These  daughters  How  he  mmM  hi, 
were  of  very  unlike  natures,  and  so  were  their  husbands  :  for  Aruns  ££  SSSSuLgvlt 
Tarquinius  was  of  a  meek  and  gentle  spirit,  but  his  brother  Lucius  iuiniUB- 
was  proud  and  full  of  evil ;  and  the  younger  Tullia,  who  was  the  wife  of  Aruns, 
was  more  full  of  evil  than  his  brother  Lucius ;  and  the  elder  Tullia,  who  was  the 
wife  of  Lucius,  was  as  good  and  gentle  as  his  brother  Aruns.  So  the  evil  could 
not  bear  the  good,  but  longed  to  be  joined  to  the  evil  that  was  like  itself;  and. 
Lucius  slew  his  wife  secretly,  and  the  younger  Tullia  slew  her  husband,  and  then 
they  were  married  to  one  another,  that  they  might  work  all  the  wickedness  of  their 
hearts,  according  to  the  will  of  fate. 

Then  Lucius  plotted  with  the  nobles,16  who  hated  the  good  king;  and  he  joined 
himself  to  the  sworn  brotherhoods  of  the  young  nobles,  in  which  HOW  Lucia*  Tarquin. 
they  bound  themselves  to  stand  by  each  other  in  their  deeds  of  ^K^X^lo^ 
violence  and  oppression.  When  all  was  ready,  he  waited  for  the  murUered- 
season  of  the  harvest,  when  the  commons,17  who  loved  the  king,  were  in  the  fields 
getting  in  their  corn.  Then  he  went  suddenly  to  the  forum  with  a  band  of  armed 
men,  and  seated  himself  on  the  king's  throne  before  the  doors  of  the  senate-house, 
where  he  was  wont  to  judge  the  people.  And  they  ran  to  the  king,  and  told  him 
that  Lucius  was  sitting  on  his  throne.  Upon  this  the  old  man18  went  in  haste  to 
the  forum,  and  when  he  saw  Lucius  he  asked  him  wherefore  he  had  dared  to  sit  on 
the  king's  seat.  And  Lucius  answered  that  it  was  his  father's  throne,  and  that 
he  had  more  right  in  it  than  Servius.  Then  he  seized  the  old  man,  and  threw 
him  down  the  steps  of  the  senate -house  to  the  ground ;  and  he  went  into  the  sen- 
ate-house, and  called  together  the  senators,  as  if  he  were  already  king.  Servius 
meanwhile  arose,  and  began  to  make  his  way  home  to  his  house ;  but  when  he 
was  come  near  to  the  Esquiline  Hill,  some  whom  Lucius  had  sent  after  him  over- 
took him  and  slew  him,  and  left  him  in  his  blood  in  the  middle  of  the  way. 

Then  the  wicked  Tullia19  mounted  her  chariot,  and  drove  into  the  forum,  noth- 
ing ashamed  to  go  amidst  the  multitude  of  men,  and  she  called  How  the  wicked  TUI- 
Lucius  out  from  the  senate-house,  and  said  to  him,  "  Hail  to  thee,  Sw^&JSi^SS 
king  Tarquinius  !"  But  Lucius  bade  her  go  home  ;  and  as  she  was  bod>'- 
going  home,  the  body  of  her  father  was  lying  in  the  way.  The  driver  of  the  char- 
iot stopped  short,  and  showed  to  Tullia  where  her  father  lay  in  his  blood.  But 

13  Livy,  I.  45.  w  Livy,  I.  46.    Dionysius,  IV.  SO. 

14  Dionysius,  IV.  16  -20.     Livy,  I.  43.     Cicero        "  Dionysius.  IV.  38. 
cle  Republic;!,  II.  22.  w  Livy,  I.  43. 

*  Livy,  I.  46.  lfl  Livy.  I.  43. 

2 


18  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP  IV 

she  bade  him  drive  on,  for  the  furies  of  her  wickedness  were  upon  her,  and  the 
chariot  rolled  over  the  body ;  and  she  went  to  her  home  with  her  father's  blood 
upon  the  wheels  of  her  chariot.  Thus  Lucius  Tarquinius  and  the  wicked  Tullia 
reigned  in  the  place,  of  the  good  king  Servius. 

THE  STORY  OF  LUCIUS  TARQUINIUS  THE  TYRANT. 

Tfcpavvos v6fiai*  re  Kivci  Trdrpia,  Kat  fiiarou  yvvaiKas,  Kreivti  TI  i^pirowj. — HERODOTUS,  III.  80. 

Superbos 

Tarquini  fasces. — HORACE,  Carra.  I.  12. 

Lucius  Tarquinius  gained  his  power  wickedly,  and  no  less  wickedly  did  he  ex- 
or  kin-  Tarquinius  ercise  it.  He  kept  a  guard20  of  armed  men  about  him,  and  he 
and  his  great  power.  ruled  a]}  things  at  his  own  will :  many  were  they  whom  he  spoiled 
of  their  goods,  many  were  they  whom  he  banished,  and  many  also  whom  he  slew. 
He  despised  the  senate,  and  made  no  new  senators  in  the  place  of  those  whom 
he  slew,  or  who  died  in  the  course  of  nature,  wishing  that  the  senators  might  be- 
come fewer  and  fewer,  till  there  should  be  none  of  them  left.  And  he  made  friends 
of  the  chief  men  among  the  Latins,  and  gave  his  daughter  in  marriage  to  Octa- 
vius  Mamilius  of  Tusculum ;  and  he  became  very  powerful  amongst  the  Latins, 
insomuch  that  when  Turnus  Herdonius  of  Aricia  had  dared  to  speak  against  him 
in  the  great  assembly  of  the  Latins,  Tarquinius  accused  him  of  plotting  his  death, 
and  procured  false  witnesses  to  confirm  his  charge ;  so  that  the  Latins  judged 
him  to  be  guilty,  and  ordered  him  to  be  drowned.  After  this  they  were  so  afraid 
of  Tarquinius,  that  they  made  a  league  with  him,  and  followed  him  in  his  wars 
wherever  he  chose  to  lead  them.  The  Hernicans21  also  joined  this  league,  and  so 
did  Ecetra  and  Antium,  cities  of  the  Volscians. 

Then  Tarquinius  made  war  upon  the  rest  of  the  Volscians,  and  he  took22  Suessa 
w  h,8  bunding,  and  Pometia,  in  the  lowlands  of  the  Yolscians,  and  the  tithe  of  the  spoil 
polndeforphil'new  temt  was  forty  talents  of  silver.  So  he  set  himself  to  raise  mighty  works 
in  Rome ;  and  he  finished  what  his  father  had  begun  ;  the  great 
drains  to  drain  the  low  grounds  of  the  city,  and  the  temple  on  the  Capitoline  Hill. 
Now  the  ground  on  which  he  was  going  to  build  his  temple,  was  taken  up  with 
many  holy  places  of  the  gods  of  the  Sabines,  which  had  been  founded  in  the  days 
of  king  Tatius.  But  Tarquinius  consulted  the  gods  by  augury  whether  he  might 
not  take  away  these  holy  places,  to  make  room  for  his  own  new  temple.  The  gods 
allowed  him  to  take  away  all  the  rest,  except  only  the  holy  places  of  the  god  of 
Youth,23  and  of  Terminus  the  god  of  boundaries,  which  they  would  not  suffer  him 
to  move.  But  the  augurs  said  that  this  was  a  happy  omen,  for  that  it  showed 
how  the  youth  of  the  city  should  never  pass  away,  nor  its  boundaries  be  moved  by 
the  conquests  of  an  enemy.  A  human  head  was  also  found,  as  they  were  digging 
the  foundations  of  the  temple,  and  this  too  was  a  sign  that  the  Capitoline  Hill 
should  be  the  head  of  all  the  earth.  So  Tarquinius  built  a  mighty  temple,  and 
consecrated  it  te  Jupiter,84  and  to  Juno,  and  to  Minerva,  the  greatest  of  the  gods 
of  the  Etruscans. 

At  this  time  there  came  a  strange  woman85  to  the  king,  and  offered  him  nine 
w  the^tmnge  woman  books  of  the  prophecies  of  the  Sibyl  for  a  certain  price.  When  the 
TfihesTb/i'to'tiTekinS  king  refused  them,  the  woman  went  and  burnt  three  of  the  books, 
and  came  back  and  offered  the  six  at  the  same  price  which  she  had  asked  for  the 
nine ;  but  they  mocked  at  her,  and  would  not  take  the  books.  Then  she  went  away, 
and  burnt  three  more,  and  came  back  and  asked  still  the  same  price  for  the  remain- 
ing three.  At  this  the  king  was  astonished,  and  asked  of  the  augurs  what  he  should 

10  Livy,  I.  49-52.  M  Dionysius,  III.  6S     He  tells  the  story  of  the 

n  Dionysius,  IV.  49.  elder  Tarquinius. 

*  Livy,  I.  53,  55,  56.  24  Dionysius,  IV .  6 

25  Dionysiub, ;  *    t>2.    A.  vtellius,  I.  19. 


CHAP.  V.]  HISTORY  OF  THE  LATER  KINGS,  ETC  19 

do.  They  said  that  he  had  done  wrong  in  refusing  the  gift  of  the  gods,  and  bade 
him  by  all  means  to  buy  the  books  that  were  left.  So  he  bought  them  ;  and  the 
woman  who  sold  them  was  seen  no  more  from  that  day  forwards.  Then  the  books 
were  put  into  a  chest  of  stone,  and  were  kept  under  ground  in  the  Capitol,  and 
two  men26  were  appointed  to  keep  them,  and  were  called  the  two  men  of  the  sacred 
books. 

Now  Gabii87  would  not  submit  to  Tarquinius,  like  the  other  cities  of  the  Latins ; 
so  he  made  war  against  it ;  and  the  war  was  long,  and  Tarquinius  HOW  Tarquimu*  won 

°,.  f~       ,   .  0  m  •    f  11     Gabii  through  the  trea- 

knew  not  how  to  end  it.  So  his  son  feextus  larqumms  pretended  cheryofhissonsexu* 
that  his  father  hated  him,  and  fled  to  Gabii :  and  the  people  of  Gabii  believed 
him  and  trusted  him,  till  at  last  he  betrayed  them  into  his  father's  power.  A 
treaty  was  then  made  with  them,  and  he  gave  them  the  right  of  becoming  citizens 
of  Rome,28  and  the  Romans  had  the  right  of  becoming  citizens  of  Gabii,  and  there 
was  a  firm  league  between  the  two  people. 

Thus  Tarquinius  was  a  great  and  mighty  king  ;  but  he  grievously  oppressed  the 
poor,  and  he  took  away  all  the  good  laws  of  king  Servius,  and  let  HOW  he  oppressed  tu 

r,  .    -.  J.-L  ,1  111  i      r  At          J  c    people,  and  made  them 

the  rich  oppress  the  poor,  as  they  had  done  before  the  days  of  work  uke  slaves. 
Servius.     He  made  the  people  labor  at  his  great  works  :  he  made  them  build  his 
temple,  and  dig  and  construct  his  drains ;  he  laid  such  burdens29  on  them,  tha1 
many  slew  themselves  for  very  misery ;  for  in  the  days  of  Tarquinius  the  tyrant 
it  was  happier  to  die  than  to  live. 


CHAPTER  V, 

THE  HISTOEY  OF  THE  LATEE  KINGS  OF  EOME,  AND  OF  THE  GEEATNZS3 
OF  THE  MONARCHY. 


'ETTI  [iiya  T)\$CV  ^  /JacuXefa  tVxu'of. — THUCYD.  II.  97. 

ovrt  Toiig  a'XXowj  oiire  auroi)j  JA.3rjvalovs  irepl  TU>V  a^ertpwi/  rvpdvvwv  axfipeg  oiiSiv  A/yovraf* 
—THUCYD.  VI.  54. 


THE  stories  of  the  two  Tarquinii  and  of  Servius  Tullius  are  so  much  more  disap- 
pointino1  than  those  of  the  earlier  kings,  inasmuch  as  they  seem  at  The  accounts  even  « 

f.       ,  i  •    .        •       i      i  i-i  11  •        tlle  later  kings  ar«  not 

first  to  wear  a  more  historical  character,  and  as  they  really  contain  historical. 
much  that  is  undoubtedly  true  ;  but  yet,  when  examined,  they  are  found  not  to 
be  history,  nor  can  any  one  attach  what  is  real  in  them  to  any  of  the  real  per- 
sons by  whom  it  was  effected.  The  great  drains  or  cloacae  of  Rome  exist  to  this 
hour,  to  vouch  for  their  own  reality ;  yet  of  the  Tarquinii,  by  whom  they  are  said 
to  have  been  made,  nothing  is  certainly  known.  So  also  the  constitution  of  the 
classes  and  centuries  is  as  real  as  Magna  Charta  or  the  Bill  of  Rights ;  yet  its 
pretended  author  is  scarcely  a  more  historical  personage  than  King  Arthur ;  we 
do  not  even  know  his  name  or  race,  whether  he  were  Servius  Tullius,  or  Mas- 
tarna,1  a  Latin  or  an  Etruscan ;  the  son  of  a  slave  reared  in  the  palace  of  the 
Roman  king,  or  a  military  adventurer  who  settled  at  Rome  together  with  his  com- 
panions inarms,  and  was  received  with  honor  for  his  valor.  Still  less  can  we  trust 

29  See  Livy,  III.  10,  and  VI.  37.  Dionysius  Etruscan  histories,  quoted  by  the  Emperor  Clan- 
gives  "  Ten,"  which  was  the  later  number.  Gel-  dins  in  his  speech  upon  admitting  the  Gauls  to 
fins  gives  "Fifteen."  the  Eoman  franchise.  This  speech  was  engraved 

21  Livy,  I.  53,  54.  on  a  brass  plate,  and  was  dug  up  at  Lyons  about 

28  Dionysius,  IV.  58.  two  centuries  since,  and  is  now  preserved  in  that 

29  Cassius  Hemina,  quoted  by  Servius,  ./fin.  city,     it  was  printed  by  Brotier  at  the  end  of 
XII.  603.  his  edition  of  Tacitus,  and  has  been  also  pub- 

1  This  is  the  name  by  which  lie  was  called  in  the    lished  in  the  collections  of  inscriptions. 


20  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [Ciur.  V 

the  pretended  chronology  of  the  common  story.  The  three  last  reigns,  according 
to  Livy,  occupied  a  space  of  107  years ;  yet  the  king-,  who  at  the  end  of  this 
period  is  expelled  in  mature  but  not  in  declining  age,  is  the  son  of  the  king  who 
ascends  the  throne  a  grown  man  in  the  vigor  of  life  at  the  beginning  of  it : 
Servius  marries  the  daughter  of  Tarquinius,  a  short  time  before  he  is  made  king, 
yet  immediately  after  his  accession  he  is  the  father  of  two  grown-up  daughters, 
whom,  he  marries  to  the  brothers  of  his  own  wife :  the  sons  of  Ancus  Marcius 
wait  patiently  eight-and-thirty  years,  and  then  murder  Tarquinius  to  obtain  a 
throne  which  they  had  seen  him  so  long  quietly  occupy.  Still  then  wre  are,  in 
a  manner,  upon  enchanted  ground ;  the  unreal  and  the  real  are  strangely  mixed 
up  together ;  but  although  some  real  elements  exist,  yet  the  general  picture  be- 
fore us  is  a  mere  fantasy :  single  trees  and  buildings  may  be  copied  from  nature, 
but  their  grouping  is  ideal,  and  they  are  placed  in  the  midst  of  fairy  palaces  and 
fairy  beings,  whose  originals  this  earth  has  never  witnessed. 

The  reigns  of  the  later  Roman  kings  contain  three  points  which,  require  to  be 
Three  points  connect-  treated  historically.  1st,  The  foreign  dominion  and  greatness  of 
rei-l?."  mu«  beru*a?eu  the  monarchy.  2d,  The  change  introduced  in  the  religion  of 
Rome.  And  3d,  The  changes  effected  in  the  constitution,  espe- 
cially the  famous  system  of  the  classes  and  centuries,  usually  ascribed  to  Servius 
Tullius. 

1st. 'The  dominion  and  greatness  of  the  monarchy  are  attested  by  two  suffi- 
i.  The  ^eatness  of  cient  witnesses  ;  the  great  works  completed  at  this  period,  and  still 
great wori^The waiu  existing ;  and  the  famous  treaty  with  Carthage,  concluded  under 
BOTUM Tuiiuu.  ^Q  grst  consu]s  Of  the  Commonwealth,  and  preserved  to  us  by 
Polybius.  Under  the  last  kings  the  city  of  Rome  reached  the  limits  which  it 
retained  through  the  whole  period  of  the  Commonwealth,  and  the  most  flourish- 
ing times  of  the  empire.  What  are  called  the  walls  of  Servius  Tullius  continued 
to  be  the  walls  of  Rome  for  nearly  eight  hundred  years,  down  to  the  Emperor 
Aurelian.  They  enclosed  all  those  well-known  seven  hills,  whose  fame  has  so 
utterly  eclipsed  the  seven  hills  already  described  of  the  smaller  and  more  ancient 
city.  They  followed2  the  outside  edge  of  the  Quirinal,  Capitoline,  Aventine,  and 
Caelian  Hills,  passing  directly  across  the  low  grounds  between  the  hills,  and  thus 
running  parallel  to  the  Tiber  between  the  Capitoline  and  the  Aventine,  without 
going3  down  to  the  very  banks.  From  the  outer  or  southern  side  of  the  Caelian 
they  passed  round  by  the  eastern  side  of  the  hill  to  the  southern  side  of  the  Es- 
quiline; and  here,  upon  some  of  the  highest  ground  in  Rome,  was  raised  a  great 
rampart  or  mound  of  earth  with  towers  on  the  top  of  it,  stretching  across  from 
the  southern  side  of  the  Esquiline  to  the  northern  side  of  the  Quirinal.  For  the 
Esquiline  and  Quirinal  Hills,  as  well  as  the  Viminal,  which  lies  between  them,  are 
not  isolated  like  the  four  others,  but  are  like  so  many  promontories  running  out 
parallel  to  one  another  from  one  common  base,4  and  the  rampart  passing  along 

"See  the  account  of  the  walls  of  Servius  in  extremely  doubtful.    See  Varro  de  L.  L.,  V.  § 

Bunscn's  Rome,  vol.  i.,  p.  623  et  seqq.,  with  the  146.  153.     Ed.  Miiller. 

accompanying  map,  plate  I.  in  the  volume  of  4  The  back  of  a  man's  hand  when  slightly 

plates.  bent,  and  held  with  the  fingers  open,  presents 

8  It  is  on  this  point  that  the  German  topog-  an  exact  image  of  this  part  of  Rome.     The  fin- 

raphers  of  Rome  differ  from  Nibby,  and  from  gers  represent    the    Esquiline,   Viminal,   and 

all  the  common  plans  of  ancient  Rome,  which  Quirinal,  and  a  line  drawn  across  the  hand  just 

make  the  walls  go  quite  down  to  the  river.  Their  upon  the  knuckles  would  show  the  rampart  of 

reasons  are,  1st,  the  description  of  the  depart-  Servius  Tullius.     The  ground  on  the  outside 

ure  oi  the  300  Fabii,  who  are  made  to  leave  the  of  the  rampart  falls  for  some  way  like  the  sur- 

city  by  the  Port  a  Carmeiitalis ;  but  if  the  walls  face  of  the  hand  down  to  the  wrist,  and  the 

came  close  down  to  the  river,  they  must  have  later  wall  of  Aurelian  passed  over  the  wrist 

re-entered  the  city  again  to  cross  by  the  Pons  instead  of  over  the  knuckles,  at  the  bottom  ot 

Sublicius :  and  2d,  Varro's  statement,  that  one  the  slope  instead  of  the  top  of  it. 

end  of  tho  Circus  Maximus  abutted  upon  the  This  comparison  was  suggested  to  me  merely 

city  wall ;  and  that  the  fish-market  was  just  on  by  a  view  of  the  ground.     It  is  a  strong  pre- 

the  outside  of  the  wall.     The  first  argument  sumption  in  favor  of  its  exactness,  that  the  same 

seems  to  me  valid ;  the  second  cannot  be  insisted  resemblance  struck  Brocchi  also.    Speaking  of 

on,  because  the  text  of  Varro  in  both  places  is  the  Pineian,  Quirinal,  Viminal,  and  Esquiline 


CHAP.  V.]  HISTORY  OF  THE  LATER  KINGS,  ETC.  21 

the  highest  part  of  this  base  formed  an  artificial  boundary,  where  none  was  marked 
out  by  nature.  The  circuit  of  these  walls  is  estimated  at  about  seven  Roman  miles. 
The  line  of  the  rnound  or  rampart  may  still  be  distinctly  traced,  and  the  course 
and  extent  of  the  walls  can  be  sufficiently  ascertained  ;  but  very  few  remains  are 
left  of  the  actual  building.  But  the  masonry  with  which  the  bank  of  the  Tiber 
was  built  up,  a  work  ascribed  to  th°,  elder  Tarquinius,  and  resembling  the  works 
of  the  Babylonian  kings  along  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates,  is  still  visible.  So 
also  are  the  massy  substructions  of  the  Capitoline  temple,  which  were  inatfc  in 
order  to  form  a  level  surface  for  the  building  to  stand  on,  upon  one  of  the  two 
summits  of  the  Capitoline  Hill.  Above  all,  enough  is  still  to  be 

Jk.  ,       .  ,  °        .  The  Cloaca  Maxima. 

seen  of  the  great  Cloaca  or  drain,  to  assure  us  that  the  accounts 
left  us  of  it  are  not  exaggerated.  The  foundations  of  this  work  were  laid  about 
forty  feet  under  ground,  its  branches  were  carried  under  a  great  part  of  the  city, 
and  brought  at  last  into  one  grand  trunk  which  ran  down  into  the  Tiber  exactly 
to  the  west  of  the  Palatine  Hill.  It  thus  drained  the  waters  of  the  low  grounds 
on  both  sides  of  the  Palatine ;  of  the  Velabrum,  between  the  Palatine  and  the 
Aventine ;  and  of  the  site  of  the  forum  between  the  Palatine  and  the  Capitoline. 
The  stone  employed  in  the  Cloaca  is  in  itself  a  mark  of  the  great  antiquity  of  the 
work;  it  is5  not  the  peperino  of  Gabii  and  the  Alban  hills,  which  was  the 
common  building  stone  in  the  time  of  the  Commonwealth ;  much  less  the  tra- 
vertino,  or  limestone  of  the  neighborhood  of  Tibur,  the  material  used  in  the  great 
works  of  the  early  emperors  ;  but  it  is  the  stone  found  in  Rome  itself,  a  mass  of 
volcanic  materials  coarsely  cemented  together,  which  afterwards  was  supplanted 
by  the  finer  quality  of  the  peperino.  Such  a  work  as  the  Cloaca  proves  the 
greatness  of  the  power  which  effected  it,  as  well  as  the  character  of  its  govern- 
ment. It  was  wrought  by  taskwork,  like  the  great  works  of  Egypt ;  and  stories 
were  long  current  cf  the  misery  and  degradation  which  it  brought  upon  the 
people  during  its  progress.  But  this  taskwork  for  these  vast  objects  shows  a 
strong  and  despotic  government,  which  had  at  its  command  the  whole  resources 
of  the  people  ;  and  such  a  government  could  hardly  have  existed,  unless  it  had 
been  based  upon  some  considerable  extent  of  dominion. 

What  the  Cloaca  seems  to  imply,  we  find  conveyed  in  express  terms  in  the 
treaty  with  Carthage.6  As  this  treaty  was  concluded  in  the  very 
first  year  of  the  Commonwealth,  the  state  of  things  to  which  it 
refers  must  clearly  be  that  of  the  latest  period  of  the  monarchy.  It  appears 
then  that  Uie  whole  coast7  of  Latium  was  at  this  time  subject  to  the  Roman 
dominion :  Ardea  Antium,  Circeii,  and  Terracina,8  are  expressly  mentioned  as  the 

Hills,  he  adds  ;  "Pr  darn.3  una  sensibile  iraa-  for  an  uncertain  state  of  relations  "between  Romo 

gine  non  saprei  meglio  parag^narle  che  alle  dita  and  Latium,  such  as  may  well  be  supposed  to 

di  una  mano  raffigurando  la  palma  il  mentovato  have  followed  the  expulsion  of  •Tarquinius ;  a 

piano  a  cui  tutte  si  attaccano."  state  in  which  the  Romans  could  not  know  what 

Suolo  di  Roma,  p.  84.  Latin  cities  would  remain  faithful  to  the  new 

6  It  is  the   "Tufa  litoide"  of  Brocchi;  one  government,  and  what  would  take  part  with 

of  the  volcanic  formations  which  is  found  in  the  exiled  king.     On  the  other  hand  there  is 

many  places  in  Rome.    Brocchi  is  positive  that  no  authority  for  extending  the  limits  of  Latium 

ihis  is  the  stone  employed  in  the  Cloaca ;  and  beyond  Terracina.     The  name  Campania,  it  is 

the  masses  of  it,  he  adds,  taken  from  the  older  true,  did  not  exist  so  early,  but  Thucydides 

walls  of  Scrvius,  arc  still  to  be  seen  in  the  pres-  calls  Cuma  a  city  of  Opicia,  not  of  Latium ;  and 

ent  walls  not  far  from  the  Porta  S.  Lorenzo.  the  Volscians  or  Auruncans  must  have  already 

Suolo  di.  Roma,  p.  112.  occupied  the  country  on  the  Liris,  and  between 

6  Polybius,  III.  22.    See  Niebuhr,  vol.  I.  p.  that  river  and  Terracina,  although  their  con- 
55*5,  ed.  2d.  quests  of  Terracina  itself  as  well  as  of  Antium 

7  Niebuhr  supposes  that  the  coast  eastward  took  place  some  years  later.     For  the  annals 
of  Terracina  was  also  included  at  this  time  speak  of  Cora  and  Pometia  revolting  to  the 
under  the  name  of  Latium,  because  the  treaty  Aurunci  as  early  as  the  year  251,  which  shows 
speaks  of  a  part  of  Latium  which  was  not  sub-  that  they  must  at  that  time  have  been  powerful 
ject  to  Rome,  and  because  the  name  of  Cam-  in  the  neighborhood  of  Latium ;  not  to  mention 
pauia  was  not  yet  in  existence.     But  if  Polybius  the  alleged  Volscian  conquests  of  the  last  king 
has  translated' his  original  correctly,  the  expres-  Tarquinius  in  the  lowlands  even  of  Latium 
gion  tdv  rives  pn  Jifftv  VTTI'IKOQL  would  rather  seem  proper. 

to  provide  for  the  case  of  a  Latin  city's  revolt-        8  A  fourth  name  is  added  in  the  MSS.  of 
ing  from  Rome  und  becoming  independent,  an<?     Polybius,  'Apevr/vwv.    Tho  editors  have 


22  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  V 

subject  allies  (UTTTJXOOJ)  of  Rome.  Of  these,  Circeii  is  said  in  the  common  story 
to  have  been  a  Roman  colony  founded  by  the  last  Tarquinius ;  but  we  read  oi' 
it  no  less  than  of  the  others  as  independent,  and  making  peace  or  war  with  Rome, 
during  the  Commonwealth  down  to  a  much  later  period.  Now  it  is  scarcely 
conceivable  that  the  Romans  could  thus  have  been  masters  of  the  whole  coast 
of  Latium,  without  some  corresponding  dominion  in  the  interior ;  and  we  may 
well  believe  that  Rome  was  at  this  time  the  acknowledged  head  of  the  Latin 
cities,  and  exercised  a  power  over  them  more  resembling  the  sovereignty  of 
Athens  over  her  allies  than  the  modern  supremacy  of  Lacedsemon.  On  the  right 
bank  of  the  Tiber  the  Romans  seem  to  have  possessed  nothing  on  the  coast ;  but 
the  stories  of  Etruscan  conquests  which  we  find  in  the  common  accounts  of  Ser- 
vius  Tullius,  are  so  far  justified  by  better  testimony  as  to  make  it  probable  that 
in  the  direction  of  Yeii  the  Roman  dominion9  had  reached  beyond  the  Tiber,  and 
that  the  territory  thus  gained  from  the  Etruscans  formed  a  very  considerable 
part  of  the  whole  territory  of  Rome.  It  is  well  known  that  the  number  of  local 
tribes  established  by  the  later  kings  was  thirty ;  whereas  a  few  years  after  the 
beginning  of  the  Commonwealth  we  find  them  reduced  to  twenty.  Now,  as  even 
the  common  account  of  the  Avar  with  Porsenna  describes  the  Romans  as  giving 
up  to  the  Veientians  a  portion  of  territory  formerly  conquered  from  them,  it 
becomes  a  very  probable  conjecture  that  the  Etruscans,  soon  after  the  expulsion 
of  the  kings,  recovered  all  the  country  which  the  kings  had  taken  from  them; 
and  that  this  was  so  considerable  in  extent,  that  by  its  loss  the  actual  territory 
of  the  Roman  people  was  reduced  by  one  third  from  what  it  had  been  before. 

It  may  thus  be  considered  certain  that  Rome  under  its  last  kings  was  the  seat 
Probable  connection  of  °f  a  great  monarchy,  extending  over  the  whole  of  Latium  on  the 
Rome  with  Etruria.  one  gj^  an(j  pOSSessmg  some  considerable  territory  in  Etruria 
on  the  other.  But  how  this  dominion  was  gained  it  is  vain  to  inquire.  There 
are  accounts  which  represent  all  the  three  last  kings  of  Rome,  Servius  Tullius  no 
less  than  the  two  Tarquins,  as  of  Etruscan  origin.  Without  attempting  to  make 
out  their  history  as  individuals,  it  is  probable  that  the  later  kings  were  either  by 
birth  or  long  intercourse  closely  connected  with  Etruria,  inasmuch  as  at  some 
early  period  of  the  Roman  history  the  religion  and  usages  of  the  Etruscans  gave 
a  deep  and  lasting  coloring  to  those  of  Rome ;  and  yet  it  could  not  have  been  at 
the  very  origin  of  the  Roman  people,  as  the  Etruscan  language  has  left  no  traces 
of  itself  in  the  Latin  ;  whereas  if  the  Romans  had  been  in  part  of  Etruscan  origin, 
their  language,  no  less  than  their  institutions,  would  have  contained  some  Etruscan 

ally  adopted  Ursini's   correction,  AavptvTtvwv :  qninii  he  regards  as  the  decline  of  the  power 

Niebuhr  proposes    'Apucnv&v,    observing   that  of  the  city  Tarquinii,  and  the  restoration  of  tho 

Aricia  was  a  much  more  important  place  than  independence  of  the  Latin  states,  Rome  being 

Laurentum,  and  that  Arician  merchant  vessels  one  of  this  number,  which  had  been  hitherto 

are  mentioned    by  Dionysius,   VII.   6.      Yet  in  subjection  to  it. — Etrusker,  Vol.  I.  p.  115, 

Laurentum  appears  as  one  of  the  thirty  Latin  et  seqq. 

states  which  concluded  the  treaty  with  Sp.  Cas-        I  need  not  say  that  this  is  contrary  to  the 

Bt.'s;  and  Larcntum  and  Laurentum  are  but  opinion  of  Niebuhr,  who  belie vos  the  Tarquinii 

different  forms  of  the  same  Avord,  as  appears  in  to  have  been  Latins,  and  not  Etruscans.    But 

the  name  of  the  wife  of  Faustulus,  who  is  called  I  should  agree  with  Miiller,  in  regarding  the 

both  Larentia  and  Laurcntia.  reigns  of  the  two  Tarquinii  as  a  period  during 

0  Miiller  in  his  very  able  work  on  the  Etrus-  which  an  Etruscan  dynasty  ruled  in  Rome,  in- 

cans  believes  rather  that  the  later  reigns  of  the  troducing  Etruscan  rites,  arts,  and  institutions. 

Roman  kings  represent  a  period  in  which  an  It  is  wholly  another  question  whether  theso 

Etruscan  dynasty  from  Tarquinii  ruled  in  Rome,  princes  regarded  Rome  as  their  capital  or  Tar- 

nnd  extended  its  power  far  over  Latium ;   so  quinii ;  but  the  probability  is,  that  they  were 

that  it  was  a  dominion  of  Etruscans  over  Latins  kings  of  Rome,  and  they  may  very  possibly 

rather  than   the  contrary.      He  considers  this  have  used  the  help  of  their  Latin  subjects  even 

dominion  to  have  been  interrupted  by  the  reign  to  make  conquests  for  them  in  Etruria ;  just  as 

"  the  Norman  kings  of  England  soon  found  that 

England  was  more  than  Normandy,  and  Henry 

'arquinii;  and  I.   conquered    Normandy  from    his    brother, 

then  to  have  been  restored  and  exercised  more  chiefly  by  the  help  of  English  men  and  money, 

tvranically  than  ever,  in  the  time  described  by  And  yet  we  retain  the  marks  of  the  Norman 

the  Roman  writers  as  the  reign  of  Tarquinius  conquest  impressed  on  every  part  of  our  insti- 

the  tyrant.     Finally,  the  expulsion  of  the  Tar-  tutions  down  to  this  very  hour. 


CHAP.  V.]  HISTORY  OF  THE  LATER  KINGS,  ETC.  23 

elements.  The  Etruscan  influence,  however  introduced,  produced  some  effects 
that  were  lasting,  and  others  that  were  only  temporary ;  it  affected  the  religion 
of  Rome  down  to  the  very  final  extinction  of  Paganism ;  and  the  state  of  the 
Roman  magistrates,10  their  lictors,  their  ivory  chairs,  and  their  triumphal  robes,  are 
all  said  to  have  been  derived  from  Etruria.  A  temporary  effect  of  Etruscan  influ- 
ence may  perhaps  be  traced  in  the  overthrow  of  the  free  constitution  ascribed  to 
Servius  Tullius,  in  the  degradation  of  the  Roman  commons  under  the  last  king, 
and  in  the  endeavors  of  the  patricians  to  keep  them  so  degraded  during  all  the 
first  periods  of  the  commonwealth.  It  is  well  known  that  the  government  in  the 
cities  of  Etruria  was  an  exclusive  aristocracy,  and  that  the  commons,  if  in  so 
wretched  a  condition  they  may  be  called  by  that  honorable  name,  were  like  the 
mass  of  the  people  amongst  the  Sclavonic  nations,  the  mere  serfs  or  slaves  of  the 
nobility.  This  is  a  marked  distinction  between  the  Etruscans,  and  the  Sabine 
and  Latin  nations  of  Italy ;  and,  as  in  the  constitution  of  Servius  Tullius  a  Latin 
spirit  is  discernible,  so  the  tyranny  which,  whether  in  the  shape  of  a  monarchy 
or  an  aristocracy,  suspended  that  constitution  for  nearly  two  centuries,  tended 
certainly  to  make  Rome  resemble  the  cities  of  Etruria,  and  may  possibly  be 
traced  originally  to  that  same  revolution  which  expelled  the  Sabine  gods  from 
the  capitol,  and  changed  forever  the  simple  religion  of  the  infancy  of  Rome. 

II.  It  is  a  remarkable  story11  that  towards  the  end  of  the  sixth  century  of  Rome, 
the  religious  books  of  Numa  were  accidentally  brought  to  light 

,  11-  /•    i  •       ,  i  i          ,1         T        •        1  mi  u-  Changes    in  religioa 

by  the  discovery  of  his  tomb  under  the  Jamculum.  They  were  introduced  i,,  the  tinw  oi 
read  by  A.  Petillius,  the  Praetor  Urbanus,  and  by  him  ordered 
to  be  burned  in  the  comitium,  because  their  contents  tended  to  overthrow  the 
religious  rites  then  observed  in  Rome.  We  cannot  but  connect  with  this  story 
what  is  told  of  Tarquinius  the  elder,  how  he  cleared  away  the  holy  places  of  the 
Sabine  gods  from  the  Capitoline  Hill,  to  make  room  for  his  new  temple ;  and  the 
statement  which  Augustine  quotes  from  Varro,12  and  which  is  found  also  in  Plu- 
tarch, that  during  the  first  hundred  and  seventy  years  after  the  foundation  of  the 
city,  the  Romans  had  no  images  of  their  gods.  All  these  accounts  represent  a 
change  effected  in  the  Roman  religion;  and  the  term  of  170  years,  given  by 
Varro  and  Plutarch,  fixes  this  change  to  the  reigns  of  the  later  kings.  It  is 
said13  also,  that  Jupiter,  Juno,  and  Minerva,  the  three  deities  to  whom  the  Capit- 
oline temple  was  dedicated,  were  the  very  powers  whose  worship,  according  to 
the  Etruscan  religion,  was  essential  to  every  city ;  there  could  be  no  city  without 
three  gates  duly  consecrated,  and  three  temples  to  these  divinities.  But  here 
again  we  gain  a  glimpse  of  something  real,  but  cannot  make  it  out  distinctly. 
Images  of  the  gods  belong  rather  to  the  religion  of  the  Greeks  than  of  the 
Etruscans  ;  and  the  Greek  mythology,  as  well  as  Grecian  art,  had  been  familiar 
in  the  southern  Etruscan  cities  from  a  very  early  period,  whether  derived  from 
the  Tyrrhenians,  or  borrowed  directly  from  Hellas  or  the  Hellenic  colonies. 
Grecian  deities  and  Greek  ceremonies  may  have  been  introduced,  in  part,  along 
with  such  as  were  purely  Etruscan.  But  the  science  of  the  Haruspices,  and 
especially  the  attention  to  signs  in  the  sky,  to  thunder  and  lightning,  seems  to 
have  been  conducted  according  to  the  Etruscan  ritual ;  perhaps  also  from  the 
same  source  came  that  belief  in  the  punishment  of  the  wicked  after  death,  to 
which  Polybius  ascribes  so  strong  a  moral  influence  over  the  minds  of  tho 
Romans,  even  in  his  own  days.  And  Etruscan  rites  and  ordinances  must  have  been 
widely  prevalent  in  the  Roman  commonwealth,  when,  as  some  writers  asserted, 
the  Roman  nobility14  were  taught  habitually  the  Etruscan  language,  and  when 

10  Livy,  I.  8.    Dionysius,  III.  62.  Etruscse    disciplinse    aiunt,    apud    conditorcs 

1  Livy,  XL.  29.  Etrusearum  urbium  non  putatas  justas  iirbes, 

12  Varro,  Fragments,  p.  46.  Edit.  Dordrecht,  in  quibus  non  tres  portae  essent  dedicatee  et 

Plutarch,  Numa,  c.  8.  votiva?,  et  tot  templa,  Jovis,  Junonis,  Minervte, 

18  Servius,  on  Virgil,  J&r\.  I.  v.  422.     Mira-  14  Livy,  IX.  30.     Habeo  auctores,  vulgo  tuin 

tur  molem  JEneas,  &c.     "  Miratur"   non  sim-  (in  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  of  Koine), 

plicitur    dictum    volant,   quoniam    prudentes  Komanos  pueros  sieut  mine  Grsecis  ita  Etruscis 


24  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  V, 

the  senate15  provided  by  a  special  decree  for  the  perpetual  cultivation  of  the 
Etruscan  discipline  by  young  men  of  the  highest  nobility  in  Etruria  ;  lest  a 
science  so  important  to  the  commonwealth  should  be  corrupted  by  falling  into 
the  hands  of  low  and  mercenary  persons. 

III.  Nothing  is  more  familiar  to  our  ears  than  the  name  of  the  classes  and 

centuries  of  Servius  Tullius  ;  nothing  is  more  difficult,  even  after 
rtituLnhinS1ced1b/t°te  the  immortal  labor  of  Niebuhr,  than  to  answer  all  the  questions 

which  naturally  arise  connected  with  this  part  of  the  Roman 
history.  But  first  of  all,  in  considering  the  changes  effected  in  the  Roman  con- 
stitution during  the  later  period  of  the  monarchy,  we  find  another  threefold  divi- 
sion of  them  presenting  itself.  We  have,  1st,  the  enlargement  of  the  older 
constitution,  on  the  same  principles,  in  the  addition  to  the  number  of  senators 
and  of  the  centuries  of  the  knights,  commonly  ascribed  to  Tarquinius  Priscus. 
2nd,  we  have  the  establishment  of  a  new  constitution  on  different  principles,  in 
the  famous  classes  and  centuries  of  Servius  Tullius.  And,  3rd,  we  have  the 
overthrow,  to  speak  generally,  of  this  new  constitution,  and  the  return  to  the 
older  state  of  things,  modified  by  the  great  increase  of  the  king's  power,  in  the 
revolution  effected  by  Tarquinius  Superbus,  and  in  his  subsequent  despotism. 

I.  The  old  constitution  was  enlarged  upon  the  same  principles,  in  the  increase 
The  alteration,  effected  °f  the  number  of  senators,  and  of  the  centuries  of  the  knights, 
by  the  eider  xarqumius.  jt  jjas  ^en  ajready  shown  that  the  older  constitution  was  an 
oligarchy,  as  far  as  the  clients  and  commons  were  concerned ;  it  is  no  less  true, 
that  it  was  democratical,  as  far  as  regarded  the  relations  of  the  citizens,  or  mem- 
bers of  the  houses,  to  each  other.  Both  these  characters,  with  a  slight  modifica- 
tion, were  preserved  in  the  changes  made  by  Tarquinius  Priscus.  He  doubled,18 
it  is  said,  the  actual  number  of  senators,  or  rather  of  patrician  houses  ;  which 
involved  a  corresponding  increase  in  the  numbers  of  the  senate  ;  but  the  houses 
thus  ennobled,  to  use  a  modern  term,  were  distinguished  from  the  old  ones  by  the 
titles  of  the  lesser  houses  ;  and  their  senators  did  not  vote  till  after  the  senators 
of  the  greater  houses.  According  to  the  same  system  the  king  proposed  to 
double  the  number  of  the  tribes,  that  is  to  divide  his  newly  created  houses  into 
three  tribes,  to  stand  beside  the  three  tribes  of  the  old  houses,  the  Rainnenses, 
Titienses,  and  Luceres.  Now  as  the  military  divisions  of  the  old  commonwealths 
went  along  with  the  civil  divisions,  the  tribes  of  the  commonwealth  were  the 
centuries  of  the  army ;  and  if  three  new  tribes  were  added,  it  involved  also  the 
addition  of  three  new  centuries  of  knights  or  horsemen ;  and  it  is  in  this  form 
that  the  proposed  change  is  represented  in  the  common  stories.  But  here  it  is 
said  that  the  interest  of  the  old  citizens,  taking  the  shape  of  a  religious  objection, 
was  strong  enough  to  force  the  king  to  modify  his  project.  No  new  tribes  were 
created,  and  consequently  no  new  centuries  , 1  but  the  new  houses  were  enrolled 
in  the  three  o4d  centuries,  so  as  to  form  a  second  division  in  each,  and  thus  to 

uterus  erucliri  solitos.     Livy  rather  3  Sieves  that  of  the  commonwealth,  not  an  order;  besides, 

a  knowledge  of  the  Etruscan  language  was  a  the  passage  in  the  treatise  de  Legibus  seems  to 

peculiar  accomplishment  of  the  Fabius  who  decide  the  question.  II.  9,  §  21,  "Etruriseque 

went  on  the  enterprise,  namely,  that  of  penetra-  principcs  disciplinam  docento  ;"  that  is,  "Let 

ting  through  the  Ciminiaii  Forest,  and  exploring  them  instruct  the  government  in  their  clisci- 

Etruria.    But  the  story  of  this  enterprise  comes  pline,  when  any  occasion  arises  for  consulting 

evidently  from  the  Fab'ian  Family  Memoirs,  and  them."    Valerius  Maximus,  I.  1,  §  2,  has  I 

its  authenticity  is  most  suspicious.     Whereas  believe  borrowed  his  story  from  Cicero,  and 

the  statement  of  the  writers  whom  Livy  refers  misunderstood  hiu  meaning. 

to,  is  extremely  unsuspicious  and  probable.  1G  Duplicavit  ilium  pristinum  Patrum  mime 

16  See  the  famous  passage  of  Cicero,  de  Di-  rum:  et  antiques  Patres  "majornm  gentium" 

vinatione,  I.  41.  §  92.    I  agree  with  Mailer  that  appellavit,  quos  priores  sententiam  rogabat,  a 

the  "  Principum  filii."  here  spoken  of  are  Etrus-  se  adscitos  "  minorum."     Cicero,  de  Kepublica, 

cans,  and  not  Komans.    The  term  "Principes"  11.20. 

to  express  the  Lucumones  of  Etruria  is  common  17  Neqne  turn  Tarquinius  de  equitum  cen- 

enough :  I  doubt  whether  it  is  ever  used  to  turiis    quidquam    mutavit :    numero    alteruia 

express  the  Roman  patricians,  or  any  class  of  tantum  adjecit.     .     .     .     "  Posteriores"  modo 

men  in  Kome.     "Principes  civitatis"  is  used  sub  iisdem  nominibus  qui  additi  erant appellati 

to  express  the  most  distinguisned  individuals  sunt.    Livy,  I.  36. 


CHAP.  V.]  HISTORY  OF  THE  LATER  KINGS,  ETC.  25 

continue  inferior  in  dignity  to  the  old  houses  in  every  relation  of  the  common- 
wealth. It  may  be  fairly  supposed,  that  these  second  centuries  in  the  army 
were  also  second  tribes  and  second  curiae  in  the  civil  divisions  of  the  state  ;  and 
that  the  members  of  the  new  houses  voted  after  those  of  the  old  ones  no  less  in 
the  great  council,  the  comitia  of  the  curiee,  than  in  the  smaller  councils  of  the 
senate. 

The  causes  which  led  to  this  enlargement  of  the  old  constitution  may  be  readily 
conceived.  Whether  Tarquinius  was  a  Latin  or  an  Etruscan,  all 
the  stories  agree  in  representing  him  as  a  foreigner,  who  gained 
the  throne  by  his  wealth  and  personal  reputation.  The  mere  growth  of  the 
Roman  state  would,  in  the  natural  course  of  things,  have  multiplied  new  families, 
which  had  risen  to  wealth,  and  were  in  their  former  country  of  noble  blood  ;  but 
which  were  excluded  from  the  curiae,  that  is,  from  the  rights  of  citizenship  at 
Rome ;  the  time  was  come  to  open  to  them  the  doors  of  the  commonwealth ; 
and  a  foreign  king,  ambitious  of  adding  to  the  strength  of  his  kingdom,  if  it  were 
but  for  the  sake  of  his  own  greatness,  was  not  likely  to  refuse  or  put  off  the 
opportunity.  Beyond  this  we  are  involved  in  endless  disputes  and  difficulties  ; 
who  the  Luceres  were,  and  whether  Tarquinius  had  any  particular  reasons  for 
raising  them  to  a  level  with  the  old  tribes,  we  never  can  determine.  That  there 
were  only  four  vestal  virgins  before,18  and  that  Tarquinius  made  them  six,  would 
certainly  seem  to  show,  that  a  third  part  of  the  state  had  hitherto  been  below 
the  other  two-thirds,  at  least  in  matters  of  religion ;  for  it  was  always  acknowl- 
edged that  the  six  vestal  virgins  represented  the  three  tribes  of  the  Ramnenses, 
Titienses,  and  Luceres,  two  for  each  tribe.  But  in  the  additions  made  to  the 
senate  and  to  the  centuries,  the  new  citizens  must  have  been  more  than  a  third 
of  the  old  ones ;  and  indeed  here  the  story  supposes  that  in  military  matters,  at 
any  rate,  the  Luceres  were  already  on  an  equality  with  the  Ramnenses  and 
Titienses.  It  is  enough,  therefore,  to  say,  that  there  had  arisen  at  Rome  so  great 
a  number  of  distinguished  families,  of  whatever  origin,  or  from  whatever  causes, 
that  an  extension  of  the  rights  of  citizenship  became  natural  and  almost  necessary  : 
but  as  these  were  still  only  a  small  part  of  the  whole  population,  the  change  went 
no  further  than  to  admit  them  into  the  aristocracy ;  leaving  the  character  and 
privileges  of  the  aristocracy  itself,  with  regard  to  the  mass  of  the  population, 
precisely  the  same  as  they  had  been  before. 

II.  But  a  far  greater  change  was  effected  soon  afterwards ;  no  less  than  the 
establishment  of  a  new  constitution,  on  totally  different  principles,  constitution  of  servm. 
This  constitution  is  no  doubt  historical,  however  uncertain  may  TuUius- 
be  the  accounts  which  relate  to  its  reputed  author.  "  The  good  king  Servius 
and  his  just  laws,"  were  the  objects  of  the  same  fond  regret  amongst  the  Roman 
commons,  when  suffering  under  the  tyranny  of  the  aristocracy,  as  the  laws  of 
the  good  king  Edward  the  Confessor  amongst  the  English  after  the  Norman 
conquest ;  and  imagination  magnified,  perhaps,  the  merit  of  the  one  no  less  than 
of  the  other  :  yet  the  constitution  of  Servius  was  a  great  work,  and  well  deserves 
to  be  examined  and  explained. 

Servius,  like  Tarquinius,  is  represented  as  a  foreigner,  and  is  said  also,  like  him, 
to  have  ascended  the  throne  to  the  exclusion  of  the  sons  of  the 
late  king.     According  to  the  account  which  Livy  followed,  he 
was  acknoAvledged19  by  the  senate,  but  not  by  the  people ;    and  this,  which 


18 


See  Dionysius,  III.  67 ;  and  compare  Livy,  Populum  de  se  ipse  consuluit,  jussusque  reg- 

nare,  legeni  de  imperio  suo  curiatam  tulit."  De 

Primus  injussu  Populi,  voluntate  Patrum  Republica,  II.  21.  If  indeed  there  existed  a 
regnavit.  Livy,  I.  41.  Dionysius,  confusing  genuine  "Lex  Regia  curiata  de  imperio"  of 
as  usual  the  curise  and  the  commons,  and  sup-  the  reign  of  Servius  Tullius,  then  it  must  belong 
posing  that  the  most  aristocratical  body  in  the  to  a  later  period  of  his  reign,  when  having  es^ 
Btato  must  needs  be  the  senate,  represents  him  tablished  his  power  by  means  of  his  new  con- 
as  chosen  by  the  people  in  their  curios,  but  not  stitution,  the  curite  would  have  had  no  choice, 
confirmed  by  the_  senate.  Cicero  says,  "  Non  but  to  acknowledge  him ;  and  this  according  to 
commiait  se  Patribus,  sed,  Tarquinio  sepulto,  Livy's  narrative  was  the  case ;  for  he  says  that 


26  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHij>.  A 

seemed  contradictory  so  long  as  the  people,  populus,  and  the  commons,  plebs, 
were  confounded  together,  is  in  itself  consistent  and  probable,  when  it  is  under- 
stood that  the  people,  who  would  not  acknowledge  Servius,  were  the  houses 
assembled  in  their  great  council  of  the  curiae,  and  that  these  were  likely  to  be 
far  less  manageable  by  the  king  whom  they  disliked,  than  the  smallei  council  of 
their  representatives  assembled  in  the  senate.  Now  supposing  that  the  king, 
whoever  he  may  have  been,  was  unwelcome  to  what  was  then  the  people,  that 
is,  to  the  only  body  of  men  who  enjoyed  civil  rights  ;  it  was  absolutely  necessary 
for  him,  unless  he  would  maintain  his  power  as  a  mere  tyrant,  through  the  help 
of  a  foreign  paid  guard,  to  create  a  new  and  different  people  out  of  the  large 
mass  of  inhabitants  of  Rome  who  had  no  political  existence,  but  who  were  free, 
and  in  many  instances  wealthy  and  of  noble  origin  ;  who  therefore,  although  now 
without  rights,  were  in  every  respect  well  fitted  to  receive  them. 

The  principle  of  an  aristocracy  is  equality  within  its  own  body,  ascendency 
He  establishes  thirty  over  all  the  rest  of  the  community.  Opposed  to  this  is  the 
tribes  for  the  commons.  SyStem,  which,  rejecting  these  extremes  of  equality  and  inequality, 
subjects  no  part  of  the  community  to  another,  but  gives  a  portion  of  power  to 
all ;  not  an  equal  portion,  however,  but  one  graduated  according  to  a  certain 
standard,  which  standard  has  generally  been  property.  Accordingly,  this  system 
has  both  to  do  away  with  distinctions,  and  to  create  them ;  to  do  away,  as  it  has 
generally  happened,  with  distinctions  of  birth,  and  to  create  distinctions  of  prop- 
erty. Thus  at  Rome,  in  the  first  instance,  the  tribes  or  divisions  of  the  people 
took  a  different  form.  The  old  three  tribes  of  Ramnenses,  Titienses,  and  Luceres, 
had  been  divisions  of  birth,  real  or  supposed :  each  was  made  up  of  the  houses 
of  the  curise,  and  no  man  could  belong  to  the  tribe  without  first  belonging  to  a 
curia,  and  to  a  house ;  nor  could  any  stranger  become  a  member  of  a  house 
except  by  the  rite  of  adoption,  by  which  he  was  made  as  one  of  the  same  race, 
and  therefore  a  lawful  worshipper  of  the  same  gods.  Each  of  these  tribes  had 
its  portion  of  the  Ager  Romanus,  the  old  territory  of  Rome.  But  now  as  many 
others  had  become  Romans  in  the  course  of  time,  without  belonging  to  either  of 
these  three  tribes,  that  is,  had  come  to  live  under  the  Roman  kings,  many  in 
Rome  itself,  and  had  received  grants  of  land  from  the  kings  beyond  the  limits  of 
the  old  Ager  Romanus,  a  new  division  was  made  including  all  these ;  and  the 
whole  city  and  territory20  of  Rome,  except  the  Capitol,  were  divided  into  thirty 

after  the  institution  of  the  Comitia  Centuriata,  of  the  tribes.  On  the  whole  I  agree  with  Nie- 
Servius  "  ausus  est  ferre  ad  populum,  'vellent  buhr  in  preferring  the  statement  of  Fabius, 
juberentne  se  regnare?'  tantoque  conscnsu  preserved  by  Dionysius,  IV.  15,  that  the  coun- 
rmanto  hand  quisquam  alius  ante,  rex  est  de-  try  tribes  in  the  Servian  constitution  were  six 
claratus,"  I.  46.  On  the  other  hand  Livv,  or  and  twenty.  But  the  great  difficulty  relates  to 
the  annalist  whom  he  followed,  may  have  added  three  points  ;  the  Capitol,  the  Aventinc,  and  the 
the  circumstance  "  voluntate  Patrum  regnavit,"  Ager  Romanus.  The  four  city  tribes  or  regions, 
because  he  could  not  conceive  how  Servius  for  tribe  as  a  local  division  is 'synonymous  with 
could  have  reigned  without  the  consent  of  cither  region,  included  neither  the  'Capitol,  nor  tho 
senate  or  curias.  But  if  we  adopt  the  Etruscan  Aventine.  This  we  know  from  that  curious 
story,  and  suppose  that  the  king  whom  the  account  preserved  by  Varro  of  the  situation  of 
Romans  called  Servius  Tullius  had  gained  his  the  twenty-four  Argean  chapels  in  these  regions; 
power  in  the  first  instance  as  the  leader  of  an  a  passage  which  has  been  considered  and  cor- 
army,  which  after  various  adventures  in  Etruria  rected  both  by  Miiller  and  Bunsen,  and  may  ba 
had  been  driven  out  from  thence,  and  had  taken  now  read  in  an  intelligible  form  either  in  Mill- 
possession  of  the  Calian  Hill  in  Rome,  it  is  very  ler's  edition  of  Varro,  I.  §  45-54 ;  or  in  Bunsen's 
conceivable  that  he  may  have  reigned  at  first  and  Platner's  Beschreibung  Roms,  Vol.  I.  pp. 
independently  of  the  consent  of  any  part  of  the  688-702.  But  there  is  this  farther  perplexity, 
old  Roman  people,  whether  senate  or  burghers ;  that  the  chapels  of  the  Argei  are  said  by  Varrc 
and  that  he  may  only  have  asked  for  that  con-  to  have  been  distributed  through  twenty-seven 
sent  after  his  creation  of  a  new  Roman  people,  parts  of  the  city ;  and  yet  the  wooden  figures 
formed  perhaps  in  part  out  of  his  own  soldiers,  called  Argei,  which  were  every  year  thrown  by 
when  he  would  wish  to  reign  according  to  all  the  Pontifices  into  the  Tiber,  tiio  by  Varro  him- 
thc  old  legal  forms,  and  to  be  no  longer  king  self,  according  to  the  MSS.  said  to  have  been 
by  the  choice  of  a  part  of  his  subject3  only,  but  twenty-four,  and  by  Dionysius  thirty.  [Antiqq, 
with  the  approbation  of  all.  Rom.  I.  38.]  Bunscn  adopts  this  latter  number, 
30  Every  reader  who  is  acquainted  with  the  and  supposes  that  the  three  collie  of  the  Capi  to- 
subject  knows  the  difficulties  which  beset  the  line  Temple,  and  the  three  of  the  old  Capitol  on 
whole  question  respecting  the  original  number  the  Quirinal.  were  inc^ded  in  the  reckoning 


CHAP.  V.]  HISTORY  OF  THE  LATER  KINGS,  ETC.  27 

tribes,  four  for  the  city,  and  twenty-six  for  the  country,  containing  all  the  Ilomans 
who  were  not  members  of  the  houses,  and  classing  them  according  to  the  local 
situation  of  their  property.  These  thirty  tribes  corresponded  to  the  thirty  curice 
of  the  houses;  for  the  houses  were  used  to  assemble,  not  in  a  threefold  division, 
according  to  their  tribes,  but  divided  into  thirty,  according  to  their  curiae :  and 
the  commons  were  to  meet  and  settle  all  their  own  affairs  in  the  assembly  of 
their  tribes,  as  the  houses  met  and  settled  theirs  in  the  assembly  of  their  cuviiB. 

Thus  then  were  two  bodies  existing  alongside  of  each  other,  analogous  te  the 
house  of  lords  and  the  house  of  commons  of  our  own  ancient  Th?  centimes, 
constitution,  two  estates  distinct  from  and  independent  of  each  u'rtuV 
other,  but  with  no  means  as  yet  provided  for  converting  them  commolls- 
into  states-general  or  a  parliament.  Nor  could  they  have  acted  together  as  jointly 
legislating  for  the  whole  nation ;  for  the  curice  still  regarded  themselves  as  form- 
ing exclusively  the  Roman  people,  and  would  not  allow  the  commons,  as  such, 
to  claim  any  part  in  the  highest  acts  of  national  sovereignty.  There  was  one 
relation,  however,  in  which  the  people  and  the  commons  felt  that  they  belonged 
to  one  common  country,  in  which  they  were  accustomed  to  act  together,  and  in 
which  therefore  it  was  practicable  to  unite  them  into  one  great  body.  This  was 
when  they  marched  out  to  war  against  a  foreign  enemy ;  then,  arrayed  in  the 
same  army,  and  fighting  under  the  same  standard,  in  the  same  cause,  the  houses 
and  the  commons,  if  not  equally  citizens  of  Rome,  felt  that  they  were  alike 
Romans.  It  has  ever  been  the  case,  that  the  distinctions  of  peace21  vanish  amidst 
the  dangers  of  war ;  arms  and  courage,  and  brotherhood  in  perils,  confer  of 
necessity  power  and  dignity.  Thus  we  hear  of  armies22  on  their  return  home 
from  war  stopping  before  they  entered  the  city  walls  to  try,  in  their  military 
character,  all  offences  or  cases  of  misconduct  which  had  occurred  since  they  had 
taken  the  field :  whereas  when  once  they  had  entered  the  walls,  civil  relations 
were  resumed,  and  all  trials  were  conducted  according  to  other  forms,  and  before 
other  judges.  This  will  explain  the  peculiar  constitution  of  the  comitia  of  cen- 
turies, which  was  a  device  for  uniting  the  people  and  the  commons  into  a  national 
and  sovereign  assembly  in  their  capacity  of  soldiers,  without  shocking  those 
prejudices  which  as  yet  placed  a  barrier  between  them  as  soon  as  they  returned 
to  the  relations  of  peace. 

But  in  order  to  do  this  with  effect,  and  to  secure  in  this  great  assembly  a 

This  appears  to  me  unsatisfactory,  but  I  can  session  or  occupation  was  not  property,  the 
offer  nothing  better.  However,  the  exclusion  patricians  might  possess  land  in  a  tribe  without 
of  the  Capitol  from  the  four  city  tribes  is  con-  becoming  members  of  it.  _  But  if  the  Ager 
sistent  enough ;  for  the  Capitol  as  the  citadel  of  Komanus  had  formed  a  tribe,  then  wo  might 
Home,  and  the  seat  of  the  three  protecting  gods  be  led  to  suppose  that  the  patricians  must 
of  the  city,  was  reserved  exclusively  for  the  have  been  members  of  this  tribe,  and  so  the 
patricians,  or  old  citizens,  and  no  plebeian  might  tribes  would  cease  to  be  an  exclusively  pie- 
dwell  on  it :  whereas  in  the  other  parts  of  the  beian  body,  which  Niebuhr,  rightly,  as  I  think, 
city  both  orders  dwelt  promiscuously,  till  the  supposes  them  to  have  been  iu  the  outset.  It 
famous  Icl!l».rx  law  appropriated  the  Aventine  is  possible,  however,  that  the  whole  territory, 
to  the  plebeians  alone,  as  the  Capitol  was  appro-  not  excepting  even  the  Ager  Romanus,  might 
priatod  to  the  patricians.  It  will  be  remem-  locally  have  been  included  within  the  tribes, 
bered  that  the  Eupatridse  at  Athens  were  inasmuch  as  no  district  would  be  wholly  without 
distinguished  in  the  old  state  of  things  by  the  plebeian  lands  ;  and  yet  the  patricians  them- 
title  ut  KaTy  MTV  OIKOVVTES,  and  the  UOTV  in  the  selves,  as  belonging  to  a  different  political  body, 
earliest  times  would  be  the  Acropolis  of  a  l?,ter  might  have  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  tribe 
age.  With  regard  to  the  Aventine,  it  must  I  politically :  just  as  the  estates  of  our  peers  are 
conceive  have  been  included  in  one  of  the  geographically  included  within  some  county, 
country  tribes  ;  nor  is  this  to  be  wondered  at,  and  yet  no  peer  may  be  elected  as  knight  of  the 
as  the  'Aventine  was  still  considered  properly  shire,  nor  even  vote  at  any  election. 
as  a  suburb,  although  it  was  included  within  21  "For  he  to-day  who  sheds  his  blood  with 
the  walls.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  me 

whole  of  the  land  in  the  country  tribes  was  the  Shall  be  my  brother;  be  he  ne'er  so  vile, 

property  of  the  plebeians ;  much  of  it  undoubt-  This  day  shall  gentle  his  condition." 

edly  remained  as  domain  land,  and  as  such  HENRY  V. 

became  "possessed,"  in  the  Roman  sense  of  w  This  was  the  case  at  Argos.    rbv  6o«ffvAAov 

the  term,  by  the  patricians ;  as  appears  in  the  avaxwp^o-avrej  iv  nj>  XapdSpy  ovxtp  raj  cnto  o-rpa- 

account  of  the  state  of  the  Aventine  Hill,  before  rids  6iicas  xplv  tciivai    Kpivovatv,  tjp^airo   ^tvtiv. 

the  passing  of  the  Lcx-Icilia.     But  as  such  pos-  Thucyd.  V.  60. 


28  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  V 


the  o 


preponderance  to  the  commons,  a  change  in  the  military  organi- 
tum  of  the  army.  zation  and  tactic  of  the  army  became  indispensable.     In  all  aris- 

tocracies in  an  early  stage  of  society,  the  ruling  order  or  class  has  fought  on 
horseback23  or  in  chariots  ;  their  subjects  or  dependents  have  fought  on  foot. 
The  cavalry  service  under  these  circumstances  has  been  cultivated,  that  of  the 
infantry  neglected  ;  the  mounted  noble  has  been  well  armed  and  carefully  trained 
in  warlike  exercises,  whilst  his  followers  on  foot  have  been  ill  armed  and  ill  dis- 
ciplined, and  quite  incapable  of  acting  with  equal  effect.  The  first  great  step 
then  towards  raising  the  importance  of  the  infantry,  or,  in  other  words,  of  the 
commons  of  the  state,  was  to  train  them  to  resist  cavalry,  to  form  them  into 
thick  masses  instead  of  a  thin  extended  line,  to  arm  them  with  the  pike  instead 
of  the  sword  or  the  javelin.  Thus  the  phalanx  order  of  battle  was  one  of  the 
earliest  improvements  in  the  art  of  war  ;  and  at  the  time  we  are  now  speaking  of, 
this  order  was  in  general  use  in  Greece,  and  must  have  been  well  known,  if  only 
through  the  Greek  colonies,  in  Italy  also.24  Its  introduction  into  the  Roman 
army  would  be  sure  to  make  the  infantry  from  henceforward  more  important 
than  the  cavalry  ;  that  is,  it  would  enable  the  commons  to  assert  a  greater  right 
in  Rome  than  would  be  claimed  by  the  houses,  inasmuch  as  they  could  render 
better  service.  Again,  the  phalanx  order  of  battle  furnished  a  ready  means  for 
giving  importance  to  a  great  number  of  the  less  wealthy  commons,  who  could 
not  supply  themselves  with  complete  armor  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  it  sug- 
gested a  natural  distinction  between  them  and  their  richer  fellows,  and  thus 
established  property  as  the  standard  of  political  power,  the  only  one  which  can 
in  the  outset  compete  effectually  with  the  more  aristocratical  standard  of  birth  ; 
although  in  a  later  stage  of  society  it  becomes  itself  aristocratical,  unless  it  be 
duly  tempered  by  the  mixture  of  a  third  standard,  education  and  intelligence.  In 
a  deep  phalanx,  the  foremost  ranks  needed  to  be  completely  armed,  but  those  in 
the  rear  could  neither  reach  or  be  reached  by  the  enemy,  and  only  served  to  add 
weight  to  the  charge  of  the  whole  body.  These  points  being  remembered,  we 
may  now  proceed  to  the  details  of  the  great  comitia  of  Servius. 

He  found  the  houses,  that  is  to  say,  the  nobility  or  citizens  of  Rome,  for  I  can- 
Detaiis  of  the  institution  not  too  often  remind  the  reader  that  in  this  early  period  of  Roman 
su(i''aL.'i'anUa,'d8'  Jebeian  history  these  three  terms  were  synonymous,  divided  into  three  cen- 
eenturieiofknighu.  turies  of  knights  or  horsemen,  each  of  which,  in  consequence  of 
the  accession  to  its  numbers  made  by  the  last  king,  contained  within  itself  two 
centuries,  a  first  and  a  second.  The  old  citizens,  anxious  in  all  things  to  keep  up 
the  old  form  of  the  state,  had  then  prevented  what  were  really  six  centuries  from 
being  acknowledged  as  such  in  name  ;  but  the  present  change  extended  to  the 
name  as  well  as  the  reality  ;  and  the  three  double  centuries  of  the  Ramnenses, 
Titienses,  and  Luceres,  became  now25  the  six  votes  (sex  suffragia)  of  the  new 
united  assembly.  To  these,  which  contained  all  the  members  of  the  houses, 
there  were  now  added  twelve  new  centuries26  of  knights,  formed,  as  usual  in  the 
Greek  states,  from  the  richest  members  of  the  community,  continuing,  like  the 
centuries  below  them,  to  belong  to  the  thirty  tribes  of  the  commons. 

It  remained  to  organize  the  foot  soldiers  of  the  state.  Accordingly,  all  those 
Thecoa'uriesof  infantry,  of  the  commons  whose  property  was  sufficient  to  qualify  them 

£or  scrving  even  ja  the  hindmost  ranks  of  the  phalanx,  were 


23  Homer's  battles  are  a  sufficient  example  of  rcfc  apxalois  olx 

this  :  it  explains  also  the  name  of  ivirrjs  applied  to  elvai  ri)i>  ic-x^y. 

the  three  hundred  Spartans  of  the  king's  guard,  24  Again,  if  Ser.  Tullius  was  an  Etruscan,  ho 

and  retained  long  after  the  reality  had  ceased,  would  have  introduced  the  tactic  of  his  own 

and  the  guard  no  longer  consisted  of  cavalry  country,  in  arming  the  Roman  infantry  with 

or  chariots,  but  of  infantry.    See  Thucydides,  the  long  spear  and  shield  :  for  these  were  tho 

V.  72.     See  also  Aristotle,  Politics,  IV.  13.    #  weapons  used  by  the  Etruscans  as  well  as  by 

ffv  i%  flpxfc  (ito\iT£ia  tytvcTo)  IK  T&V  'nnrtuv.    rfjv  the  Greeks.     See  Diodorus  Siculus,  XXIII.  1. 

yap  lff%i>v  Kal  rffv  btrtpo\riv  tv  TO??  iirrrevoiv  b  jrdAe-  Era^in.  Mai. 

lxev  '  avtv  fifv  yap  avvrd^tw;  axprjarov  rb  bx\t-  8d  FestllS  in  Sex  Suffragia. 

v,  ai  Si  vtpl  ruv  TOIOVTOV  f^upiat  Kai  rdfa?  lv  20  lavy,  I.  43.    Cicero  de  Bepubl.  II.  22. 


CHAP.  V.]  HISTORY  OF  THE  LATER  KINGS,  ETC.  29 

divided27  into  four  classes.  Of  these,  the  first  class  contained  all  "whose  property 
amounted  to  or  exceeded  one  hundred  thousand  pounds  weight  of  copper.  The 
soldiers  of  this  class  were  required  to  provide  themselves  with  the  complete  arms 
used  in  the  front  ranks  of  the  phalanx ;  the  greaves,  the  coat  of  mail,  the  helmet 
and  the  round  shield,  all  of  brass  ;  the  sword,  and  the  peculiar  weapon  of  the 
heavy-armed  infantry,  the  long  pike.  And  as  these  were  to  bear  the  brunt  of 
every  battle,  and  were  the  flower  of  the  state's  soldiers,  so  their  weight  in  the 
great  military  assembly  was  to  be  in  proportion ;  they  formed  eighty  centime* ; 
forty  of  younger  men,  between  the  ages  of  fifteen  and  forty-five  years28  complete ; 
and  forty  of  elders,  between  forty-five  and  sixty :  the  first  to  serve  in  the  field, 
the  second  to  defend  the  city.  The  second  class  contained  those  whose  property 
fell  short  of  one  hundred  thousand  pounds  of  copper,  and  exceeded  or  amounted 
to  seventy-five  thousand.  They  formed  twenty  centuries,  ten  of  younger  men, 
and  ten  of  elders  ;  and  they  were  allowed  to  dispense  with  the  coat  of  mail,  and 
to  bear  the  large  oblong  wooden  shield  called  scutum,  instead  of  the  round  brazen 
shield,  clipeus,  of  the  first  ranks  of  the  phalanx.  The  third  class  contained  a 
like  number  of  centuries,  equally  divided  into  those  of  the  younger  men  and 
elders ;  its  qualification  was  property  between  fifty  thousand  pounds  of  copper, 
and  seventy-five  thousand ;  and  the  soldiers  of  this  class  were  allowed  to  lay 
aside  the  greaves  as  well  as  the  coat  of  mail.  The  fourth  class,  again,  contained 
twenty  centuries  ;  the  lowest  point  of  its  qualification  was  twenty-five  thousand 
pounds  of  copper,  and  its  soldiers  were  required  to  provide  no  defensive  armor, 
but  to  go  to  battle  merely  with  the  pike  and  a  javelin.  These  four  classes  com- 
posed the  phalanx  ;  but  a  fifth  class,  divided  into  thirty  centuries,  and  consisting 
of  those  whose  property  was  between  twenty-five  thousand  pounds  of  copper, 
and  twelve  thousand  five  hundred,  formed  the  regular  light-armed  infantry  of 
the  army,  and  were  required  to  provide  themselves  with  darts  and  slings. 

The  poorest  citizens,29  whose  property  fell  short  of  twelve  thousand  five  hundred 
pounds,  were  considered,  in  a  manner,  as  supernumeraries  in  this  The  Aceen8i  an,i  veiati, 
division.  Those  who  had  more  than  one  thousand  five  hundred  and  the  Proletarii- 
pounds  of  copper,  were  still  reckoned  amongst  the  tax-payers,  Assidui,  and  were 
formed  into  two  centuries,  called  the  Accensi  and  Veiati.  They  followed  the  army, 
but  without  bearing  arms,  being  only  required  to  step  into  the  places  of  those  who 
fell ;  and,  in  the  mean  time,  acting  as  orderlies  to  the  centurions  and  decurions. 
Below  these  came  one  century  of  the  Proletarii,  whose  property  was  between 
one  thousand  five  hundred  pounds  and  three  hundred  and  seventy-five.  These 
paid  no  taxes,  and  in  ordinary  times  had  no  military  duty ;  but  on  great  emer- 
gencies arms  were  furnished  them  by  the  government,  and  they  were  called  out 
as  an  extraordinary  levy.  One  century  more  included  all  whose  property  was 
less  than  three  hundred  and  seventy-five  pounds,  and  who  were  called  Capite 
Censi ;  and  from  these  last  no  military  service  was  at  any  time  required,  as  we 
are  told,  till  a  late  period  of  the  republic. 

Three  centuries  of  a  different  character  from  all  the  rest  remain  to  be  described, 
centuries  defined,  not  by  the  amount  of  their  property,  but  by  The  Fabvii  comicines, 
the  nature  of  their  occupation;  those  of  carpenters  and  smiths,  and Tubichjes- 
Fabrorum ;  of  horn-blowers,  Cornicines ;  and  of  trumpeters,  Tubicines,  or,  as 
Cicero  calls  them,  Liticines.  The  first  of  these  was  attached  to  the  centuries  of 
the  first  class,  the  other  two  to  the  fourth.  The  nature  of  their  callings  so  con- 
nected them  with  the  service  of  the  army,  that  this  peculiar  distinction  was 
granted  to  them. 

The  position  held  in  the  comitia  by  the  patricians'  clients  is  involved  in  great 

37  See,  for  all  this  account  of  the  census,  Livy,  buhr's  quotations,  if,  indeed,  any  could  suspect 

I.  43,  and  Dionysius,  IV.  16-19.  it;   and  having  been  fully  satisfied  with  his 

28  See  Niebuhr,  vol.  I.  p.  459.  Ed.  2.  results,  I  have  thought  it  best  to  refer  to  his 

™  See  Niebuhr,  p.  465,  and  the  authorities  work,  rather  than  to  the  original  writers,  as  the 

»nere  quoted.     I  have  gone  over  the  ground  combined  view  of  the  several  facts  belongs  to 

myself,  and  have  verified  the  accuracy  of  Nie-  him,  and  not  to  them. 


30  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  V 

obscurity.  We  know  that  they  had  votes,  and  probably  they  must  have  been 
enrolled  in  the  classes  according  to  the  amount  of  their  property,  without  reference 
to  its  nature  :  at  the  same  time,  Niebuhr  thinks  that  they  did  not  serve  in  the 
regular  infantry  along  with  the  plebeians.  It  would  seem  from  the  story  of  the 
three  hundred  Fabii,  and  from  the  adventures  related  of  Caius  Marcius,30  that 
the  clients  followed  their  lords  to  the  field  at  their  bidding,  and  formed  a  sort 
of  feudal  force  quite  distinct  from  the  national  army  of  the  commons,  like  the 
retainers  of  the  nobles  in  the  middle  ages,  as  distinguished  from  the  free  burghers 
of  the  cities. 

Such  is  the  account  transmitted  to  us  of  the  constitution  of  the  comitia  of 
centuries.  As  their  whole  organization  was  military,  so  they  were  accustomed 
to  meet31  without  the  city,  in  the  Field  of  Mars ;  they  were  called  together,  not 
by  lictors,  like  the  comitia  of  the  curise,  but  by  the  blast  of  the  horn ;  and  their 
very  name  was,  "  the  Army  of  the  City,"  "  Exercitus  Urbanus."32 

It  is  quite  plain  that  this  constitution  tended  to  give  the  chief  power  in  the  state 
to  the  body  of  the  commons,  and  especially  to  the  richer  class 

The     constitution    was  iin"i»i/i  i/»i  11  -n 

•oon  destroyed,   and  amon<T  them,  who  fought  in  the  first  ranks  of  the  phalanx,     i1  or 

never  entirely  restored.  .     c  V  .  .,  ,  ,  .......    -1    ,     .     r  ., 

wherever  there  is  a  well-armed  and  well-disciplined  infantry,  it 
constitutes  the  main  force  of  an  army ;  and  it  is  a  true  observation  of  Aristotle,33 
that  in  the  ancient  commonwealth  the  chief  power  was  apt  to  be  possessed  by  that 
class  of  the  people  whose  military  services  were  most  important ;  thus,  when  the 
navy  of  Athens  became  its  great  support  and  strength,  the  government  became 
democratical ;  because  the  ships  were  chiefly  manned  by  citizens  of  the  poorer 
classes.  But  we  know  that  for  a  very  long  period  after  the  time  of  Servius,  the 
commons  at  Rome,  far  from  being  the  dominant  part  of  the  nation,  were  excluded 
from  the  highest  offices  in  the  state,  and  were  grievously  oppressed,  both  indi- 
vidually and  as  a  body.  Nay,  further,  whenever  we  find  any  details  given  of  the 
proceedings  of  the  comitia,  or  of  the  construction  of  the  army,  we  perceive  a  state 
of  things  very  different  from  that  prescribed  by  the  constitution  of  Servius. 
Hence  have  arisen  the  difficulties  connected  with  it ;  for,  as  it  was  never  fully 
carried  into  effect,  but  overthrown  within  a  very  few  years  after  its  formation, 
and  only  gradually  and  in  part  restored  ;  as  thus  the  constitution  with  which 
the  oldest  annalists,  and  even  the  law-books  which  they  copied,  were  familiar, 
was  not  the  original  constitution  of  Servius,  but  one  bearing  its  nan;3,  while  in 
reality  it  greatly  differed  from  it ;  there  is  a  constant  confusion  between  the  two, 
and  what  is  ascribed  to  the  one  may  often  be  true  only  when  understood  of  the 
other. 

Other  good  and  popular  institutions  were  ascribed  to  the  reign  of  Servius. 

servmsa  xrinti  -air*  "^"S  ^6  ^ac^  mac^e  ^e  commons  an  order  in  the  state,  so  he  gave 
tor  the  commons «« of  them  judges  out  of  their  own  body  to  try  all  civil34  causes; 
whereas  before  they  had  no  jurisdiction,  but  referred  all  their 
suits  either  to  the  king  or  to  ths  houses.  These  judges  were,  as  Niebuhr  thinks, 
the  centumviri,  the  hundred  men,  of  a  later  period,  elected  three  from  each 
tribe,  so  that  in  the  time  of  Servius  their  number  would  probably  have  been 
ninety. 

To  give  a  further  organization  to  the  commons,  he  is  said  also  to  have  instituted 
•r-ae  fjttivaiB  of  the  Pa-  the  festivals  called  Paganalia  and  Compitalia.  In  the  tribes  in  the 
gmwiiu  and  Cornelia,  country,  many  strongholds  on  high  ground,  pagi,35  had  been  fixed 

30  Dionysius,  VII.  19,  20.  cians  as  formerly,  Ttepl  ra  avp(36\aia,  IV.  43.   The 

31  A.  Gellius,  XV.  27,  quoted  from  Lselius    Ephori,  in  like  manner,  at  Sparta  were  judges  in 
Felix.  TO?  T&V  <rvu$o\aluv  5iKas.    Aristot.  Polk.  III.  1. 

»  Varro,  de  L.  L.,  VI.  93.  Ed.  Bekker. 

1  Politics,  V.  4.  VI.  7  Ed.  Bekker.  35  It  does  not  appear  from  Dionysius'  account 

84  Dionysius  calls  these  causes  Wtumxa,   as  whether  there  were  one  or  more  pagi  in  every 

opposed  to  TO.  *V  rb  KOIVOV  0f'poj/r«,  IV.  25 ;  but  tribe.     It  would  be  most  natural  to  suppose 

afterwards  he  expresses  himself  more  freely,  that  there  was  but  one,  as  otherwise  the  num- 

whcn  he  culls  these  laws,  laws  which  hindered  hers  of  the  people  would   have  been  taken 

the  comir  ons  from  being  wronged  by  the  patri-  according  to  a  ditferent  division  than  that  into 


CHAP.  V.]  HISTORY  OF  THE  LATER  KINGS,  ETC.  31 

upon  us  a  general  refuge  for  the  inhabitants  and  their  cattle  in  case  of  invasion. 
Here  they  all  met  once  a  year,  to  keep  festival,  and  every  man,  woman,  and  child 
paid  on  these  occasions  a  certain  sum,  which,  being  collected  by  the  priests,  gave 
the  amount  of  the  whole  population.  And  for  the  same  purpose,36  every  one  living 
in  the  city  paid  a  certain  sum  at  the  temple  of  Juno  Lucina  for  every  birth  in 
his  family,  another  sum  at  the  temple  of  Venus  Libitina  for  every  death,  and  a 
third  at  *  the  temple  of  Youth  for  every  son  who  came  to  the  age  of  military 
service.  The  Compitalia37  in  the  city  answered  to  the  Paganalia  in  the  country, 
and  were  a  yearly  festival  in  honor  of  the  Lares  or  guardian  spirits,  celebrated  at 
all  the  compita,  or  places  where  several  streets  met. 

Other  laws  and  measures  are  ascribed  to  Servius,  which  seem  to  be  the  fond 
invention  of  a  later  period,  when  the  commons,  suffering  under  a  other  iaW8  ascribed  to 
cruel  and  unjust  system,  and  wishing  its  overthrow,  gladly  be-  s«rvlus- 
lieved  that  the  deliverance  which  they  longed  for  had  been  once  given  them 
by  their  good  king,  and  that  they  were  only  reclaiming  old  rights,  not  demanding 
new  ones.  Servius,  it  is  said,38  drove  out  the  patricians  from  their  unjust  occu- 
pation of  the  public  land,  and  ordered  that  the  property  only,  and  not  the  person, 
of  a  debtor  should  be  liable  for  the  payment  of  his  debt. 

Further,  to  complete  the  notion  of  a  patriot  king,  it  was  said  that  he  had  drawn 
out  a  scheme  of  popular  government,  by  which  two  magistrates,  chosen  every  year, 
were  to  exercise  the  supreme  power,  and  that  he  himself  proposed  to  lay  down 
his  kingly  rule  to  make  way  for  them.  It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  these  two 
magistrates  were  intended  to  be  chosen  the  one  from  the  houses  and  the  other 
from  the  commons,  to  be  the  representative?  of  their  respective  orders. 

III.  But  the  following  tyranny  swept  away  the  institutions  of  Servius,  and  much 
more  prevented  the  growth  of  that  society,  for  which  alone  his  in-  Th^^con^kiuion  of 
stitutions  were  fitted.  No  man  can  tell  how  much  of  the  story  of  a  tyranny. 
the  murder  of  the  old  king  and  of  the  impiety  of  the  wicked  Tullia  is  historical ; 
but  it  is  certain  that  the  houses,  or  rather  a  strong  faction  among  them,  supported 
Tarquinius  in  his  usurpation :  nor  can  we  doubt  the  statement  that  the  aristocrat- 
ical  brotherhoods  or  societies  served  him  more  zealously  than  the  legal  assembly 
of  the  curise ;  because  these  societies  are  ever  to  be  met  with  in  the  history  of 
the  ancient  commonwealths,  as  pledged  to  one  another  for  the  interests  of  their 
order,  and  ready  to  support  those  interests  by  any  crime.  Like  Sylla,  in  after 
times,  he  crushed  the  liberties  of  the  commons,  doing  away  with  the  laws39  of 

tribes ;  which  does  not  seem  probable.     The  **  Dionysius,  IV.  14.     What  Dionysius  here 

pagus  was  in  a  manner  the  town  of  the  tribe,  calls  the  Compitalia,  and  which  he  "says  were 

or  rather  would  have  become  so,  had  this  state  kept  a  few  days  after  the  Saturnalia,  are  not 

of  things  continued.    Dionysius  connects  pagus  marked  in  the  calendars,  because,  though  the 

with  the  Greek  Trayo?,  which  is  likely  enough ;  seasons  at  which  they  fell  was  fixed,  the  day 

although  afterwards  the  word  merely  signified  was  not  so:  they  were  amongst  the  "concep- 

a  district  or  canton,  whether  in  a  plain  country,  tivse,  Ferioe,"  or  festivals  announced  every  year 

or  in  a  hilly.   Nor  do  Varro's  words  (L.  L.  V.  p.  by  the  magistrates,  of  which  the  precise  day  in 

49.  Edit.  Dordr.  1619),  "  Feriae  non  populi  sed  some  instances  varied.     (Macrobius,  Saturnal. 

montanorum  modo,  ut  Paganalibus,  qui  sunt  all-  I.  16.)    They  must  not  be  confounded  with  the 

cujtis  pagi,"  imply  that  the  Pagani  were  monta-  festival  of  the  Lares  Praestites  on  the  first  of 

ni :  for  the  whole  passage,when  rightly  stopped,  May.     The  Lares  were  the  spirits  of  the  dead, 

and  as  Miiller  has  now  printed  it,  runs  thus : —  Saiftoves,  who  watched  over  their  living  pos- 

"  Dies  Septimontium,  nominatus  ab  his  septem  terity ;  thence  Dionysius  calls  them  JJowc?,  be- 

montibus  in  queis  sita  urbs  est,  ferite  npn  populi  cause  the  heroes  were  deified  men,  like  Hesiod's 

sed  montanorum  modo :  tit  Paganalibus,  qui  <W//o»>£?,  whom  he  calls  $v\aKcs  OVTJT&V  diQpuiruv. 

sunt  ali cujus  pagi."     "  Montani"  refers  to  the  The  name  of  Lares  is  Etruscan,  Lar  is  prince  or 

inhabitants  of  the  seven  hills  (the  seven  hills  mighty  one.     Yet  as  spirits,  and  belonging  to 

of  old  Rome,  existing  before  the  time  of  Ser-  the  invisible  world,  they  were  called  also  the 

vius) ;  and  Varro  says  that  the  Septimontium  children  of  Mania  (Macrobius,  Saturnal.  I.  Y), 

was  a  festival  kept  not  by  the  whole  people,  but  a  horrible  goddess,  whose  name  was  given  to 

by  the  inhabitants  of  those  hills  only ;  just  as,  frightful  masks,  the  terror  of  children.    Mania 

at  the  Paganalia,  the  inhabitants  of  the  pagus  is  clearly  connected  with  the  Dii  Manes,  who 

alone  shared  in  the  festival.     See  Festus,  in  were  also  the  spirits  of  a  man's  departed  ances- 

Septimontio,    "Septimontio  ut  ait    Antistius  tors. 

Labeo,  hisce  montibus  Ferise,"  &c.  *  Dionysius,  IV.  9. 

*  Dionysius,  IV.  15.  "  Dionyeius,  IV.  48. 


32  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  VI. 

Servius,  and,  as  we  are  told,  destroying  the  tables  on  which  they  were  written ; 
abolishing  the  whole  system  of  the  census,  and  consequently  the  arrangement  of 
the  classes,  and  with  them  the  organization  of  the  phalanx ;  and  forbidding  even 
the  religious  meetings  of  the  Paganalia  and  Compitalia,  in  order  to  undo  all  that 
had  been  done  to  give  the  commons  strength  and  union.  Further,  it  is  expressly 
said,40  that  he  formed  his  military  force  out  of  a  small  portion  of  the  people,  and 
employed  the  great  bulk  of  them  in  servile  works,  in  the  building  of  the  Circus 
and  the  Capitoline  Temple,  and  the  completion  of  the  great  drain  or  cloaca  ;  so 
that  in  his  wars  his  army  consisted  of  his  allies,  the  Latins  and  Hernicans,  in  a 
much  greater  proportion  than  of  Romans.  His  enmity  to  the  commons  was  all  in 
the  spirit  of  Sylla ;  and  the  members  of  the  aristocratical  societies,  who  were  his 
ready  tools  in  every  act  of  confiscation,  or  legal  murder,  or  mere  assassination, 
were  faithfully  represented  by  the  agents  of  Sylla's  proscription,  by  L.  Catilina 
and  his  patrician  associates.  But  in  what  followed,  Tarquinius  showed  himself, 
like  Critias  or  Appius  Claudius,  a  mere  vulgar  tyrant,  who  preferred  himself  to 
his  order,  when  the  two  came  into  competition,  and  far  inferior  to  Sylla,  the  most 
sincere  of  aristocrats,  who,  having  secured  the  ascendancy  of  his  order,  was  con- 
tent to  resign  his  own  personal  power,  who  was  followed  therefore  by  the  noblest 
as  well  as  by  the  vilest  of  his  countrymen,  by  Pompeius  and  Catulus  no  less  than 
by  Catilina.  Thus  Tarquinius  became  hated  by  all  that  was  good  and  noble 
amongst  the  houses,  as  well  as  by  the  commons  ;  and  both  orders  cordially  joined 
to  effect  his  overthrow.  But  the  evil  of  his  tyranny  survived  him  ;  it  was  not  so 
easy  to  restore  what  he  had  destroyed  as  to  expel  him  and  his  family  :  the  com- 
mons no  longer  stood  beside  the  patricians  as  an  equal  order,  free,  wealthy,  well 
armed,  and  well  organized  ;  they  were  now  poor,  ill  armed,  and  with  no  bonds  of 
union ;  they  therefore  naturally  sunk  beneath  the  power  of  the  nobility,  and  the 
revolution  which  drove  out  the  Tarquins  established  at  Rome  not  a  free  common- 
wealth, but  an  exclusive  and  tyrannical  aristocracy. 


CHAPTER  VI, 

MISCELLANEOUS  NOTICES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  THE  ROMANS  UNDER  THEIR  KINGS. 


"Ad  nos  vix  tenuis  farrue  perlabitur  aura." 

VIRGIL,  J5n.  VII. 

THE  last  chapter  was  long,  yet  the  view  which  can  be  derived  from  it  is  imper- 
fect. Questions  must  suggest  themselves,  as  I  said  before,  to  which  it  contains 
no  answers.  Yet  it  seemed  better  to  draw  the  attention  first  to  one  main  point, 
and  to  state  that  point  as  fully  as  possible,  reserving  to  another  place  much  that 
was  needed  to  complete  the  picture.  For  instance,  the  account  of  the  classes  of 
Servius  leads  naturally  to  questions  us  to  the  wealth  of  the  Romans,  its  sources, 
its  distribution,  and  its  amount :  the  division  of  the  people  into  centuries  excites 
a  curiosity  as  to  their  numbers  :  the  mention  of  the  change  of  the  Roman  worship, 
and  the  introduction  of  Etruscan  rites,  dispose  us  to  ask,  how  these  rites  affected 
the  moral  character  of  the  people ;  what  that  character  was,  and  from  whence 
derived.  Again,  when  we  read  of  the  great  works  of  the  later  kings,  we  think 
what  advance  or  what  style  of  the  arts  was  displayed  in  them ;  and  the  laws  of 
king  Servius  written  on  tables,  with  the  poetical  and  uncertain  nature  of  the  story 
of  his  reign,  make  us  consider  what  was  the  state  of  the  human  mind,  and  what 

40  Dionysius,  IV.  44. 


CHAP.VL]  MISCELLANEOUS  NOTICES,  ETC.  33 

use  had  as  yet  been  made  of  the  great  invention  of  letters.     It  is  to  these  points, 
so  far  as  I  am  able,  that  the  following  chapter  will  be  devoted. 

I.  Niebuhr  has  almost  exhausted  the  subject  of  the  Roman  copper  money.  He 
has1  shown  its  originally  low  value,  owing  to  the  great  abundance  Of  the  wealth  of  tho 
of  the  metal ;  that  as  it  afterwards  became  scarce,  a  reduction  in  Jfkfn'J^ulffiJ*Mp. 
the  weight  of  the  coin  followed  naturally,  not  as  a  fraudulent  de-  p«raoiie^ 
preciation  of  it,  but  because  a  small  portion  of  it  was  now  as  valuable  as  a_large 
mass  had  been  before.  The  plenty  of  copper  in  early  times  is  owing  to  this,  that 
where  it  is  found,  it  exists  often  in  immense  quantities,  and  even  in  large  masses 
of  pure  metal  on  the  surface  of  the  soil.  Thus  the  Copper  Indians  of  North 
America  found  it  in  such  abundance  on  their  hills  that  they  used  it  for  all  domes- 
tic purposes  ;  but  the  supply  thus  easily  obtained  soon  became  exhausted  :  and  as 
the  Indians  have  no  knowledge  of  mining,  the  metal  is  now  comparatively  scarce. 
The  small  value  of  copper  at  Rome  is  shown  not  only  by  the  size  of  the  coins,  the 
as  having  been  at  first  a  full  pound  in  weight,  but  also  by  the  price  of  the  war- 
horse,  according  to  the  regulation  of  Servius  Tullius,  namely,  ten  thousand2  pounds 
of  copper.  This  statement,  connected  as  it  is  with  the  other  details  of  the  census, 
seems  original  and  authentic ;  nor  considering  the  great  abundance  of  cattle,  and 
other  circumstances,  is  it  inconsistent  with  the  account  in  Plutarch's  life  of  Pub- 
licola,  that  an  ox,  in  the  beginning  of  the  commonwealth,  was  worth  one  hundred 
oboli,  and  a  sheep  worth  ten  ;  nor  with  the  provisions  of  the  Aternian  law,  which 
fixed  the  price  of  the  one  at  one  hundred  ases  and  the  other  at  ten. 

The  sources  of  wealth  amongst  the  Romans,  under  their  later  kings,  were  agri- 
culture, and  also,  in  a  large  proportion,  foreign  commerce.  Agri-  rheir  prjncipri:  6mir. 
culture,  indeed,  strictly  speaking,  could  scarcely  be  called  a  source  Ce8ofwealth- 
of  wealth ;  for  the  portions  of  land  assigned  to  each  man,  even  if  from  the  begin- 
ning they  were  as  much  as  seven  jugera,  were  not  large  enough  to  allow  of  the 
growth  of  much  superfluous  produce.  The  ager  publicus,  or  undivided  public 
land,  was  indeed  of  considerable  extent,  and  this,  as  being  enjoyed  exclusively  by 
the  patricians,  might  have  been  a  source  of  great  profit.  But  in  the  earliest  times 
it  seems  probable  that  the  greatest  part  of  this  land  was  kept  as  pasture  ;3  and  only 
the  small  portions  of  two  jugera,  allotted  by  the  houses  to  their  clients,  to  be  held 
during  pleasure,  were  appropriated  to  tillage.  The  low  prices  of  sheep  and  oxen 
show  that  cattle  must  have  been  abundant ;  the  earliest  revenue,  according  to 
Pliny,  was  derived  from  pasture ;  that  is,  the  patricians  paid  so  much  to  the  state 

1  Vol.  I.  p.  474,  ct  seqq.  Ed.  2.    See  also  Mill-  licola.    Was  it  from  Timseus,  from  whom  Pliny 

ler,  Etrusker,  I.  4.  §  13.  learnt  that  Servius  Tullius  was  the  first  person 

1 "  Ad  en  uos  emendos  dena  millia  aeris  ex  pub-  who  stamped  money  at  Rome?  And  if  so,  at 
lico  data."  Livy,  I.  43.  It  has  been  doubted  what  did  he  reckon  the  as  ?  Polybius  reckoned 
whether  this  sum  be  meant  as  the  price  of  one  the  light  as  of  his  time  at  half  an  obolus,  wb'ch 
horse  or  two:  Niebuhr  supposes  that  it  includes  would  make  the  denarius,  as  it  was  already 
the  purchase  of  a  slave  to  act  as  groom,  and  also  equivalent  to  sixteen  ascs,  equal  to  eight  oboli, 
of  a  horse  for  him.  And  this  seems  confirmed  or  a  drachm,  and  one-third.  (II.  15.)  By  a  coin- 
in  some  degree  by  Festus,  who  says  that  the  Ko-  parison  with  the  Aternian  law,  one  would  sup- 
mans  used  two  horses  in  battle,  to  have  a  fresh  pose  that  the  obolus  was  meant  to  be  equivalent 
one  to  mount  when  the  first  one  was  tired ;  and  to  the  as ;  if  so,  copper  had  so  risen  in  value, 
that  the  money  given  to  furnish  these  two  hors-  that  although  the  as  of  half  an  ounce  weight  wa» 
es  was  called  Pararium.  Festus  in  "  Pararium,"  equal  to  half  an  obolus,  the  as,  when  it  weighed 
and  "  Paribus  equis."  Yet  I  find  in  Von  Rau-  twenty-four  times  as  much,  that  is,  a  full  pound, 
friers  account  of  the  prices  of  Things  in  the  mid-  had  only  been  worth  twice  as  much  ;  a  dirninu- 
dlt  <tgus  (Geschichte  der  Hohenstaufen,  V.  p.  tion  in  value  of  twelve  hundred  per  cent. 
43fi,  et  seqq.),  that  in  the  year  1097,  at  the  siege  3  "  Diu,"  says  Pliny,  XVIII.  3.  "  pascua  solum 
of  Antioch,  an  ox  was  sold  cheap  at  five  shil-  vectigal  fuerant."  Varro  says,  "  Quos  agros  non 
1'ugs  ;  and  in  1225,  at  Verona,  the  average  price  colebant  propter  silvas,  aut  id  genus  ubi  pecus 
of  a  horse  was  twenty-five  pounds.  This  is  posset  pasci,  et  possidebant,  ab  usu  suo  Saltus 
reckoning  by  the  Italian  lira  or  pound,  divided  nominarunt."  De  L.  L.  V.  §  36.  "  Possidere," 
into  twenty  solidi  or  shillings ;  but  the  value  as  Niebuhr's  readers  well  know,  is  the  proper 
of  both  the  pound  and  the  shilling  ditiered  so  term  for  the  occupation  of  the  public  land.  And 
much  in  different  times  and  places,  that  the  the  Scholiast  on  Thricydides,  1. 139,  rightly  con- 
comparison  cannot  be  depended  on  without  fur-  siders  yvs  aopiarov  to  be  equivalent  to  ol>  atrtipo- 
ther  examination.  Weshould  like  to  know  from  /i/i"/?,  because  undivided  land  was  commonly  left 
what  Greek  writer  Plutarch  borrowed  his  state-  in  pasture. 
ment  of  the  price  of  an  ox  in  the  time  of  Pub- 
3 


34  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  VI 

for  their  enjoyment  of  the  ager  publicus,  which  was  left  unenclosed  as  pastur« 
ground ;  and  all  accounts  speak  of  the  great  quantities  of  cattle  reared  in  Italy 
from  time  immemorial.  Cattle  then  may  have  been  a  source  of  wealth ;  but  com- 
merce must  have  been  so  in  a  still  greater  degree.  The  early  foundation  of  Ostia 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber,  ascribed  to  Ancus  Marcius,  could  have  had  no  object, 
unless  the  Romans  had  been  engaged  in  foreign  trade ;  and  the  treaty  with  Car- 
thage, already  alluded  to,  proves  the  same  thing  directly  and  undeniably.  In  this 
treaty  the  Romans  are  allowed  to  trade  with  Sardinia,  with  Sicily,  and  with  Af- 
rica westward  of  the  Fair  Headland,  that  is,  with  Carthage  itself,  and  all  the  coast 
westward  to  the  Pillars  of  Hercules  ;  and  it  is  much  more  according  to  the  com- 
mon course  of  things  that  this  treaty  should  have  been  made  to  regulate  a  trade 
already  in  activity,  than  to  call  it  for  the  first  time  into  existence.  By  this  com- 
merce great  fortunes  were  sure  to  be  made,  because  there  were  as  yet  so  many 
new  markets4  open  to  the  enterprising  trader,  and  none,  perhaps,  where  the  de- 
mand for  his  goods  had  been  so  steadily  and  abundantly  supplied  as  to  destroy  the 
profit  of  his  traffic.  But  although  much  wealth  must  thus  have  been  brought  into 
Rome,  it  is  another  question  how  widely  it  was  distributed.  Was  foreign  trade 
open  to  every  Roman,  or  was  it  confined  to  the  patricians  and  their  clients,  and  in 
a  still  larger  proportion  to  the  king  ?  The  king  had  large  domains  of  his  own,5 
partly  arable,  partly  pasture,  and  partly  planted  with  vines  and  olives ;  hence  he 
was  in  a  condition  to  traffic  with  foreign  countries,  and  much  of  the  Roman  com- 
merce was,  probably,  carried  on  by  the  government  for  its  own  direct  benefit,  as 
was  the  case  in  Judsea,  in  the  reign  of  Solomon.  The  patricians  also,  we  may  be 
sure,  exported,  like  the  Russian  nobility,  the  skins  and  wool  of  the  numerous  herds 
and  flocks  which  they  fed  upon  their  public  land,  and  were  the  owners  of  trading 
ships,  as  it  was  not  till  three  centuries  afterwards  that  a  law6  was  passed  witli  the 
avowed  object  of  restraining  senators,  a  term  then  become  equivalent  with  patri- 
cians, from  possessing  ships  of  a  large  burden.  Nor  can  we  suppose  that  the  new 
plebeian  centuries  of  knights,  who  had  been  chosen  from  the  richest  of  the  com- 
mons, were  excluded  from  those  commercial  dealings  which  their  order  in  later 
times  almost  monopolized.  All  these  classes,  then,  might,  and  probably  did,  be- 
come wealthy ;  but  it  may  be  doubted  whether  the  plebeian  landholders  had  the 
same  opportunities  open  to  them.  Agriculture  was  to  them  the  business  of  their 
lives ;  if  their  estates  were  ill  cultivated,  they  were  liable  to  be  degraded  from 
their  order ;  nor  had  they  the  capital  which  could  enable  them  to  enter  with 
advantage  upon  foreign  trade.  It  is  possible,  indeed,  that  foreign  trade  may  have 
been  one  of  the  privileges  of  the  higher  classes,  as  it  is  at  this  day  in  Russia  ;7  but 
surely  Niebuhr  is  not  warranted  by  the  passage  which  he  quotes  from  Dionysius, 
in  asserting  that  the  plebeians  were  excluded  from  commerce  as  well  as  from 
handicraft  occupations ;  retail  trade,8  which  is  all  that  Dionysius  speaks  of,  was 

4  Thus  Herodotus  speaks  of  the  enormous  pro-  the  term  f'/nrrfjowv,  but  I  think  that  it  is  tpndpiav 

fits  made  by  a  Samian  ship  which  accidentally  which  he  uses  in  an  improper  sense,  and  not 

found  its  way  to  Tartessus ;  observing,  rb  Si  *'/*-  KUTT^XOV.  Cicero  distinguishes  between  them  in 

K6piov  TOVTO  Jjv  aKjpaTov  TOVTOV  rJtv  xptvov.  IV.  152.  a  well-known  passage.  "  Sordidi  etiam  putandi 

6  Cicero  de  Republic^,  V.  2.  These  were  the  qui  mercantur  a  mercatoribus  quod  statim  ven- 

Greek  -s^vn,  which  the  kings  always  had  as-  dant ;  (icdnrj\oi)  opificesque  ornnes  (xapdrtxvat) 

signed  to  them.  See  Herodot.  IV.  161.  in  sordlda.  arto  yersantur.  *  '  Mercatura 

6  By  Cains  Flaminius,  a  short  time  before  the  autcm,  si  tennis  cst,  sordida  putanda  est :  sin 
second  Punic  war.    See  Livy,  XXI.  63.  inagna  et  copiosa  multa  undique  apportans,  mul- 

7  Of  the  "  Merchants  of  the  three  Guilds,"  tisque  sine  vanitate  impertiens,  non  est  admo- 
only  those  of  the  first  guild,  possessing  a  capital  duin  vituperanda."^  De  Officiis,  II.  propc  finem. 
of  at  least  fifty  thousand  francs   (something  Cicero  wrote  at  a  time  when  all  trade  was  con- 
:noT3  ,han  two  thousand  pounds),  are  allowed  sidered  degrading  to  a  senator,  and  his  language 
to  O'M'a  merchant  ships,  and  to  carry  on  foreign  breathes  the  spirit  of  modern  aristocracy.    Yet 
trade.  Those  of  the  second  guild  may  only  trade  even  he  distinguishes  between  the  merchant  and 
within  the  Russian  empire ;  those  of  the  third  the  petty  trader  or  shopkeeper.    The  plebeians 
guild  may  only  carry  on  retail  trades.      See  were  excluded  from  following  the  latter  callings 
Schnitzler,  Statistique  de  1'Empire  dc  Russie,  by_  positive  institution  ;  from  the  former  they 
p.  117,  might  have  been  virtually  excluded  by  their  pov- 

8  OVTS  Ka-irnXov  ovre  xtipoTixvnv  fiiov  e\tiv,  IX.  erfy. 

25.  It  is  true  that  Dionysius  had  just  before  used        Since  writing  the  above  note,  I  see  that  Nie- 


CHAP.  VI]  MISCELLANEOUS  NOTICES,  ETC.  35 

considered  by  the  ancients  in  a  very  different  light  from  the  wholesale  dealings  of 
the  merchant  with  foreign  countries. 

Beyond  this  we  have  scarcely  the  means  of  proceeding.  Setting  aside  the 
tyranny  ascribed  to  Tarquinius,  and  remembering  that  it  was  his  policy  to  deprive 
the  commons  of  their  lately  acquired  citizenship,  and  to  treat  them  like  subjects 
rather  than  members  of  the  state,  the  picture  given  of  the  wealth  and  greatness 
of  Judaea  under  Solomon,  may  convey  some  idea  of  the  state  of  Rome  under  its 
later  kings.  Powerful  amongst  surrounding  nations,  exposed  to  no  hostile  inva- 
sions, with  a  flourishing  agriculture,  and  an  active  commerce,  the  country  was 
great  and  prosperous  ;  and  the  king  was  enabled  to  execute  public  works  of  the 
highest  magnificence,  and  to  invest  himself  with  a  splendor  unknown  in  the  ear- 
lier times  of  the  monarchy.  The  last  Tarquinius  was  guilty  of  individual  acts  of 
oppression,  we  may  be  sure,  towards  the  patricians  no  less  than  the  plebeians ;  but 
it  was  these  last  whom  he  labored  on  system  to  depress  and  degrade,  and  whom 
he  employed,  as  Solomon  did  the  Canaanites,9  in  all  the  servile  and  laborious 
part  of  his  undertakings.  Still  the  citizens  or  patricians  themselves  found  that 
the  splendor  of  his  government  had  its  burdens  for  them  also  ;  as  the  great 
majority  of  the  Israelites,  amid  all  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  Solomon's  reign, 
and  although  exempted  from  all  servile  labor,  and  serving  only  in  honorable 
offices,10  yet  complained  that  they  had  endured  a  grievous  yoke,  and  took  the  first 
opportunity  to  relieve  themselves  from  it  by  banishing  the  house  of  Solomon  from 
among  them  forever. 

Of  the  population  of  Rome  under  its  later  kings  nothing  can  be  known  with  cer- 
tainty, unless  we  consider  as  historical  the  pretended  return  of  the 
census  taken  by  Servius  Tullius,  eighty-four  thousand  seven  hun- 
dred. Nor  is  it  possible  to  estimate  the  numbers  of  the  army  from  the  account 
of  the  centuries.  We  are  expressly  told  that  the  centuries  were  very  unequal  in 
the  number  of  men  contained  in  them  ;  and  even  with  regard  to  the  centuries  of 
the  first  class,  we  know  not  whether  they  consisted  of  any  fixed  number.  It  is 
possible  that  the  century  in  the  Roman  army,  like  the  ra&s  in  the  Athenian, 
bore  two  different  senses  ;  the  Athenian  heavy-armed  infantry  were  divided  into 
ten  ragsis,  but  the  number  contained  in  each  of  these  must  necessarily  have  been 
indefinite.  We  read,  however,  of  rotgsig  and  raf/a^oi  in  particular  expeditions,  by 
which,  apparently,  we  are  to  understand  certain  drafts  from  the  larger  ra^sis  with 
their  commanders,  and  the  numbers  here  would  be  fixed  according  to  the  force 
required  for  the  expedition.  So  the  centurise11  of  the  different  classes  must  have 
each  furnished  their  contingents  for  actual  service  on  a  certain  fixed  proportion, 
and  these  contingents  from  the  centuries  would  be  called  centuries  themselves  ; 
but  we  do  not  know  either  their  actual  force,  or  their  force  comparatively  with  one 
another ;  a  century  of  the  fifth  class,  consisting  of  light-armed  soldiers,  must  have 
contained  many  more  men  than  a  century  of  heavy-armed  soldiers  of  the  first 
class. 

II.  It  is  difficult  to  form  a  clear  idea  of  the  moral  character  of  the  Roman  peo- 
ple under  its  kings,  because  we  cannot  be  sure  that  the  pictures  Moral  »r.af  i»iit|«i 
handed  down  to  us  of  that  period  were  not  copied  from  the  man-  mm"0'" 
ners  of  a  later  time,  and  thus  represent,  in  fact,  the  state  of  the  commonwealth 
rather  than  that  of  the  monarchy.  Thus  the  simple  habits  of  Lucretia  seem  cop- 
ied from  the  matrons  of  the  republic  in  the  time  of  its  early  poverty,  and  cannot 
safely  be  ascribed  to  the  princesses  of  the  magnificent  house  of  the  Tarquinii. 
Again,  we  can  scarcely  tell  how  far  we  may  carry  back  the  origin  of  those  char- 

buhr  has  himself  tacitly  corrected  his  mistake  10  1  Kings,  v.  22.  Compare  xii.  4-16. 
iii  the  second  volume,  p.  450,  2d  Ed.  by  trans-  "  I  propose  to  reserve  all  consideration  of  tho 
lating  /C.I'TTT/AO*  in  this  same  passage  of  Diony-  numbers  and  constitution  of  the  early  Roman 
sius,  "  wer  Kramjiandel  crwahlte,"  instead  legion  for  the  next  volume,  when  we  shall  for 
of  "Handel."  "  Kramhandel"  is  "retail  the  first  time  have  any  historical  accounts  in  do- 
trade."  tail  of  the  military  operations  of  the  Roman  ar- 
•  1  Kings,  ix.  20,  21.  mies. 


36  HISTORY  OF  ROME  [CHAP.  VI 

acieristic  points  in  the  late,:  Roman  manners,  the  absolute  authority  possessed  by 
the  head  of  a  family  over  his  wife  and  children.  But  it  is  probable  that  they  ar« 
of  great  antiquity  ;  for  the  absolute  power  of  a  father  over  his  sons  extended  only 
to  those  who  were  born  in  that  peculiar  form  of  marriage  called  Connubium,  a 
connection  which  anciently  could  only  subsist  between  persons  of  the  same  order, 
and  which  was  solemnized  by  a  peculiar  ceremony  called  Confarreatio ;  a  cere- 
mony so  sacred,  that  a  marriage  thus  contracted  could  only  be  dissolved  by  cer- 
tain unwonted  and  horrible  rites,  purposely  ordered,  as  it  seems,  to  discourage 
the  practice  of  divorce.  All  these  usages  point  to  a  very  great  antiquity,  and 
indicate  the  early  severity  of  the  Roman  domestic  manners,  and  the  habits  of  obe- 
dience which  every  citizen  learned  under  his  father's  roof.  This  severity,  however, 
did  not  imply  an  equal  purity  ;  connubium  could  only  be  contracted  with  one  wife, 
but  the  practice  of  concubinage  was  tolerated,  although  the  condition  of  a  concu- 
bine is  marked  as  disreputable  by  a  law  so  old  as  to  be  ascribed  to  Numa.12  And 
the  indecency  of  some  parts  of  the  ancient  religious  worship,  and  the  license 
allowed  at  particular  festivals,  at  marriages,  and  in  the  festal  meetings  of  men 
amongst  themselves,  belong  so  much  to  an  agricultural  people,  as  well  as  to  hu- 
man nature  in  general,  that  these,  too,  may  be  safely  presumed  to  be  coeval  with 
the  very  origin  of  the  Roman  nation. 

But  the  most  striking  point  in  the  character  of  the  Romans,  and  that  which  has 
Their  love  of  institu-  so  permanently  influenced  the  condition  of  mankind,  was  their  love 

of  institutions  and  of  order,  their  reverence  for  law,  their  habit  of 
considering  the  individual  as  living  only  for  that  society  of  which  he  was  a  mem- 
ber. This  character,  the  very  opposite  to  that  of  the  barbarian  and  the  savage, 
belongs,  apparently,  to  that  race  to  which  the  Greeks  and  Romans  both  belong,  by 
whatever  name,  Pelasgian,  Tyrrhenian,  or  Sikelian,  we  choose  to  distinguish  it.  It 
has,  indeed,  marked  the  Teutonic  race,  but  in  a  less  degree  :  the  Kelts  have  been 
strangers  to  it,  nor  do  we  find  it  developed  amongst  the  nations  of  Asia :  but  it 
strongly  characterizes  the  Dorians  in  Greece,  and  the  Romans ;  nor  is  it  wanting 
among  the  lonians,  although  in  these  last  it  was  modified  by  that  individual  freedom 
which  arose  naturally  from  the  surpassing  vigor  of  their  intellect,  the  destined  well- 
spring  of  wisdom  to  the  whole  world.  But  in  Rome,  as  at  Lacedsemon,  as  there  was 
much  less  activity  of  reason,  so  the  tendency  to  regulate  and  to  organize  was  much 
more  predominant.  Accordingly,  we  find  traces  of  this  character  in  the  very  ear- 
liest traditions  of  Roman  story.  Even  in  Romulus,  his  institutions  go  hand  in  hand 
with  his  deeds  in  arms  ;  and  the  wrath  of  the  gods  darkened  the  last  years  of  the 
warlike  Tullus,  because  he  had  neglected  the  rites  and  ordinances  established  by 
Numa.  Numa  and  Servius,  whose  memory  was  cherished  most  fondly,  were 
known  only  as  lawgivers ;  Ancus,  like  Romulus,  is  the  founder  of  institutions  as 
well  as  the  conqueror,  and  one  particular  branch  of  law  is  ascribed  to  him  as  its 
author,  the  ceremonial  to  be  observed  before  going  to  war.  The  two  Tarquinii 
are  represented  as  of  foreign  origin,  and  the  character  of  their  reigns  is  foreign 
also.  They  are  great  warriors  and  great  kings  ;  they  extend  the  dominion  of 
Rome  ;  they  enlarge  the  city,  and  embellish  it  with  great  and  magnificent  works  ; 
but  they  add  nothing  to  its  institutions  ;  and  it  was  the  crime  of  the  last  Tarquin- 
ius  to  undo  those  good  regulations  which  his  predecessor  had  appointed. 

It  is  allowed,  on  all  hands,  that  the  works  of  art  executed  in  Rome  under  the 

later  kino-s,  whether  architecture13  or  sculpture,14  were  of  Etruscan 

Oftheitateofthearts.  .     .  ,°    '         ,       ,    .  ,  -„  r,,  ,     ,  r         -^. 

origin  ;  but  what  is  meant  by  "  Etruscan,    and  how  tar  Etruscan 

12  Pellcx  aram  Junonis  ne  tangito  ...  si  tan-  been  Etruscan.  (Pliny,  XXXV.  12.)  Micali 
get,  Juiioni  crinibus  demissis  agnura  fceminam  supposes  the  temple  here  meant  to  have  beeu 
caedito.  Festus  in  "Pellex."  the  one  vowed  by  A.  Pos-'tumius,  dictator  at  the 


painting  or  sculpture,  according  to  Varro,  had 


CHAP.  VI]  MISCELLANEOUS  NOTICES,  ETC.  37 

an  was  itself  derived  from  Greece,  is  a  question  which  has  been  warmly  disputed. 
The  statue  of  Jupiter15  in  the  capitol,  and  the  four-horsed  chariot  on  the  summit 
of  the  temple,  together  with  most  of  the  statues  of  the  gods,  were  at  this  period 
wrought  in  clay ;  bronze  was  not  generally  employed  till  a  later  age.  There  is 
no  mention  of  any  paintings  in  Rome  itself  earlier  than  the  time  of  the  common- 
wealth ;  but  Pliny  speaks  of  some  frescoes  at  Ardea  and  at  Csere,  which  he  con- 
sidered to  be  older  than  the  very  foundation  of  the  city,  and  which  in  his  own  age 
preserved  the  freshness  of  their  coloring,  and  in  his  judgment  were  works  of  remark- 
able merit.  The  Capitoline  Temple16  itself  was  built  nearly  in  the  form  of  a  square, 
easli  side  being  about  two  hundred  feet  in  length ;  its  front  faced  southwards, 
towards  the  Forum  and  the  Palatine,  and  had  a  triple  row  of  pillars  before  it,  while 
a  double  ro\\r  inclosed  the  sides  of  the  temple.  These,  it  is  probable,  were  not  of 
marble,  but  made  either  of  the  stone  of  Rome  itself,  like  the  cloaca,  or  possibly 
from  the  quarries  of  Gabii  or  Alba. 

The  end  of  the  reign  of  the  last  king  of  Rome  falls  less  than  twenty  years  be- 
fore the  battle  of  Marathon.  The  ao;e  of  the  Greek  heroic  poetry  Lan-m^e  and  im.i. 

,  'i         t>  ,1       •  r    i      A  •  -  •     -I       lectual  character  of  the 

was  long  since  past ;  the  evils  ot  the  iron  age,  ot  that  imperfect  civil-  Romans. 
ization,  when  legal  oppression  has  succeeded  to  the  mere  violence  of  the  plun- 
derer and  the  conqueror,  had  been  bewailed  by  Hesiod  three  centuries  earlier ; 
Theognis  had  mourned  over  the  sinking  importance  of  noble  birth,  and  the  grow- 
ing influence  of  riches  ;  the  old  aristocracies  had  been  overthrown  by  single  ty- 
rants, and  these,  again,  had  everywhere  yielded  to  the  power  of  aristocracies  under 
a  mitigated  form,  which  in  some  instances  admitted  a  mixture  of  popular  freedom. 
Alcseus  and  Sappho  had  been  dead  for  more  than  half  a  century ;  Simonides  was 
in  the  vigor  of  life ;  and  prose  history  had  already  been  attempted  by  Hecatseus 
of  Miletus.  Of  the  works  of  these  last,  indeed,  only  fragments  have  descended  to 
us ;  but  their  entire  writings,  together  with  those  of  many  other  earlier  poets,  scat- 
tered up  and  down  through  a  period  of  more  than  two  hundred  years,  existed  till 
the  general  wreck  of  ancient  literature,  and  furnished  abundant  monuments  of  the 
vigor  of  the  Greek  mind,  long  before  the  period  when  history  began  faithfully  to 
record  particular  events.  But  of  the  Roman  mind  under  the  kings,  Cicero  knew 
no  more  than  we  do.  He  had  seen  no  works  of  that  period,  whether  of  historians 
or  of  poets ;  he  had  never  heard  the  name  of  a  single  individual  whose  genius  had 
made  it  famous,  and  had  preserved  its  memory,  together  with  his  own.  A  cer- 
tain number  of  laws  ascribed  to  the  kings,  and  preserved,  whether  on  tables  of 
wood  or  brass,  in  the  capitol,  or  in  the  collection  of  the  jurist  Papirius,  were  almost 
the  sole  monuments  which  could  illustrate  the  spirit  of  the  early  ages  of  the  Ro- 

15  Pliny,  XXXV.  12,  quotes  Varro,  as  saying  term  of  the  Etruscans,  properly  so  called,  the 
"  Turrianum  a  Fregellis  accitum,  cui  locaret  conquerors  of  the  Tyrrhenian  Pelasgians,  or  of 
Tarquinius  Prisons  effigiem  Jovis  in  capitolio  these  Tyrrheno-Pelasgians  themselves,  who 
dicandam."  He  had  just  before  said  that  all  the  must  have  held  Agylla  at  least,  if  not  other  places 
images  of  this  period  were  Etruscan ;  how,  then,  on  the  coast,  down  to  the  time  of  the  last  Kings 
do  we  find  the  statue  of  Jupiter  himself  ascribed  of  Borne ;  or,  again,  how  much  of  Etruscan  art 
to  an  artist  of  Fregellse,  a  Volscian  town  on  the  was  introduced  directly  into  Italy  from  Greece 
Livis,  with  which  the  Komans  in  Tarquinius'  itself,  as  is  indicated  in  the  story  of  Demaratus 
reign  are  not  known  to  have  had  any  connec-  coming  from  Corinth  to  Tarqv  inii,  with  the  art- 
tion  ?  Besides,  "  Turrianus"  is  apparently  only  ists  Euchir  and  Eugrammus,  u  Cunning  hand" 
another  form  of  "  Tyrrhenus,"  and  seems  to  and  "Cunning  carver?"  The  paintings  at  Ar- 
mark  the  artist  as  ar.  Etruscan.  Are  we,  then,  dea  and  Csere,  mentioned  by  Pliny,  both  occur 
to  read  Fregenae  instead  of  Fregellse,  or  are  we  in  towns  of  Pelasgian  origin ;  and  the  arts  may 
to  suppose  the  artist's  fame  to  have  been  so  emi-  have  thus  been  cultivated  to  a  certain,  degree  in 
nent  that  the  people  of  Fregellso  had  first  invi-  Italy,  even  before  the  beginning  of  any  commu- 
ted him  thither  from  his  own  country,  and  the  nication  with  Greece.  But  the  vases  and  other 
Koman  king  afterwards  brought  him  from  Fre-  monuments  now  found  in  Etruscan  towns,  in 
gellae  to  Borne  ?  In  this  manner,  Poly  crates  of  the  ruins  of  Tarquinii,  for  instance,  and  of  Vulci, 
Samos  sent  for  Democedes,  the  physician,  from  belong  to  a  later  period,  and  are  either  actually 
Athens ;  and  the  Athenians  had  invited  him  of  Greek  workmanship,  or  were  executed  by 
from  ^Egina,  where  he  had  first  settled  after  Etruscans  to  whom  Greek  art  was  familiar.  See 
leaving  his  own  country,  Croton.  Herodotus,  M.  Bunsen's  "  Discours,"  in  the  6th  volume  of 
III.  131.  the  Annals  of  the  Antiquarian  Institute  of  Kome, 

But  the  question  still  returns,  "What  is  meant  p.  40,  &c. 
by  Etruscan  art?     Are  we  to  understand  this        16  Dionysius  IV.  61. 


38  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  VI 

man  people.  But  even  these,  to  judge  from  the  few  extracts  with  which  we  are 
acquainted,  must  have  been  modernized  in  their  language ;  for  the  Latin  of  a  law 
ascribed  to  Servius  Tullius,  is  perfectly  intelligible,  and  not  more  ancient  in  its 
forms  than  that  of  the  fifth  century  of  Rome ;  whereas  the  few  genuine  monu- 
ments of  the  earliest  times,  the  Hymns  of  the  Salii,  and  of  the  Brotherhood  of 
Husbandry,  Fratres  Arvales,  required  to  be  interpreted  to  the  Romans  of  Cicero's 
time,  like  a  foreign  language ;  and  of  the  hymn  of  the  Fratres  Arvales  we  can 
ourselves  judge,  for  it  has  been  accidentally  preserved  to  our  days,  and  the  mean- 
ing of  nearly  half  of  it  is  only  to  be  guessed  at.  This  agrees  with  what  Poiybius 
says  of  the  language  of  the  treaty  between  Rome  and  Carthage,  concluded  in  the 
first  year  of  the  commonwealth ;  it  was  so  unlike  the  Latin  of  his  own  time,  the 
end  of  the  sixth  and  beginning  of  the  seventh  century  of  Rome,  that  even  those 
who  understood  it  best  found  some  things  in  it  which,  with  their  best  attention, 
they  could  scarcely  explain.  Thus,  although  verses  were  undoubtedly  made  and 
sung  in  the  times  of  the  kings,  at  funerals  and  at  feasts,  in  commemoration  of  the 
worthy  deeds  of  the  noblest  of  the  Romans  ;  and  although  some  of  the  actual  sto- 
ries of  the  kings  may,  perhaps,  have  come  down  from  this  source,  yet  it  does  not 
appear  that  they  were  ever  written,  and  thus  they  were  altered  from  one  genera- 
tion to  another,  nor  can  any  one  tell  at  what  time  they  attained  to  their  present 
shape.  Traces  of  a  period  much  later  than  that  of  the  kings  may  be  discerned  in 
them  ;  and  I  see  no  reason  to  differ  from  the  opinion  of  Niebuhr,  who  thinks  that 
as  we  now  have  them  they  are  not  earlier  than  the  restoration  of  the  city  after 
the  invasion  of  the  Gauls. 

If  this  be  so,  there  rests  a  veil  not  to  be  removed,  not  only  on  the  particular 
history  of  the  early  Romans,  but  on  that  which  we  should  much  more  desire  to 
know,  and  which  in  the  case  of  Greece  stands  forth  in  such  full  light,  the  nature 
and  power  of  their  genius ;  what  they  thought,  what  they  hated,  and  what  they 
loved.  Yet  although  the  legends  of  the  early  Roman  story  are  neither  historical, 
nor  yet  coeval  with  the  subjects  which  they  celebrate,  still  their  fame  is  so  great, 
and  their  beauty  and  interest  so  surpassing,  that  it  would  be  unpardonable  to  sacri- 
fice them  altogether  to  the  spirit  of  inquiry  and  of  fact,  and  to  exclude,  them  from 
the  plaee  which  they  have  so  long  held  in  Roman  history.  Nor  shall  I  complain 
of  my  readers,  if  they  pass  over  with  indifference  these  attempts  of  mine  to  put 
together  the  meagre  fragments  of  our  knowledge,  and  to  present  them  with  an 
outline  of  the  times  of  the  kings,  at  once  incomplete  and  without  spirit ;  while 
they  read  with  eager  interest  the  immortal  story  of  the  fall  of  Tarquinius,  and  the 
wars  with  Porsenna  and  the  Latins,  as  it  has  been  handed  down  to  us  in  the  rich 
coloring  of  the  old  heroic  lays  of  Rome. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  BANISHING  OF  KING  TARQUINIUS  AND  HIS  HOUSE,  AND  OE 
THEIR  ATTEMPTS  TO  GET  THEMSELVES  BROUGHT  BACK  AGAIN. 


rbam 


"  Vis  et  Tarquinios  regea,  animamque  superl 
Ultoris  Bruti,  fascesque  videre  receptos?" 

VIRGIL,  JEn.  VI. 

WHILE  king  Tarquinius  was  at  the  height  of  his  greatness,  it  chanced  upon  a  time, 
that  from  the  altar1  in  the  court  of  his  palace  there  crawled  out  a  J^jjj1^  ^varqili"'j6' 
snake,  which  devoured  the  offerings  laid  on  the  altar.  So  the  king  gyia  bis  pai*e«,  ««•<: 
thought  it  not  enough  to  consult  the  soothsayers  of  the  Etruscans  L*C«US  B"ut"'\8o Tin. 

i°i<ii*,ii«i  T  «   t_«  TV    i       su'1  t*16  oracle  of  Del- 

whom  he  had  with  him,  but  he  sent  two  ot  ms  own  sons  to  Del-  phi. 
phi,  to  ask  counsel  of  the  oracle  of  the  Greeks  ;  for  the  oracle  of  Delphi*  was  fa- 
mous in  all  lands.  So  his  sons  Titus  and  Aruns  went  to  Delphi,  and  they  took  with 
them  their  cousin  Lucius  Junius,  whom  men  call  Brutus,  that  is,  the  Dullard  ;  for  he 
seemed  to  be  wholly  without  wit,  and  he  would  eat  wild  figs  with  honey.3  This 
Lucius  was  not  really  dull,  but  very  subtle;  and  it  was  for  fear  of  his  uncle's 
cruelty,  that  he  made  himself  as  one  without  sense ;  for  he  was  very  rich,  and  he 
feared  lest  king  Tarquinius  should  kill  him  for  the  sake  of  his  inheritance.  So  when 
he  went  to  Delphi  he  carried  with  him  a  staff  of  horn,  and  the  staff  was  hollow,  and 
it  was  filled  within  with  gold,  and  he  gave  the  staff  to  the  oracle4  as  a  likeness 
of  himself ;  for  though  he  seemed  dull,  and  of  no  account  to  look  upon,  yet  he  had 
a  golden  wit  within.  When  the  three  young  men  had  performed  the  king's  bid- 
ding, they  asked  the  oracle  for  themselves,  and  they  said,  "  0  Lord  Apollo,  tell 
us  which  of  us  shall  be  king  in  Rome  ?"  Then  there  came  a  voice  from  the  sanc- 
tuary and  said,  "  Whichever  of  you  shall  first  kiss  his  mother."  So  the  sons  of 
Tarquinius  agreed  to  draw  lots  between  themselves,  which  of  them  should  first 
kiss  their  mother,  when  they  should  have  returned  to  Rome  ;  and  they  said  they 
would  keep  the  oracle  secret  from  their  brother  Sextus,  lest  he  should  be  king 
rather  than  they.  But  Lucius  understood  the  mind  of  the  oracle  better ;  so  as 
they  all  went  down  from  the  temple,  he  stumbled  as  if  by  chance,  and  fell  with 
his  face  to  the  earth,  and  kissed  the  earth ;  for  he  said,  "  The  earth  is  the  true 
mother  of  us  all." 

Now  when  they  came  back  to  Rome,  king  Tarquinius  was  at  war  with  the  peo- 
ple of  Ardea  ;5  and  as  the  city  was  strong,  his  army  lay  a  long  HO 
while  before  it,  till  it  should  be  forced  to  yield  through  famine.  d 
So  the  Romans  had  leisure  for  feasting  and  for  diverting  them-  ^ 
selves  :  and  once  Titus  and  Aruns6  were  supping  with  their  brother  jud°ed  thl 


,he  worthiest. 


1  Ovid,  Fasti,  II.  711.  ing  them  when  just  taken  out  of  it,  -i.  e.  with  the 
Ecce,  nefas  visu,  mediis  altaribus  anguis  honey  clinging  all  about  them.   Compare  Plau- 
Exit,  et  extinctis  ignibus  exta  rapit.  tus,  Merc.  I.  2,  28,  "Resinam  ex  melle  devora- 

2  Livy,  I.  56,  maxime  inclitum  in  terris  oracu-  to,"  where  the  sense  of  the  preposition  can  hard- 
lum.    The  story  of  the  last  of  the  Roman  kings  ly  be  distinguished  from  that  of  "  cum."   Grossi 
sending  to  consult  the  oracle  at  Delphi,  is  in  it-  and  grossuli  are  imperfect  and  unripe  figs  ;  ei- 
eelf  nothing  improbable.  We  read  of  the  Agyl-  ther  those  of  the  wild  fig  which-  never  come  to 
Iseans  of  Agylla  or  Caere  doing  the  same  thing  perfection,  or  the  young  fruit  of  the  cultivated 
at  an  earlier  period.    Herodotus,  I.  167.    These  fig  gathered  before  its  time. 

were  Tyrrhenians,  or  Pelasgians ;  and  there  was        4  Per  ambages  effigiern  ingenii  sui.    Livy,  L 

a  sufficient  mixture  of  the  same  race  in  the  Ro-  56. 

man  people,  to  give  them  a  natural  connection        8  Livy,  I.  57.    This  is  one  of  the  incongrui- 

with  the  religion  of  Greece.  ties  of  the  story.    Ardea,  in  the  first  year  of  the 

3  A.  Postumius  Albinus,  cotemporary  with  commonwealth,  is  mentioned  as  one  of  the  de- 
Cato  the  censor,  quoted  by  MacroVius,  Satur-  pendent  allies  of  Rome.     See  the  famous  treaty 
nalia,  II.  16,    Grossulos  ex  melle  edebat.    "  Ex  with  Carthage,  as  given  by  Polybius,  III.  22. 
suelle,"  dipping  them  into  the  honey,  and  eat-        6  J-ivy,  I.  57. 


40  ,  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.VIL 

Sextus,  and  their  cousin  Tarquinius  of  Collatia  was  supping  with  them.  And 
they  disputed  about  their  wives,  whose  wife  of  them  all  was  the  worthiest  lady. 
Then  said  Tarquinius  of  Collatia,  "  Let  us  go  and  see  with  our  own  eyes  what  our 
wives  are  doing,  so  shall  we  know  which  is  the  worthiest."  Upon  this  they  all 
mounted  their  horses,  and  rode  first  to  Rome ;  and  there  they  found  the  wives  of 
Titus,  and  of  Aruns,  and  of  Sextus,  feasting  and  making  merry.  They  then  rode 
on  to  Collatia,  and  it  was  late  in  the  night,  but  they  found  Lucretia,  the  wife  of 
Tarquinius  of  Collatia,  neither  feasting  nor  yet  sleeping,  but  she  was  sitting  with  all 
her  handmaids  around  her,  and  all  were  working  at  the  loom.  So  when  they  saw 
this,  they  all  said,  "  Lucretia  is  the  worthiest  lady."  And  she  entertained  her 
husband  and  his  kinsmen,  and  after  that  they  rode  back  to  the  camp  before 
Ardea. 

But  a  spirit  of  wicked  passion7  seized  upon  Sextus,  and  a  few  days  afterwards 
8efxtuse  Tarkqeinniused  f  ^ie  wen^  alone  to  Collatia,  and  Lucretia  received  him  hospitably, 
gainst  Lucretia.  for  he  was  her  husband's  kinsman.  At  midnight  he  arose  and  went 

to  her  chamber,  and  he  said  that  if  she  yielded  not  to  him,  he  would  slay  her  and 
one  of  her  slaves  with  her,  and  would  say  to  her  husband  that  he  had  slain  her  in  her 
adultery.  So  when  Sextus  had  accomplished  his  wicked  purpose,  he  went  back 
again  to  the  camp. 

Then  Lucretia8  sent  in  haste  to  Rome,  to  pray  that  her  father  Spurius  Lucretius 
HOW  Lneretia,  having  ton  "would  come  to  her;  and  she  sent  to  Ardea  to  summon  her  husband. 
b^Zn^llerluisiew  Her  father  brought  along  with  him  Publius  Valerius,  and  her  hus- 
band brought  with  him  Lucius  Junius,  whom  men  call  Brutus. 
When  they  arrived,  they  asked  earnestly,  "  Is  all  well  ?"  Then  she  told  them 
of  the  wicked  deed  of  Sextus,  and  she  said,  "  If  ye  be  men,  avenge  it."  And 
they  all  swore  to  her  that  they  would  avenge  it.  Then  she  said  again,  "  I  am 
not  guilty  ;  yet  must  I  too  share  in  the  punishment  of  this  deed,  lest  any  should 
think  that  they  may  be  false  to  their  husbands  and  live."  And  she  drew  a  knife 
from  her  bosom,  and  stabbed  herself  to  the  heart. 

At  that  sight9  her  husband  and  her  father  cried  aloud  ;  but  Lucius  drew  the 
knife  from  the  wound,  and  held  it  up,  and  said,  "  By  this  blood 

iow  her  father  and  her    T  -  T        .,,       .    .         ,  .        ,         i  i  •  rn  •     • 

husband  and  Lucms  Bru-  1  swear,  that  I  will  visit  this  deed  upon  kmp;  Tarquinius,  and  all 

tus  excited  the  people  to    ,.  ,  v     11  r  i          i  • 

drive  put  king  Turqumius  his  accursed  race  ;  neither  shall  any  man  hereafter  be  king  m 
Rome,  lest  he  do  the  like  wickedness."  And  he  gave  the  knife 
to  her  husband,  and  to  her  father,  and  to  Publius  Valerius.  They  marvelled  to 
hear  such  words  from  him  whom  men  called  dull ;  but  they  swore  also,  and  they 
took  up  the  body  of  Lucretia,  and  carried  it  down  into  the  forum ;  and  they  said, 
"Behold  the  deeds  of  the  wicked  family  of  Tarquinius."  All  the  people  of 
Collatia  were  moved,  and  the  men  took  up  arms,  and  they  set  a  guard  at  the  gates, 
that  none  might  go  out  to  carry  the  tidings  to  Tarquinius,  and  they  followed 
Lucius  to  Rome.  There,  too,  all  the  people  came  together,  and  the  crier  summoned 
them  to  assemble  before  the  tribune  of  the  Celeres,  for  Lucius  held  that  office.10 
And  Lucius  spoke  to  them  of  all  the  tyranny  of  Tarquinius  and  his  sons,  and 
of  the  wicked  deed  of  Sextus.  And  the  people  in  their  curise  took  back  from 
Tarquinius  the  sovereign  power,  which  they  had  given  him,  and  they  banished 
him  and  all  his  family.  Then  the  younger  men  followed  Lucius  to  Ardea,  to 
win  over  the  army  there  to  join  them ;  and  the  city  was  left  in  the  charge  of 
Spurius  Lucretius.  But  the  wicked  Tullia  fled  in  haste  from  her  house,  and  all, 

Livy,  I.  58.  with  Gravis  ;  this  would  show  a  connexion  be- 

8  Livy,  I.  58.  tween  the  word  and  the  Greek  (3apvs.     It  is 

*  Livy,  I.  59.  very  possible  that  its  early  signification,  as  a 

10  The  tribune  of  the  Celeres  was  to  the  king  cognomen,  may  have  differed  very  little  from 

what  the  master  of  the  horse  was  afterwards  to  that  of  Severus.    When  the  signification  of 

the  dictator.    It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  "  dulness"    came  to  be  more  confirmed,  the 

put  the  extravagance  of  the  story,  in  represent-  story  of  Brutus'  pretended  idiotcy  would  be 

ing  Brutus,  though  a  reputed  idiot,  yet  invested  invented  to  explain  the  fact  of  so  wise  a  man 

with  such  an  important  office.      Festus  says  being  called  by  such  a  name. 

that  Brutus,  in  old  Latin,  was  synonymous 


CIIAP.  VII. J  THE  BANISHING  OF  KING  TARQUINIUS,  ETC.  41 

both  men  and  women,  cursed  her  as  she  passed,  and  prayed  that  the  furies  of 
her  father's  blood  might  visit  her  with  vengeance. 

Meanwhile11  king  Tarquinius  set  out  with  speed  to  Rome  to  put  down  the 
tumult.  But  Lucius  turned  aside  from  the  road,  that  he  might  or «.e driving oiitofwnj? 
not  meet  him,  and  came  to  the  camp ;  and  the  soldiers  joyfully  ^S^StJSiiSH'jSm 
received  him,  and  they  drove  out  the  sons  of  Tarquinius.  King  aPPomtcd »  his  room- 
Tarquinius  came  to  Rome,  but  the  gates  were  shut,  and  they  declared  to  him, 
from  the  walls,  the  sentence  of  banishment  which  had  been  passed  againstJiim 
and  his  family.  So  he  yielded  to  his  fortune,  and  went  to  live  at  Caere  with 
his  sons  Titus  and  Aruns.  His  other  son,  Sextus,13  went  to  Gabii,  and  the  people 
there,  remembering  how  he  had  betrayed  them  to  his  father,  slew  him.  Then 
the  army  left  the  camp  before  Ardea,  and  went  back  to  Rome.  And  all  men 
said,  "  Let  us  follow  the  good  laws  of  the  good  king  Servius  ;  and  let  us  meet  in 
our  centuries,  according  as  he  directed,13  and  let  us  choose  two  men  year  by  year 
to  govern  us,  instead  of  a  king."  Then  the  people  met  in  their  centuries  in  the 
Field  of  Mars,  and  they  chose  two  men  to  rule  over  them,  Lucius  Junius, 
whom  men  called  Brutus,  and  Lucius  Tarquinius  of  Collatia. 

But  the  people14  were  afraid  of  Lucius  Tarquinius  for  his  name's  sake,  for  it  seem- 
ed as  though  a  Tarquinius  was  still  king  over  them.  So  they  prayed  How  Luciu9  Tnrquinius, 
him  to  depart  from  Rome,  and  he  went  and  took  all  his  goods  tasdrf^uout^oforhu' 
with  him,  and  settled  himself  at  Lavinium.  Then  the  senate  name'88ake- 
and  the  people  decreed  that  all  the  house  of  the  Tarquinii  should  be  banished, 
even  though  they  were  not  of  the  king's  family.  And  the  people  met  again  in 
their  centuries,  and  chose  Publius  Valerius  to  rule  over  them  together  with 
Brutus,  in  the  room  of  Lucius  Tarquinius  of  Collatia. 

Now  at  this  time15  many  of  the  laws  of  the  good  king  Servius  were  restored, 
which  Tarquinius  the  tyrant  had  overthrown^  For  the  commons  The  ,aws of the good king 
again  chose  their  own  judges,  to  try  all  causes  between  a  man  Serviu* restored- 
and  his  neighbor ;  and  they  had  again  their  meetings  and  their  sacrifices  in  the 
city  and  in  the  country,  every  man  in  his  own  tribe  and  in  his  own  district.  And 
lest  there  should  seem  to  be  two  kings  instead  of  one,  it  was  ordered  that  one 
only  of  the  two  should  bear  rule  at  one  time,  and  that  the  lictors,  with  their 
rods  and  axes,  should  walk  before  him  alone.  And  the  two  were  to  bear  rule 
month  by  month. 

Then  king  Tarquinius16  sent  to  Rome,  to  ask  for  all  the  goods  that  had  belonged 
to  him ;  and  the  senate,  after  a  while,  decreed  that  the  goods 
should  be  given  back.  But  those  whom  he  had  sent  to  Rome  RZ^S  plotted  t^SSf 
to  ask  for  his  goods,  had  meetings  with  many  young  men  of 
noble  birth,  and  a  plot  was  laid  to  bring  back  king  Tarquinius.  So  the  young 
men  wrote  letters  to  Tarquinius,  pledging  to  him  their  faith,  and  among  them 
were  Titus  and  Tiberius,  the  sons  of  Brutus.  But  a  slave  happened  to  overhear 
them  talking  together,  and  when  he  knew  that  the  letters  were  to  be  given  to 
the  messengers  of  Tarquinius,  he  went  and  told  all  that  he  had  heard  to  Brutus 
and  to  Publius  Valerius.  Then  they  came  and  seized  the  young  men  and  their 
letters,  and  so  the  plot  was  broken  up. 

After  this  there  was  a  strange  and  piteous  sight  to  behold.     Brutus  and 
Publius17  sat  on  their  judgment-seats  in  the  Forum,  and  the  younar 

•L  i  j.  -i      r  .1  mi  T»  Tii-i',  How  Lucius  Brr.'ns  gat  in 

men  were  brought  before  them.    Then  Brutus  bade  the  lictors  to  judKment  upon  hit  own 

bind  his  own  two  sons,  Titus  and  Tiberius,  together  with  the  others, 

and  to  scourge  them  with  rods,  according  to  the  law.      And  after  they  had  been 

1  Livy,  I.  60.  M  Consules  inde  cpmitiis  centuriatis — ex  com- 
^  w  Livy,  I.  60.    Dionysius  makes  Sextus  live    mentariis  Ser.  Tullii  creati  sunt.     Livy,  I.  60. 

till  the  battle  by  the  lake  Eegillus,  and  describes  "  Livy,  II.  2. 

him  as  killed  there.    When  the  stories  differ,  15  Dionysius,  V.  2. 

I  have  generally  followed  Livy,  as  the  writer  16  Livy,  II.  3,  4. 

of  the  best  taste,  and  likely  to  give  the  oldest  "  Livy,  II.  5. 
and  most  poetical  version  of  them. 


42  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  VII 

scourged,  the  lictors  struck  off  their  heads  with  their  axes,  before  the  eyes  of 
their  father ;  and  Brutus  neither  stirred  from  his  seat,  nor  turned  away  his  eyes 
from  the  sight,  yet  men  saw  as  they  looked  on  him  that  his  heart  was  grieving 
inwardly18  over  his  children.  Then  they  marvelled  at  him,  because  he  had  loved 
justice  more  than  his  own  blood,  and  had  not  spared  his  own  children  when 
they  had  been  false  to  their  country,  and  had  offended  against  the  law. 

When19  king  Tarquinius  found  that  the  plot  was  broken  up,  he  persuaded  the 
HOW  the  popie  of  Veil  people  of  Veil  and  the  people  of  Tarquinii,  cities  of  the  Etruscans, 
SnSeTnmns^ndiw"  to  try  to  bring  him  back  to  Rome  by  force  of  arms.  So  they 
Bmus  w«  siau,  assembled  their  armies,  and  Tarquinius  led  them  within  the 
Roman  border.  Brutus  and  Publius  led  the  Romans  out  to  meet  them,  and  it 
chanced  that  Brutus  with  the  Roman  horsemen,  and  Aruns,  the  son  of  king 
Tarquinius,  with  the  Etruscan  horse,  met  each  other  in  advance  of  the  main 
battles.  Aruns  seeing  Brutus  in  his  kingly  robe,  and  with  the  lictors  of  a  king 
around  him,  levelled  his  spear,  and  spurred  his  horse  against  him.  Brutus  met 
him,  and  each  ran  his  spear  through  the  body  of  the  other,  and  they  both  fell 
dead.  Then  the  horsemen  on  both  parts  fought,  and  afterwards  the  main  battles, 
and  the  Veientians  were  beaten,  but  the  Tarquinians  beat  the  Romans,  and  the 
battle  was  neither  won  nor  lost ;  but  in  the  night  there  came  a  voice  out  of  the 
wood  that  was  hard  by,  and  it  said,  "  One  man  more20  has  fallen  on  the  part  of 
the  Etruscans  than  on  the  part  of  the  Romans ;  the  Romans  are  to  conquer  in 
the  war."  At  this  the  Etruscans  were  afraid,  and  believing  the  voice,  they 
immediately  marched  home  to  their  own  country,  while  the  Romans  took  up 
Brutus,  and  carried  him  home  and  buried  him ;  and  Publius  made  an  oration  in 
his  praise,  and  all  the  matrons  of-  Rome  mourned  for  him  for  a  whole  year, 
because  he  had  avenged  Lucretia  well. 

When  Brutus  was  dead,21  Publius  ruled  over  the  people  himself ;  and  he  began 
HOW  Pubiius  Valerius  w«  to  build  a  great  and  strong  house  on  the  top  of  the  hill  Velia, 
%!%?£<£££&.  which  looks  down  upon  the  Forum.22  This  made  the  people  say, 
"  Publius  wants  to  become  a  king,  and  is  building  a  house  in  a 
strong  place,  as  if  for  a  citadel  where  he  may  live  with  his  guards,  and  oppress 
us."  But  he  called  the  people  together,  and  when  he  went  down  to  them,  the 
lictors  who  walked  before  him  lowered  the  rods  and  the  axes  which  they  bore,  to 
show  that  he  owned  the  people  to  be  greater  than  himself.  He  complained  that 
they  had  mistrusted  him,  and  he  said  that  he  would  not  build  his  house  on  the 
top  of  the  hill  Velia,  but  at  the  bottom  of  it,  and  his  house  should  be  no  strong- 
hold. And  he  called  on  them  to  make  a  law,23  that  whoever  should  try  to  make 
himself  king  should  be  accursed,  and  whosoever  would  might  slay  him.  Also, 
that  if  a  magistrate  were  going  to  scourge  or  kill  any  citizen,  he  might  carry  his 
cause  before  the  people,  and  they  should  judge  him.  When  these  laws  were 
passed,  all  men  said,  "  Publius  is  a  lover  of  the  people,  and  seeks  their  good  :" 
and  he  was  called  Poplicola,  which  means,  "  the  people's  friend/'  from  that  day 
forward. 

Then  Publius  called  the  people  together24  in  their  centuries,  and  they  chose 
Spurius  Lucretius,  the  father  of  Lucretia,  to  be  their  magistrate  for  the  year  in 
the  room  of  Brutus.  But  he  was  an  old  man,  and  his  strength  was  so  much 
gone,  that  after  a  few  days  he  died.  They  then  chose  in  his  room  Marcus 
Horatius.25 

Now  Publius  and  Marcus  cast  lots  which  should  dedicate  the  temple  to  Jupiter 

18  Eminente  ammo  patrio  inter  publicse  pcense  Palatine,  up  which  the  Via  Sacra  passes.    Th« 
ministerium.    Livy,  II.  5.  arch  of  Titus  is  on  the  Velian  Hill. 

19  Livy,  II.  6.  23  Livy,  II.  8. 

20  Uno  plus  Etruscorum  cecidisse  in  acie ;  24  Livy,  II.  8. 

rincere  bello  Romanian.    Livy,  II.  7.  *  The  treaty  with  Carthage  makes  M.  Hura- 

31  Livy,  II.  7.  tins  the  colleague  of  Brutus :  another  proof  of 

w  It  is  the  rising  ground  just  under  the    the   irreconcilableness   of  the   common  story 

with  the  real  but  lost  history. 


CHAP.  VII]  THE  BANISHING  OF  KING  TARQUINIUS,  ETC.  43 

on  the  hill  of  the  Capitol,  which  king  Tarquinius  had  built  ;  and  Qf  ^  dedicating  of  iht 
the  lot  fell  to  Marcus,  to  the  great  discontent  of  the  friends  of  tempiUn  the  cSpitoi  by 

.  ,      ,  .  Marcus  Horauus. 

Publius.  5  So  when  Marcus  was  going  to  begin  the  dedication, 
and  had  his  hand  on  the  door-post  of  the  temple,  and  was  speaking  the  set 
words  of  prayer,  there  came  a  man  running  to  tell  him  that  his  son  was 
dead.  But  he  said,  "Then  let  them  carry  him  out  and  bury  him;"  and  he 
neither  wept,  nor  lamented,  for  the  words  of  lamentation  ought  not  to  be 
spoken  when  men  are  praying  to  the  blessed  gods,  and  dedicating  a  temple 
to  their  honor.  So  Marcus  honored  the  gods  above  his  son,  and  dedicated  the 
temple  on  the  hill  of  the  Capitol  ;  and  his  name  was  recorded  on  the  front  of 
the  temple. 

But  when  king  Tarquinius  found  that  the  Veientians  and  Tarquinians  were  not 
able  to  restore  him  to  his  kingdom,  he  went  to  Clusium,27  a  city  in  How  kin!?  pOI8eima  made 
the  farthest  part  of  Etruria,  beyond  the  Ciminian  forest,  and  be-  ^keup°tfem  uZTlck 
sought  Lars  Porsenna,23  the  king  of  Clusium,  to  aid  him.  So  For-  *°s  T^™. 
senna  raised  a  great  army,  and  marched  against  Rome,  and  attacked  the  Romans  on 
the  hill  Janiculum,  the  hill  on  the  outside  of  the  city  beyond  the  Tiber  ;  and  he 
drove  them  down  from  the  hill  into  the  city.  There  was  a  wooden  bridge  over 
the  Tiber  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill,  and  the  Etruscans  followed  close  upon  the 
Romans  to  win  the  bridge,  but  a  single  man,  named  Horatius  of  the  worthy  deed  of  HO. 
Codes,  stood  fast  upon  the  bridge,  and  faced  the  Etruscans;29  ratiui  Cocles- 
two  others  then  resolved  to  stay  with  him,  Spurius  Lartius  and  Titus  Herminius  ; 
and  these  three  men  stopped  the  Etruscans,  while  the  Romans,  who  had  -  fled 
over  the  river,  were  busy  in  cutting  away  the  bridge,  When  it  was  nearly  all 
cut  away,  Horatius  made  his  two  companions  leave  him,  and  pass  over  the 
bridge  into  the  city.  Then  he  stood  alone  on  the  bridge,  and  defied  all  the  army 
of  the  Etruscans  ;  and  they  showered  their  javelins  upon  him,  and  he  caught 
them  on  his  shield,  and  stood  yet  unhurt.  But  just  as  they  were  rushing  on 
him  to  drive  him  from  his  post  by  main  force,  the  last  beams  of  the  bridge  were 
cut  away,  and  it  all  fell  with  a  mighty  crash  into  the  river  ;  and  while  the 
Etruscans  wondered,  and  stopped  in  their  course,  Horatius  turned  and  prayed 
to  the  god  of  the  river,  "  0  father30  Tiber,  I  pray  thee  to  receive  these  arms, 
and  me  who  bear  them,  and  to  let  thy  waters  befriend  and  save  me."  Then  he 
leapt  into  the  river;  and  though  the  darts  fell  thick  around  him,  yet  they  did 
not  hit  him,  and  he  swam  across  to  the  city  safe  and  sound.31  For  this  the 
Romans  set  up  his  statue  in  the  comitium,  and  gave  him  as  much  land  as  he 
could  drive  the  plough  round  in  the  space  of  a  whole  day. 

But  the  Etruscans  still  lay  before  the  city,  and  the  Romans  suffered  much 
from  hunger.  Then  a  young  man  of  noble  blood,  Caius  Mucius32  How  Caius  Mu 
by  name,  went  to  the  senate,  and  offered  to  go  to  the  camp  of  Sa1 
the  Etruscans,  and  to  slay  king  Porsenna.  So  he  crossed  the  own  hand  'm  the  fire- 
river  and  made  his  way  into  the  camp,  and  there  he  saw  a  man  sitting  on  a  high 
place,  and  wearing  a  scarlet  robe,  and  many  coming  and  going  about  him  ;  and 
saying  to  himself,  "  This  must  be  king  Porsenna,"  he  went  up  to  his  seat  amidst 
the  crowd,  and  when  he  came  near  to  the  man  he  drew  a  dagger  from  under 
his  garment,  and  stabbed  him.  But  it  was  the  king's  scribe  whom  he  had  slain, 
who  was  the  king's  chief  officer  ;  so  he  was  seized  and  brought  before  the  king, 

Livy,  II.  8.  It  is  vain  to  attempt  to  write  a  history  of  these 

*  Livy,  II.  9.  events  ;  and  none  can  doubt  that  the  poetical 

38  "Lars,"   like   "lucumo,"  is  not  an  indi-  story,  which  alone  I  am  wishing  to  preserve, 

Tidual  name,  but  expresses  the  rank  of  the  per-  was  that  given  by  Livy. 

son,  like  «Va£.    Mi  call  connects  it  with  the  Teu-  8a  "Adolescens  nobilis,"  Livy,  II.  12.    Nie- 

tonic  word  u  Lord."  buhr  doubts  whether  the  old  story  called  him 

89  Livy,  II.  10.  by  any  other  name  than  Caius.     Mucius,  he 

**  "Tiberino    pater,   to   sancte   precor,   hrcc  thinks,  was  a  later  addition  j  because  the  Mucii 

arma  et  hunc  militetn  propitio  flumine  acci-  had  the  same  cognomen  ot  Scsevoln  ;   and  lie 

pias."    Livy,  II.  10.  considers  it  inconsistent,  because  the    Mucii 

n  Polybius  says  that  he  was  killed,  VI.  55.  were  plebeians. 


uciu, 


44  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  VII 

and  the  guards  threatened33  him  with  sharp  torments,  unless  he  would  answer 
all  their  questions.  But  he  said,  "  See  now,  how  little  I  care  for  your  torments;" 
and  he  thrust  his  right  hand  into  the  fire  that  was  burning  there  on  the  altar, 
and  he  did  not  move  it  till  it  was  quite  consumed.  Then  king  Porsenna  mar- 
velled at  his  courage,  and  said,  "  Go  thy  way,  for  thou  hast  harmed  thyself 
more  than  me  ;  and  thou  art  a  brave  man,  and  I  send  thee  back  to  Rome  unhurt 
and  free."  But  Caius  answered,  "  For  this  thou  shalt  get  more  of  my  secret 
than  thy  tortures  could  have  forced  from  me.  Three  hundred  noble  youths  of 
Rome  have  bound  themselves  by  oath  to  take  thy  life.  Mine  was  the  first 
adventure  ;  but  the  others  will  each  in  his  turn  lie  in  wait  for  thee.  I  warn  you, 
therefore,  to  look  to  thyself  well."  Then  Caius  was  let  go,  and  went  back  again 
into  the  city. 

But  king  Porsenna  was  greatly  moved,34  and  made  the  Romans  offers  of  peace, 
to  which  they  listened  gladly,  and  gave  up  the  land  beyond  the 

Of  the  pence  made    be-    _„  i-ii-ii  &          •*     *  •  /•  i         -r-r    • 

tween  king  Ponemrn  teaf  liber,  which  had  been  won  in  former  times  from  the  Veientians; 

the  Roman*:  and  of  tho  ,  ,        ,  ,  i        •>••»•>    -r       •       -t  -r»  i  •          i 

spirit  of  the  maiden  and  he  gave  back  to  them  the  lull  Jamculum.     Besides  this,  the 


Romans  gave  hostages  to  the  king,  ten  youths  and  ten  maidens, 
children  of  noble  fathers,  as  a  pledge  that  they  would  truly  keep  the  peace 
which  they  had  made.  But  it  chanced,  as  the  camp  of  the  Etruscans  was  near 
the  Tiber,  that  Cloelia,  one  of  the  maidens,  escaped  with  her  fellows,  and  fled  to 
the  brink  of  the  river,  and  as  the  Etruscans  pursued  them,  Cloelia  spoke  to  the 
other  maidens,  and  persuaded  them,  and  they  rushed  all  into  the  water,  and 
swam  across  the  river,  and  got  safely  over.  At  this  king  Porsenna  marvelled 
more  than  ever,  and  when  the  Romans  sent  back  Cloelia  and  her  fellows  to  him, 
for  they  kept  their  faith  truly,  he  bade  her  go  home  free,  and  he  gave  her  some  of 
the  youths  also  who  were  hostages,  to  choose  whom  she  would  ;  and  she  chose 
those  who  were  of  tenderest  age,  and  king  Porsenna  set  them  free.  Then  the 
Romans  gave  lands  to  Cams,  and  set  up  a  statue  of  Clcelia  in  the  highest  part 
of  the  Sacred  Way  ;  and  king  Porsenna  led  away  his  army  home  in  peace. 

After  this  king  Porsenna35  made  war  against  the  Latins,  and  his  army  was 
AOW  Tarquinius  sought  beaten,  and  fled  to  Rome  ;  and  the  Romans  received  them  kindly, 
for  aid  from  the  Latb».  and  took  care  of  faose  w]10  were  woun(ied,  and  sent  them  back 

safe  to  king  Porsenna.     For  this  the  king  gave  back  to  the  Romans  all  the  rest 

of  their  hostages  whom  he  had  still  with  him,  and  also  the  land  which  they  had 

won  from  th£  Veientians.     So  Tarquinius,  seeing  that  there  was  no  more  hope 

of  aid  from  king  Porsenna,  left  Clusium  and  went  to  Tusculum  of  the  Latins  ; 

for  Mamilius  Octavius,  the  chief  of  the  Tusculans,  had  married  his  daughter,  and 

he  hoped  that  the  Latins  would  restore  him  to  Rome,  for  their  cities  were  many, 

and  when  he  had  been  king  he  had  favored  them  rather  than  the  Romans. 

So  after  a  time  thirty  cities  of  the  Latins  joined  together  and  made  Octavius 

Mamilius  their  general,  and  declared  war  against  the  Romans. 

Of  the  war  between  the     -*T  _.     ,  ,.          _.P  ,  ,         ,  ,       ,          TP  i  i  j 

Romans  and  Latins  on  ac-  JN  low  Pubhus  Valerius  was  dead,  and  the  Romans  so  loved  and 
honored  him  that  they  buried  him  within  the  city,36  near  the  hill 
Velia,  and  all  the  matrons  of  Rome  had  mourned  for  him  for  a  whole  year  :  also 
because  the  Romans37  had  the  Sabines  for  their  enemies  as  well  as  the  Latins, 
they  had  made  one  man  to  be  their  ruler  for  a  time  instead  of  two  ;  and  he  was 
called  the  Master  of  the  people,  or  the  commander,  and  he  had  all  the  power 
which  the  kings  of  Rome  had  in  times  past.  So  Aulus  Postumius  was  appointed 
Master  of  the  people  at  this  time,  and  Titus  JEbutius  was  the  chief  or  Master  of 
the  horsemen  ;  and  they  led  out  the  whole  force  of  the  Romans,  and  met  the 
Latins  by  the  lake  Regillus,  in  the  country  of  Tusculum  ;  and  Tarquinius  himself 

83  Here  I  have  followed  Dionysius  rather  than  M  Livy,  II.  13. 

JLivy,  because  in  Livy's  story  Mucius  tells  For-  5  Livy,  II.  14,  15. 

senna  in  reward  of  his  generosity  no  more  than  x  Plutarch  in  Publbola,  23.    Livy,  1C.  16. 

he  had  told  him  at  first  as  a  mere  vaunt  to  *"  Livy,  II.  18. 
frighten  him. 


CHAP.  VIL]  THE  BANISHING  OF  KING  TARQUINIUS,  ETC.  45 

was  with  the  army  of  the  Latins,  and  his  son  and  all  the  houses  of  the  Tar- 
quinii :  for  this  was  their  last  hope,  and  fate  was  now  to  determine  whether  the 
Romans  should  be  ruled  over  by  king  Tarquinius,  or  whether  they  should  be  free 
forever. 

There  were  many  Romans  who  had  married  Latin  wives,38  and  many  Latins 
who  had  married  wives  from  among  the  Romans.  So  before  the  How  the  Roman  women 
war  began,  it  was  resolved  that  the  women  on  both  sides  might  SfhtSSSSi*^ 
leave  their  husbands  if  they  chose,  and  take  their  virgin  daughters  to  Rome> 
with  them,  and  return  to  their  own  country.  And  all  the  Latin  women,  except 
two,  remained  in  Rome  with  their  husbands  :  but  the  Roman  women  loved  Rome 
more  than  their  husbands,  and  took  their  young  daughters  with  them,  and  came 
home  to  the  houses  of  their  fathers. 

Then  the  Romans  and  the  Latins  joined  battle  by  the  lake  Regillus.39  There 
might  you  see  king  Tarquinius,  though  far  advanced  in  years,  of the  grent  battle  by  the 
yet  mounted  on  his  horse  and  bearing  his  lance  in  his  hand,  as  lttke  Refe'iUus- 
bravely  as  though  he  were  still  young.  There  was  his  son  Tarquinius,  leading  on 
to  battle  all  the  band  of  the  house  of  the  Tarquinii,  whom  the  Romans  had  ban- 
ished for  their  name's  sake,  and  who  thought  it  a  proud  thing  to  win  back  their 
country  by  their  swords,  and  to  become  again  the  royal  house,  to  give  a  king  to 
the  Romans.  There  was  Octavius  Mamilius,  of  Tusculum,  the  leader  of  all  the 
Latins,  who  said,  that  he  would  make  Tarquinius  his  father  king  once  more  in 
Rome,  and  the  Romans  should  help  the  Latins  in  all  their  wars,  and  Tusculum 
should  be  the  greatest  of  all  the  cities,  Avhose  people  went  up  together  to  sacri- 
fice to  Jupiter  of  the  Latins,  at  his  temple  on  the  high  top  of  the  mountain  of 
Alba.  And  on  the  side  of  the  Romans  might  be  seen  Aulus  Postumius,  the 
Master  of  the  people,  and  Titus  JEbutius,  the  Master  of  the  horsemen.  There 
also  was  Titus  Herminius,  who  had  fought  on  the  bridge  by  the  side  of  Horatius 
Codes,  on  the  day  when  they  saved  Rome  from  king  Porsenna.  There  was 
Marcus  Valerius,  the  brother  of  Publius,  who  said  he  would  finish  by  the  lake 
Regillus40  the  glorious  work  which  Publius  had  begun  in  Rome ;  for  Publius  had 
driven  out  Tarquinius  and  his  house,  and  had  made  them  live  as  banished  men, 
and  now  they  should  lose  their  lives  as  they  had  lost  their  country.  So  at  the 
first  onset  king  Tarquinius  levelled  his  lance,  and  rode  against  Aulus  ;  and  on 
the  left  of  the  battle,  Titus  JEbutius  spurred  his  horse  against  Octavius  Mamilius. 
But  king  Tarquinius,  before  he  reached  Aulus,  received  a  wound  in  his  side,  and 
his  followers  gathered  around  him,  and  bore  him  out  of  the  battle.  And  Titus 
and  Octavius  met  lance  to  lance,  and  Titus  struck  Octavius  on  the  breast,  and 
Octavius  ran  his  lance  through  the  arm  of  Titus.  So  Titus  withdrew  from  the 
battle,  for  his  arm  could  no  longer  wield  its  weapon ;  but  Octavius  heeded  not 
his  hurt,  but  when  he  saw  his  Latins  giving  ground,  he  called  to  the  banished 
Romans  of  the  house  of  the  Tarquinii,  and  sent  them  into  the  thick  of  the  fight. 
On  they  rushed  so  fiercely  that  neither  man  nor  horse  could  stand  before  them  ; 
for  they  thought  how  they  had  been  driven  from  their  country,  and  spoiled  of 
their  goods,  and  they  said  that  they  would  win  back  both  that  day  through  the 
blood  of  their  enemies. 

Then  Marcus  Valerius,  the  brother  of  Publius,  levelled  his  lance  and  rode  fiercely 
against  Titus  Tarquinius,  who  was  the  leader  of  the  band  of  the  How  two  hor8emen  „ 
Tarquinii.  But  Titus  drew  back,  and  sheltered  himself  amidst  tuhe'bV.ue!7ndTu"htU,-!5 
his  band ;  and  Marcus  rode  after  him  in  his  fury,  and  plunged  the  Roma"3- 
into  the  midst  of  the  enemy,  and  a  Latin  ran  his  lance  into  his  side  as  he  was 
rushing  on ;  but  his  horse  stayed  not  in  his  career  till  Marcus  dropped  from  him 
dead  upon  the  ground.  Then  the  Romans  feared  yet  more,  and  the  Tarquinii 
charged  yet  more  vehemently,  till  Aulus,  the  leader  of  the  Romans,  rode  up  with 

B  Dionysius,  VI.  1.  familiae  decus  ei'ecti  reges  crant,  ejusdem  inter* 

1  Livy,  II.  19.  fecti  forent.    L'ivy,  II.  20. 

**  Domestica  etiam  gloria  accensus,  ut  cujus 


40  HISTORY  OF  HOME.  [CHAP.  VII 

his  own  chosen  band  ;  and  he  bade  them  level  their  lances,  and  slay  all  whose 
faces  were  towards  them,  whether  they  were  friends  or  foes.  So  the  Romans 
turned  from  their  flight,  and  Aulus  and  his  chosen  band  fell  upon  the  Tarquinii  ; 
and  Aulus  prayed,  and  vowed  that  he  would  raise  a  temple  to  Castor  and  to  Pol- 
lux,41 the  twin  heroes,  if  they  would  aid  him  to  win  the  battle  ;  and  he  promised 
to  his  soldiers  that  the  two  who  should  be  the  first  to  break  into  the  camp  of  the 
enemy  should  receive  a  rich  reward.  When  behold,  there  rode  two  horsemen  at 
tlu:  head  of  his  chosen  band,42  and  they  were  taller  and  fairer  than  after  the  stat- 
ure and  beauty  of  men,  and  they  were  in  the  first  bloom  of  youth,  and  their 
horses  were  white  as  snow.  Then  there  was  a  fierce  battle  when  Octavius,  the 
leader  of  the  Latins,  came  up  with  aid  to  rescue  the  Tarquinii;  for  Titus  Ilermin- 
ius  rode  against  him,  and  ran  his  spear  through  his  body,  and  slew  him  at  one 
blow  ;  but  as  he  was  spoiling  him  of  his  arms,  he  himself  was  struck  by  a  javelin, 
and  he  was  borne  out  of  the  fight  and  died.  And  the  two  horsemen  on  white 
horses  rode  before  the  Romans  ;  and  the  enemy  fled  before  them,  and  the  Tar- 
quinii were  beaten  down  and  slain,  and  Titus  Tarquinius  was  slain  among  them  ; 
and  the  Latins  fled,  and  the  Romans  followed  them  to  their  camp,  and  the  two 
horsemen  on  white  horses  were  the  first  who  broke  into  the  camp.  But  when  the 
camp  was  taken,  and  the  battle  was  fully  won,  Aulus  sought  for  the  two  horse- 
men to  give  them  the  rewards  which  he  had  promised  ;  and  they  were  not  found 
either  amongst  the  living  or  amongst  the  dead,  only  there  was  seen  imprinted43 
on  the  hard  black  rock44  the  mark  of  a  horse's  hoof,  which  no  earthly  horse  had 
ever  made  ;  and  the  mark  was  there  to  be  seen  in  after  ages.  And  the  battle  was 
ended,  and  the  sun  went  down. 

Now  they  knew  at  Rome45  that  the  armies  had  joined  battle,  and  as  the  day 
wore  away  all  men  longed  for  tidings.     And  the  sun  went  down, 

How  the  two  horsemen  1111,1  •       ,  i        '7  i  n 

nnpoared  at  Hume  m  and  suddenly  tliere  were  seen  in  the  lorum  two  horsemen,  taller  and 
that  etSein  b'auie  w«a  fairer  than  the  tallest  and  fairest  of  men,  and  they  rode  on  white 

horses,  and  they  were  as  men  just  come  from  the  battle,  and  their 
horses  were  all  bathed  in  foam.  They  alighted  by  the  temple  of  Vesta,  where  a 
spring  of  water  bubbles  up  from  the  ground  and  fills  a  small  deep  pool.  Tliere 
they  washed  away  the  stains  of  the  battle,  and  when  men  crowded  round  them, 
and  asked  for  tidings,  they  told  them  how  the  battle  had  been  fought,  and  how 
it  was  won.  And  they  mounted  their  horses  and  rode  from  the  forum,  and 
were  seen  no  more  ;  and  men  sought  for  them  in  every  place,  but  they  were  not 
found. 

Then  Aulus  and  all  the  Romans  knew  how  Castor  and  Pollux,  the  twin  heroes, 

had  heard  his  prayer,  and  had  fought  for  the  Romans,  and  had  van- 
thywjnherow.ca.tor  quishcd  their  enemies,  and  had  been  the  first  to  break  into  the  ene- 

mies' camp,  and  had  themselves,  with  more  than  mortal  speed, 
borne  the;  tidings  of  their  victory  to  Rome.  So  Aulus  built  a  temple  according  t® 
his  vow  to  Castor  and  Pollux,  and  gave  rich  offerings  ;  for  he  said,  "  These  are  the 
rewards  which  I  promised  to  the  two  who  should  first  break  into  the  enemies' 
camp  ;  and  the  twin  heroes  have  won  them,  and  they  and  no  mortal  men  have 
won  the  battle  for  Rome  .this  day." 

So  perished  the  house  of  the  Tarquinii,  in  the  great  battle  by  the  lake  Regillus, 
HOW  Tnrqiiiniiw,  nr.er  nn^  all  the  sons  of  king  Tarquinius,  and  his  son-in-law,  Octavius 
li'.i  Mamilius,  were  slain  on  that  battle-field.     Thus  king  Tarquinius  saw 

the  ruin  of  all  his  family  and  of  all  his  house,  and  he  was  left  alone, 
utterly  without  hope.  So  he  went  to  Cumsc,46  a  city  of  the  Greeks,  and  there  he 

•"  Livy,  IT.  20.  under  La  Colonna,  Labicum,  to  the  ordinary 

•^  DionyshiB,  VI.  18.  levelof  the  Caznpagna,  in  going  to  Rome.    Ci- 

4:1  Cicero,  de  Xiilura  Dcorum,  III.  f».  ccro  speaks  <»!'  the.  murk  being  visible  "  in  sili- 

11  The  Like  of  Ke^illus  is  now  a  small  and  ce  ;''  and  silex  is  the.  name  -riven  by  the  Koman 

v.-c.-dy   poiil   surrounded  by  cnvtcr-likc  banks,  writers  to  the  lava  and,  basalt  of  the  neighbor* 

iii  mnoh  lava  or  basalt  about  it.  situated  'hood  of  Home.                             • 

height  above  the  plain  on  the  right  hand  46  Dionysius,  VI.  18. 

of  the  road  OB  you  descend  from  the  high  ground  46  Livy,  II.  21. 


'''""  '''1  "'' 


„.        -.m. 


CHAT.  VIIL]  ROME  AFTER  THE  END  OF  THE  MONARCHY.  47 

died.  And  thus  the  deeds  of  Tarquinius  and  of  the  wicked  Tullia,  and  of  Sextu= 
their  son,  were  visited  upon  their  own  heads  ;  and  the  Romans  lived  in  peace,  and 
none  threatened  their  freedom  any  more. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


ROME  AFTER  THE  END  OF  THE  MONARCHY— THE  DICTATORS  HIP— THE  TRIB- 
UNES OF  THE  COMMONS. 


'II/ujj  <5f  av6p&v  T&V  apiffruv  fffiX*£uvrej  bpiXtrjv  TOVTOIOL  ir£pj5/w//£v  TO  Kpdros'  iv  yaf>  &fj  TOUTOIOI  ica 
aiirol  fo6nt§a. — HEIIODOT.  III.  81. 


MEN  love  to  complete  what  is  imperfect,  and  to  realize  what  is  imaginary. 
The  portraits  of  kin^  Fergus  and  his  successors  in  Holyrood  palace 

t     °    .        &      .      1  J  r   ,1          The  Roman  history  ii 

were  an  attempt  to  give  substance  to  the  phantom  names  ot  the  niUm«agerudaM«. 
early  Scotch  story ;  those  of  the  founders  of  the  oldest  colleges  in 
the  gallery  of  the  Bodleian  library  betray  the  tendency  to  make  much  out  of  little, 
to  labor  after  a  full  idea  of  those  who  are  only  known  to  us  by  one  particular  ac- 
tion of  their  lives.  So  it  has  fared  with  the  early  history  of  Rome  ;  Romulus  and 
Numa  are  like  king  Fergus ;  John  of  Balliol,  and  Walter  of  Merton,  are  the  coun- 
terparts of  Servius  Tullius,  and  Brutus,  and  Poplicola.  Their  names  were  known, 
and  their  works  were  living ;  and  men,  longing  to  image  them  to  their  minds  more 
completely,  made  up  by  invention  for  the  want  of  knowledge,  and  composed  in 
one  case  a  pretended  portrait,  in  the  other  a  pretended  history. 

There  have  been  hundreds,  doubtless,  who  have  looked  on  the  portrait  of  John 
of  Balliol,  and,  imposed  upon  by  the  name  of  portrait  and  by  its  being  the  first  in 
a  series  of  pictures  of  which  the  greater  part  were  undoubtedly  copied  from  the 
life,  have  never  suspected  that  the  painter  knew  no  more  of  the  real  features  of 
his  subject. than  they  did  themselves.  So  it  is  that  we  are  deceived  by  the  early 
history  of  the  Roman  commonwealth.  It  wears  the  form  of  annals,  it  professes 
to  mark  accurately  the  events  of  successive  years,  and  to  distinguish  them  by  the 
names  of  the  successive  consuls,  and  it  begins  a  history  which,  going  on  with  these 
same  forms  and  pretensions  to  accuracy,  becomes,  after  a  time,  in  a  very  large 
proportion  really  accurate,  and  ends  with  being  as  authentic  as  any  history  in  the 
world.  Yet  the  earliest  annals  are  as  unreal  as  John  of  Balliol's  portrait;  there  is 
in  both  cases  the  same  deception.  I  cannot  as  yet  give  a  regular  history  of  the 
Roman  people ;  all  that  can  be  done  with  the  first  years  of  the  commonwealth, 
as  with  the  last  of  the  monarchy,  is  to  notice  the  origin  and  character  of  the  insti- 
tutions, and  for  the  rest,  to  be  contented  with  that  faint  outline  which  alone  can 
be  relied  upon  as  real. 

The  particulars  of  the  expulsion  of  the  last  king  of  Rome,  and  his  family  and 
house,  can  only  be  given,  as  they  already  have  been,  in  their  poeti- 
cal form.     It  by  no  means  follows  that  none  of  them  are  historical,  Swu^S'iffeS 
but  we  cannot  distinguish  what  are  so.     But  we  may  be  certain,  puls' 
whether  Brutus  belonged  to  the  commons,  as  Niebuhr  thinks,  or  not,  that  the 
commons  immediately  after  the  revolution  recovered  some  of  the  rights  of  which 
the  last  king  had  deprived  them  ;  and  these  rights  were  such  as  did  not  interfere 
with  the  political  ascendancy  of  the  patricians,  but  yet  restored  to  the  commons 
their  character  of  an  order,  that  is,  a  distinct  body  with  an  internal  organization 


48  HISTORY  OF  ROME  [CHAP.VIIL 

of  its  own.  The  commons  again  chose  their  judges  to  decide  ordinary  civil  causes 
when  both  parties  belonged  to  their  own  order,  and  they  again  met  in  their  Com- 
pitalia  and  Paganalia,  the  common  festivals  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  same  neigh- 
borhood in  the  city  and  in  the  country.  They  also  gained  the  important  privilege 
of  being,  even  in  criminal  matters,  judges  of  their  own  members,  in  case  of  an 
appeal  from  the  sentence  of  the  magistrate.  As  a  burgher  might  appeal  to  tho 
people  or  great  council  of  the  burghers,  so  a  commoner  might  appeal  to  the  com- 
mons assembled  in  their  tribes,  and  thus  in  this  respect  the  two  orders  of  the  nation 
were  placed  on  a  footing  of  equality.  It  is  said  also  that  a  great  many  of  the  rich- 
est families  of  the  commons  who  belonged  to  the  centuries  of  knights,  or  horsemen, 
were  admitted  as  new  patrician  houses  into  the  order  of  the  patricians,  or  burghers, 
or  people  of  Home ;  for  I  must  again  observe,  that  the  Roman  people  or  burghers, 
and  the  Roman  commons,  will  still  for  a  long  period  require  to  be  carefully  dis- 
tinguished from  each  other. 

In  the  first  year  of  the  commonwealth,  the  Romans  still  possessed  the  domin- 
ion enjoyed  by  their  kino;;  all  the  cities  of  the  coast  of  Latium,  as 

Foreign     relations     of  -  _      •    »     ,        V  . 

Chance Slb^Lat"  we  ve  ^^^J  seen»  were  subjected  to  them  as  lar  as  lerracma. 
?nsmnThT'termoryaon  Within  twelve  years,  we  cannot  certainly  say  how  much  sooner, 

the   ri°rht  bank  of  the       ..  n  i  •      i  i  rm   •       •  -i  IT     M  i        •  r 

T.be^conquered  by  these  were  all  become  independent.  I  his  is  easily  intelligible,  it  we 
only  take  into  account  the  loss  to  Rome  of  an  able  and  absolute 
king,  the  natural  weakness  of  an  unsettled  government,  and  the  distractions  pro- 
duced by  the  king's  attempts  to  recover  his  throne.  The  Latins  may  have  held, 
as  we  are  told  of  the  Sabines2  in  this  very  time,  that  their  dependent  alliance  with 
Rome  had  been  concluded  with  king  Tarquinius,  and  that  as  he  was  king  no 
longer,  and  as  his  sons  had  been  driven  out  with  him,  all  covenants  between  La- 
tium and  Rome  had  become  null  and  void.  But  it  is  possible  also,  if  the  chro- 
nology of  the  common  story  of  these  times  can  be  at  all  depended  on,  that  the 
Latin  cities  owed  their  independence  to  the  Etruscan  conquest  of  Rome.  For  that 
war,  which  has  been  given  in  its  poetical  version  as  the  war  with  Porsenna,  was 
really  a  great  outbreak  of  the  Etruscan  power  upon  the  nations  southward  of 
Etruria,  in  the  very  front  of  whom  lay  the  Romans.  In  the  very  next  }^ear  after 
the  expulsion  of  the  king,  according  to  the  common  story,  and  certainly  at  some 
time  within  the  period  with  which  we  are  now  concerned,  the  Etruscans  fell  upon 
Rome.  The  result  of  the  war  is,  indeed,  as  strangely  disguised  in  the  poetical 
story  as  Charlemagne's  invasion  of  Spain  is  in  the  romances.  Rome  was  com- 
pletely conquered ;  all  the  territory  which  the  kings  had  won  on  the  right  bank 
of  the  Tiber  was  now  lost.3  Rome  itself  was  surrendered  to  the  Etruscan  con- 
queror ;4  his  sovereignty  was  fully  acknowledged,5  the  Romans  gave  up  their  arms 
and  recovered  their  city  and  territory  on  condition  of  renouncing  the  use  of  iron6 
except  for  implements  of  agriculture.  But  this  bondage  did  not  last  long :  the 
Etruscan  power  was  broken  by  a  great  defeat  sustained  before  Aricia ;  for  after 
the  fall  of  Rome  the  conquerors  attacked  Latium,  and  while  besieging  Aricia,  the 
united  force  of  the  Latin  cities,  aided  by  the  Greeks7  of  Curate,  succeeded  in  de* 

1  Aha?  vtpi  r&v  <n)/n/?oAa/<i>v.    Dionysius,  V.  2.  "  Dcditio"  meant  may  be  seen  by  tlic  form  pre 

2  Dionysius,  V.  40.  served  by  Livy,  I.  38. ^ 

3  This  'is  confessed  in  the  poetical  story  :  only  5  The  senate,  says  Dionysius,  V.  34,  voted  him 
it  is  added  that  Porsenna,  out  of  admiration  for  an  ivory  throne,  a  sceptre,  a  golden  crown,  and 
the  Romans,  gave  the  conquered  land   back  triumphal  robe.    These  very  same  honors  had 
again  to  them  after  the  war.    But  Niebuhr  has  been  voted,  according  to  the  same  writer,  to  the 
well  observed  that  the  Roman  local  tribes,  which  Roman  king  Tarquinius  Prisons  by  the  Etnas- 
were  thirty  in  number  in  the  days  of  Scr.  Tul-  cans,  as  an  acknowledgment  of  his  supremacy 
lius,  appear  reduced  to  twenty  in  the  earliest  III.  02. 

mention  of  them  after  the  expulsion  of  Tarquin-  6  Pliny,  XXXIV.  14.     In  foedere  quod  expul- 

ius  ;  and  it  appears  from  the  account  of  the  Vci-  sis  regibus  populo  Romano  dedit  Porsenna,  no- 

entianwar  of  271,  that  the  Roman  territory  could  minatim  comprehensum  invcnimus,  no  ferro 

not  then  have  extended  much  beyond  the  hill  nisi  in  agricultura  utcrentnr.  Compare  1  Samuel 

Janiculum.  xiii.  19, "20.     These  passages  from  Tacitus  and 

4  Tacitus,  Histor.  III.  72.     Scdcm  Jovis  op-  Pliny  were  first  noticed  by  Beaufort  in  his  Essay 
tiini  inaximi, — quam  non  Porsenna  dcdita,  urbe,  on  the  Uncertainty  of  the  Early  Roman  History 
ucque  Galli  capta,  temerare  potuissent.    What  7  Dionysius,  V.  36,  et  VII.  2-11. 


CHAP.  VIII.J  ROME  AFTER  THE  END  OF  THE  MONARCHY.  49 

stroying  their  army,  and  in  confining  their  power  to  their  own  side  of  the  Tiber.  Still, 
however,  the  Romans  did  not  recover  their  territory  on  the  right  bank  of  that 
river,  and  the  number  of  their  tribes,  as  has  been  already  noticed,  was  consequently 
lessened  by  one  third,  being  reduced  from  thirty  to  twenty. 

Thus,  within  a  short  time  after  the  banishment  of  the  last  king,  the  Romans  lost 
all  their  territory  on  the  Etruscan  side  of  the  Tiber,  and  all  their  Reiations  of  Rom. 
dominion  over  Latium.  A  third  people  were  their  immediate  neigh-  wuh  lhe  Sabinefc 
bors  on  the  northeast,  the  Sabines.  The  cities  of  the  Sabines  reached,  says  Varro^ 
from  Reate,  to  the  distance  of  half  a  day's  journey  from  Rome,  that  is,  according 
to  the  varying  estimate  of  a  day's  journey,8  either  seventy-five  or  a  hundred  sta- 
dia, about  ten  or  twelve  miles.  But  with  the  more  distant  Sabines  of  Reate,  and 
the  high  valley  of  the  Velinus,  our  history  has  yet  no  concern.  The  line  of  mount- 
ains which  stretches  from  Tiber  to  the  neighborhood  of  Narnia  was  a  natural 
division  between  those  Sabines  who  lived  within  it,  and  those  who  had  settled 
without  it,  in  the  lower  country  nearer  Rome.  These  last  were  the  Sabines  of 
Cures,9  twenty-four  miles  from  Rome,  of  Eretum,  five  miles  nearer  to  it,  of  No- 
mentum,  about  the  same  distance,  of  Collatia  and  Regillus,  southward  of  the  Anio, 
and  in  the  midst  of  Latium ;  and  at  a  more  ancient  period,  these  same  Sabines 
possessed  Crustumerium,  Csenina,  Antemnae,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  two  of  the  very 
hills  which  afterwards  made  up  the  city  of  Rome.  But  living  so  near  <n  rr  even 
in  the  midst  of  the  Latins,  these  more  lowland  Sabines  had  become  in  some  de- 
gree Latinized,  and  some  of  their  cities  partook  in  the  worship  of  Diana  on  the 
Aventine,10  together  with  the  Romans  and  the  Latins,  during  the  reign  of  the  last 
king  of  Rome.  Perhaps  they  also  were  his  dependent  allies,  and,  like  the  Latins, 
renounced  their  alliance  with  Rome  immediately  after  his  expulsion.  At  any  rate, 
we  read  of  a  renewal  of  wars  between  them  and  the  Romans  four  years  after  the 
beginning  of  the  commonwealth,  and  it  is  said,  that  at  this  time  Attus  Clausus,11 
a  citizen  of  Regillus,  as  he  strongly  opposed  the  war,  was  banished  by  his  coun- 
trymen, and  went  over  to  the  Romans  with  so  large  a  train  of  followers,  that  he 
was  himself  received  immediately  as  a  burgher,  gave  his  name-  to  a  new  tribe, 
which  was  formed  out  of  those  who  went  over  with  him,  and  obuined  an  assign- 
ment of  lands  beyond  the  Anio,  between  Fidense  and  Ficulea .  But  when  we  read 
of  the  lake  Regillus  as  belonging  to  the  territory  of  Tusculum,1'  and  when,  we  also 
find  Nomentum  included  amongst  the  thirty  cities  of  the  Latins,  which  concluded 
the  great  alliance  with  Rome,  in  the  consulship  of  Spurius  Cassius,  we  are  inclined 
to  suspect  that  the  lowland  Sabines  about  this  time  were  forced  to  join  themselves 
some  with  the  Romans  and  some  with  the  Latins,  being  pressed  by  both  on  dif- 
ferent quarters,  when  the  alliance  between  the  three  nations  was  broken  up.  Thus 
Collatia,  Regillus,  and  Nomentum  fell  to  the  Latins ;  and  then  it  may  well  have 
happened  that  the  Claudii  and  Postumii,  with  their  followers,  may  have  preferred 
the  Roman  franchise  to  the  Latin,  and  thus  removed  themselves  to  Rome ;  while 
if  Niebuhr's  conjecture  be  true,  that  the  Crustuminian  tribe  as  well  as  the  Clau- 
dian  was  created  at  this  time,  we  might  suppose  that  Crustumeria,  and  other  Sa- 
bine  cities  in  its  neighborhood,  whose  very  names  have  perished,  united  themselves 
rather  with  the  Romans :  certain  it  is  that  from  this  time  forward  we  hear  of  no 
Sabine  city  nearer  to  Rome  than  Eretum,  which,  as  I  have  already  said,  was  nine- 
teen miles  distant  from  it.  It  is  certain  also  that  the  first  enlargement  of  the 
Roman  territory,  after  its  great  diminution  in  the  Etruscan  war,  took  place  towards 
the  northeast,  between  the  Tiber  and  the  Anio ;  and  here  were  the  lands  of  the 
only  new  tribes  that  were  added  to  the  Roman  nation,  for  the  space  of  more  than 
one  hundred  and  twenty  years13  after  the  establishment  of  the  commonwealth. 


8  Herodotus  reckons  the  day's  journey  in  one 
place  at  two  hundred  stadia,  IV.  801,  and  in  an- 


10  As  appears  from  the  story  in  Livy,  I.  45. 

11  Livy,  II.  16.     Dionysius,  V.  40. 

other  place  at  one  hundred  and  fifty  stadia,  V.  53.        12  Livy,  II.  19,  "ad  lacum  Eegillum  in  a°ro 

9  Bunsen,  "  Antichi  Stabilimenti  Italici,"  in    Tusculano." 

the  "  Annali  dell'  Institute  di  Corrispondenza        13  The  number  of  tribes    continued  to  be 
Arnh.eologica,"  Vol.  VI.  p.  133.  twenty-one  till  three  years  after  the  invasion  of 


50  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  VII) 

The  chronology  of  this  period  is  confessed  by  Livy14  to  be  one  mass  of  confu- 
sion ;  it  was  neither  apreed  when  the  pretended  battle  at  the  lake 

Of  the    pretended  »«-    T-»        -n  f  i  i  i         r*  T  i 

Mm.  of  the  census  Kcgillus  was  fought,  nor  when  the  first  dictator  was  created  ;  and 
accordingly,  Dionysius  sets  both  events  three  years  later  than  they 
are  placed  by  Livy.  But  a  far  more  surprising  disorder  is  indicated  by  the  re- 
turns of  the  census,  if  we  may  rely  on  them  as  authentic ;  for  these  make  the 
number  of  Roman  citizens  between  fifteen  and  sixteen  years  of  age  to  have  been 
one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand,15  in  the  year  following  the  expulsion  of  the 
Tarquinii ;  to  have  risen  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  seven  hundred16  at 
the  end  of  the  next  ten  years,  and  again  five  years  later  to  have  sunk  to  one 
hundred  and  ten  thousand.17  It  should  be  added,  that  these  same  returns  gave 
eighty-four  thousand  seven  hundred  as  the  number  of  citizens,  at  the  first  census 
of  Servius  Tullius ;  and  for  this  amount  Dionysius  quotes  expressly  the  tables  of 
the  census.  Now,  Niebuhr  rejects  the  census  of  Servius  Tullius  as  unhistorical, 
but  is  disposed  to  admit  the  authenticity  of  the  others.  Yet  surely  if  the  censor's 
tables  are  to  be  believed  in  one  case,  they  may  be  in  the  other ;  a  genuine  record 
of  the  census  of  Servius  Tullius  might  just  as  well  have  been  preserved  as  that  of 
Sp.  Lucretius  and  P.  Valerius  Poplicola.  And  it  is  to  be  noted,  that  although 
Dionysius  gives  the  return  of  the  census  taken  by  the  dictator  T.  Lartius,  as  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  seven  hundred,  yet  he  makes  Appius  Claudius,  five 
years  afterwards,  give  the  number  at  one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  ;18  and  then, 
although  Appius  quotes  this  number  as  applying  to  the  actual  state  of  things, 
yet  the  return  of  the  census,  at  the  end  of  that  same  year,  gives  only  one  hundred 
and  ten  thousand.  I  am  inclined  to  suspect  that  the  actual  tables  of  the  census, 
before  the  invasion  of  the  Gauls,  perished  in  the  destruction  of  the  city  ;  and  that 
they  were  afterwards  restored  from  the  annalists,  and  from  the  records  of  differ- 
ent families,  as  was  the  case  with  the  Fasti  Capitolini.  If  this  were  so,  different 
annalists  might  give  different  numbers,  as  they  also  give  the  names  of  consuls  dif- 
ferently ;  and  exaggeration  might  creep  in  here,  as  in  the  list  of  triumphs,  and 
with  much  less  difficulty.  For  although  Niebuhr's  opinion  is  no  less  probable  than 
ingenious,  that  the  returns  of  the  census  include  the  citizens  of  all  those  foreign 
states  which  enjoyed  reciprocally  with  Rome  each  other's  franchise,  still  the  num- 
bers in,  the  period  under  review  seem  inconsistent,  not  only  with  the  common 
arrangement  of  the  events  of  these  years,  but  with  any  probable  arrangement  that 
can  be  devised.  For  if  the  Latins  and  other  foreigners  are  not  included  in  the 
census  of  Poplicola,  the  number  of  one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  is  incredibly 
large ;  if  they  are  included,  with  what  other  states  can  we  conceive  the  inter- 
change of  citizenship  to  have  been  contracted  in  the  ten  following  years,  so  as  to 
have  added  twenty  thousand  names  to  the  return  made  at  the  end  of  that  period  ? 
I  am  inclined,  therefore,  to  think  that  the  second  pretended  census  of  the  com- 
monwealth, taken  by  the  dictator  T.  Lartius,  which  gives  an  amount  of  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  seven  hundred  citizens  within  the  military  age,  is  a  mere 
exaggeration  of  the  annalist  or  poet,  whoever  he  was,  who  recorded  the  acts  of  the 
first  dictator. 

But  the  really  important  part  of  the  history  of  the  first  years  of  the  common- 
Progress  ef  dutres.  wealth  is  the  tracing,  if  possible,  the  gradual  depression  of  the  com- 
amougu  the  sommom.  mons  to  t]iat  extreme  point  of  misery  which  led  to  the  institution 
of  the  tribuneship.  We  have  seen  that,  immediately  after  the  expulsion  of  the 
king,  the  commons  shared  in  the  advantages  of  the  revolution ;  but  within  a  few 
years  we  find  them  so  oppressed  and  powerless,  that  their  utmost  hopes  aspired, 

the  Gauls,  when  four  new  ones  were  added,  rum  modo  sed  etiam  auctoruo  digerere  pos- 

Livy,  VI.  5.  sis. 

"  II.  21.    Tanti  errores  implicant  temporum,  15  Dionysius,  V.  20. 

aliter  apud  alios  ordinatis  magistratibus,  ut  nee  1G  Dionysius,  V.  75. 

qui  consules  secundum  quosdam,  nee  quid  quo-  "  Dionysius,  V.  96. 

que  anno  actum  sit,  in  tanta  vetustate  noii  re-  1B  Dionysius,  V.  6. 


CHAP.  VIII]  ROME  AFTER  THE  END  OF  THE  MONARCHY.  51 

not  to  the  assertion  of  political  equality  with  the  burghers,  but  merely  to  the  ob- 
taining protection  from  personal  injuries. 

The  specific  character  of  their  degradation  is  stated  to  have  been  this :  that  there 
prevailed19  amonar  them  severe  distress,  amounting  in  many  cases  to 

.     O  ,.  ,  -if  i      •  ,         ji  *ts  particular  charac- 

actual  rum;  that  to  relieve  themselves  from  their  poverty,  they  ug*mt*g*Mu* 
were  in  the  habit  of  borrowing  money  o'f  the  burghers  ;  that  the 
distress  continuing,  they  became  generally  insolvent ;  and  that  as  the  law  of  debtor 
and  creditor  was  exceedingly  severe,  they  became  liable  in  their  persons  to  the- 
cruelty  of  the  burghers,  were  treated  by  them  as  slaves,  confined  as  such  in  their 
workhouses,  kept  to  task-work,  and  often  beaten  at  the  discretion  of  their  task- 
masters. 

In  reading  this  statement,  a  multitude  of  questions  suggest  themselves.  Ex- 
planations and  discussions  must  occupy  a  large  space  in  this  part  of  our  history, 
for  when  the  poetical  stories  have  been  once  given,  there  are  no  materials  left  for 
narrative  or  painting ;  and  general  views  of  the  state  of  a  people,  where  our  means 
of  information  are  so  scanty,  are  little  susceptible  of  liveliness,  and  require  at  every 
step  to  be  defended  and  developed.  The  perfect  character  of  history  in  all  its 
freshness  and  fulness  is  incompatible  with  imperfect  knowledge  ;  no  man  can  step 
boldly  or  gracefully  while  he  is  groping  his  way  in  the  dark. 

A  population  of  free  landowners  naturally  engages  the  imagination ;  but  such 
a  state  of  society  requires  either  an  ample  territory  or  an  uninter- 

,      1       ,  .    rf  -f  •.    -i         -I  i        /  •        i         •        i  mi          The  causes  which  led 

rupted  state  of  peace,  if  it  be  dependent  on  agriculture  alone.    The  to  this  KM*  of  debt. 

.,       r         .     ,    ,     ,  r,  P     .  ,  j       -,  The   plundering'  invt. 

Roman  territory  might  be  marched  through  in  a  day  ;  and  after  won.  of  the  ne.gnbor- 
the  overthrow  of  the  powerful  government  of  Tarquinius,  which, 
by  the  extent  of  its  dominion,  kept  war  at  a  distance,  the  lands  of  the  Roman 
commons  were  continually  wasted  by  the  incursions  of  their  neighbors,  and  were 
actually  to  a  large  extent  torn  away  by  the  Etruscan  conquest.  The  burghers 
suffered  less,  because  their  resources  were  greater :  the  public  undivided  land, 
which  they  alone  enjoyed,  was  of  a  very  different  extent  from  the  little  lots  as- 
signed to  each  commoner,  and  besides,  as  being  chiefly  left  in  pasture,  it  suf- 
fered much  less  from  the  incursions  of  an  enemy  ;  a  burgher's  cattle  might  often 
be  driven  off  in  time  to  one  of  the  neighboring  strongholds,  while  a  commoner's 
corn  and  fruit-trees  were  totally  destroyed.  Again,  if  commerce  were  forbidden 
to  a  commoner,  it  certainly  was  not  to  a  burgher ;  and  those  whose  trade  with 
Sicily,  Sardinia,  and  Africa  was  sufficiently  important  to  be  made  the  subject  of 
a  special  treaty,  were  not,  like  the  commoners,  wholly  dependent  on  a  favorable 
season,  or  on  escaping  the  plundering  incursions  of  the  neighboring  people. 
Thus  it  is  easy  to  conceive  how,  on  the  one  hand,  the  commoner  would  be  driven 
to  borrow,  and  on  the  other  how  the  burgher  would  be  able  to  lend. 

The  next  step  is  also  plain.     Interest  was  as  yet  wholly  arbitrary  ;  and  where 
so  many  were  anxious  to  borrow,  it  was  sure  to  be  high.     Thus  Thehiffh  rate  Of  inter, 
again  the  commons  became  constantly  more  and  more  involved  "u 
and  distressed,  while  the  burghers  engrossed  more  and  more  all  the  wealth  of 
the  community. 

Such  a  state  of  things  the  law  of  the  Israelites  had  endeavored  by  every  means 
to  prevent  or  to  mitigate.  If  a  small  proprietor  found  himself  The  sevcrity  of  the  ,aw 
ruined  by  a  succession  of  unfavorable  seasons,  or  by  an  inroad  of  °faebtora"dcreditor- 
the  Philistines  or  Midianites,  and  was  obliged  to  borrow  of  his  richer  neighbor, 
the  law  absolutely  forbade  his  creditor  to  take  any  interest  at  all.  If  he  were 
obliged  to  pledge  his  person  for  payment,  he  was  not  to  serve  his  creditor  with- 
out hope,  for  at  the  end  of  seven  years,  at  the  farthest,  he  was  restored  to  his 
freedom,  and  the  whole  of  his  debt  cancelled.  Or  if  he  had  pledged  his  land  to 
his  creditor,  not  only  was  the  right  secured  to  him  and  to  his  relations  of  redeeming 
it  at  any  time,  but  even  if  not  redeemed  it  was  necessarily  to  return  to  him  or  to  hia 

"  See  the  story  of  the  old  centurion,  hi  Livy,  II.  23. 


52  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  VIII 

heirs  in  the  year  of  jubilee,  that  no  Israelite  might  by  any  distress  be  degraded  for- 
ever  from  the  rank  of  a  freeman  and  a  landowner.  A  far  different  fate  awaited  the 
plebeian  landowner  at  Rome.  When  he  found  himself  involved  in  a  debt  which 
he  could  not  pay,  his  best  resource  was  to  sell  himself  to  his  creditor,  on  the  con- 
dition that  unless  the  debt  were  previously  discharged,  the  creditor,  at  the  expi- 
ration of  a  stated  term,  should  enter  into  possession  of  his  purchase.  This  was 
called,  in  the  language  of  the  Roman  law,  the  entering  into  a  nexum,20  and  the 
person  who  had  thus  conditionally  sold  himself  was  said  to  be  "  nexus."  When 
the  day  came,  the  creditor  claimed  possession,  and  the  magistrate  awarded  it; 
and  the  debtor,  thus  given  over  to  his  purchaser,  addictus,  passed,  with  all  that 
belonged  to  him,  into  his  power ;  and  as  the  sons  were  considered  their  father's 
property,  they  also,  unless  previously  emancipated,  were  included  in  the  sale, 
and  went  into  slavery  together  with  their  father.  Or  if  a  man,  resolved  not  by 
his  own  act  to  sacrifice  his  own  and  his  children's  liberty,  refused  thus  to  sell 
himself,  or,  in  the  Roman  language,  to  enter  into  a  nexum,  and  determined  to 
abide  in  his  own  person  the  consequences  of  his  own  debt,  then  he  risked  a  fate 
still  more  fearful.  If,  within  thirty  days  after  the  justice  of  the  claim  had  been 
allowed,  he  was  unable  to  discharge  it,  his  creditor  might  arrest  him,  and  bring 
him  before  the  court ;  and  if  no  one  then  offered  to  be  his  security,  he  was  given 
over  to  his  creditor,  and  kept  by  him  in  private  custody,  bound  with  a  chain  of 
fifteen  pounds  weight,  and  fed  with  a  pound  of  corn  daily.  If  he  still  could  not, 
or  would  not,  come  to  any  terms  with  his  creditor,  he  was  thus  confined  during 
sixty  days,  and  during  this  period  was  brought  before  the  court  in  the  comitium, 
on  three  successive  market-days,  and  the  amount  of  his  debt  declared,  in  order 
to  see  whether  any  one  would  yet  come  forward  in  his  behalf.  On  the  third  mar- 
ket-day, if  no  friend  appeared,  he  was  either  to  be  put  to  death,  or  sold  as  a 
slave  into  a  foreign  land  beyond  the  Tiber ;  that  is,  into  Etruria,  where  there  was 
as  yet  no  interchange  of  franchise  with  Rome,  amidst  a  people  of  a  different  lan- 
guage. Or  if  there  were  several  creditors,  they  might  actually  hew  his  body  in 
pieces  ;  and  whether  a  creditor  cut  off  a  greater  or  smaller  piece  than  in  propor- 
tion to  his  debt,21  he  incurred  no  penalty. 

Aulus  Gellius,  who  wrote  in  the  age  of  the  Antonines,  declares  that  he  had 
never  heard  or  read  of  a  single  instance  in  which  this  concluding  provision  had 
been  acted  upon.  But  who  was  there  to  record  the  particular  cruelties  of  the 
Roman  burghers  in  the  third  century  of  Rome  ?  and  when  we  are  told  generally 
that  they  enforced  the  law  against  their  debtors  with  merciless  severity,  can  we 
doubt  that  there  were  individual  monsters,  like  the  Shylock  and  Front  de  Boeuf 
of  fiction,  or  the  Earl  of  Cassilis  of  real  history,  who  would  gratify  their  malice 
against  an  obnoxius  or  obstinate  debtor,  even  to  the  extremest  letter  of  the  law  ? 
It  is  more  important  to  observe  that  this  horrible  law  was  continued  in  the  twelve 
tables,  for  we  cannot  suppose  it  to  have  been  introduced  there  for  the  first  time ; 
that  is  to  say,  that  it  made  part  of  a  code  sanctioned  by  the  commons,  when  they 
were  triumphant  over  their  adversaries.  This  shows,  that  the  extremest  cruelty 
against  an  insolvent  debtor  was  not  repugnant,  in  all  cases,  to  the  general  feel- 
ing of  the  commons  themselves,  and  confirms  the  remark  of  Gellius,  that  the  Ro- 
mans had  the  greatest  abhorrence  of  breach  of  faith,  or  a  failure  in  performing 
engagements,  whether  in  private  matters  or  in  public.  It  explains  also  the  long 

*•  For  this  explanation  of  the  term  "Nexus,"  lock  ha'd  in  his  "bond  omitted  to  insert.  "Si 

see  Niebuhr,  Vol.  I.  p.  601,  et  seqq.  Ed.  2.  plus  minusve  secuerunt,  se  fraude  esto"  ("  se" 

81  See  the  Extracts  from  the  law  of  the  XII.  is  the  old  form  for  "  sine").  Besides,  the  last 

tables  in  A.  Gellius,  XX.  1.  §  45,  et  seqq.  Some  penalty,  reserved  for  him  who  continued  obsti- 

rnodern  writers  have  imagined  that  the  words  nate,  was  likely  to  be  atrocious  in  its  severity, 

"partcs  secanto"  were  to  be  understood  of  a  "What  do  we  think  of  the  "  peine  forte  et  dure" 

division  of  the  debtor's  property,  and  not  of  his  denounced  by  the  English  law  against  a  prisoner 

person.  But  Niebuhr  well  observes,  that  the  who  refused  to  plead  ?  a  penalty  not  repealed  till 

following  provision  alone  refutes  such  a  notion;  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  and  quite  aa 

a,  provision  giving  to  the  creditor  that  very  se-  cruel  as  that  of  the  law  of  the  XII.  tables,  and 

curity  in  the  infliction  of  his  cruelty,  which  Shy-  not  less  unjust. 


• 


CHAP.  VIII]          ROME  AFTER  THE  END  OF  THE  MONARCHY.  53 

patience  of  the  commons  under  their  distress,  and,  when  at  last  it  became  too 
grievous  to  endure,  their  extraordinary  moderation  in  remedying  it.  Severity 
against  a  careless  or  fraudulent  debtor  seemed  to  them  perfectly  just ;  they  only 
desired  protection  in  cases  of  unavoidable  misfortune  or  wanton  cruelty,  and  this 
object  appeared  to  be  fulfilled  by  the  institution  of  the  tribuneship,  for  the  trib- 
une's power  of  protection  enabled  him  to  interpose  in  defence  of  the  unfortunate,, 
while  he  suffered  the  law  to  take  its  course  against  the  obstinate  and  the  dis 
honest. 

Such  a  state  of  things,  however,  naturally  accounts  for  the  political  degrada- 
tion of  the  commons,  and  the  neglect  of  the  constitution  of  Servius 
Tullius.    The  Etruscan  conquest  had  deprived  the  Romans  of  their  common's11^  to  thei? 

,  -Jii  iJ-i  UJ.T  •        weakness  politically. 

arms  :  how,  amidst  such  general  distress,  could  the  commons  again 
provide  themselves  with  the  full  arms  of  the  phalanx ;  or  how  could  they  afford 
leisure  for  that  frequent  training  and  practice  in  warlike  exercises,  which  were 
essential  to  the  efficiency  of  the  heavy-armed  infantry  ?  It  may  be  going  too  far 
to  say  that  the  tactic  of  the  phalanx  was  never  in  use  after  the  establishment 
of  the  commonwealth  ;  but  it  clearly  never  existed  in  any  perfection.  It  is  quite 
manifest,  that  if  the  heavy-armed  infantry  had  constituted  the  chief  force  of  the 
nation,  and  if  that  infantry,  according  to  the  constitution  of  Servius  Tullius,  had 
consisted  exclusively  of  the  commons,  the  commons  and  not  the  burghers  would 
soon  have  been  the  masters  of  Rome ;  the  comitia  of  the  centuries  would  have 
drawn  all  power  to  itself,  the  comitia  of  curiae  would  have  been  abolished,  as  in- 
compatible with  the  sovereignty  of  the  true  Roman  people.  The  comitia  of  the 
tribes  would  have  been  wholly  superfluous,  for  where  could  the  commons  have 
had  greater  weight  than  in  an  assembly  where  they  formed  exclusively  every 
century  except  six  ?  Whereas  the  very  contrary  to  all  this  actually  happened  : 
the  commons  remained  for  more  than  a  century  excluded  from  the  government ; 
the  curias  retained  all  their  power ;  the  comitia  of  tribes  were  earnestly  desired 
by  the  commons,  as  the  only  assembly  in  which  they  were  predominant ;  and 
when,  after  many  years,  we  can  trace  any  details  of  the  comitia  of  centuries,  we 
find  them  in  great  measure  assimilated  to  those  of  the  tribes,  and  the  peculiarity 
of  their  original  constitution  almost  vanished. 

But  the  comitia  of  centuries  were  not  an  assembly  in  which  the  commons  were 
all-powerful.  We  are  expressly  told22  that  the  burghers'  clients  influence  exercised  by 
voted  in  these  centuries ;  and  these  were,  probably,  become  a  more  lheirbucrifem"  ohn0"Slf 
wealthy  and  a  more  numerous  body,  in  proportion  as  the  commons  coraitiao1 "centuries. 
became  more  and  more  distressed  and  miserable.  If  a  third  part  of  the  com- 
mons had  lost  their  lands  by  the  event  of  the  Etruscan  war,  if  a  large  proportion 
of  the  rest  were  so  involved  in  debts  that  their  property  was  scarcely  more  than 
nominally  their  own,  we  may  feel  quite  sure  that  there  would  be  many  who  would 
voluntarily  become  clients,  in  order  to  escape  from  their  actual  misery.  What 
they  lost,  indeed,  by  so  doing,  was  but  little  in  comparison  of  what  they  gained ; 
they  gave  up  their  order,  they  ceased  to  belong  to  a  tribe,  and  became  personally 
dependent  on  their  patron ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  they  might  follow  any  retail 
trade  or  manufacture ;  they  retained  their  votes  in  the  comitia  of  centuries,  and 
were  saved  by  the  protection  of  their  patron  from  all  the  sufferings  which  were 
the  lot  of  the  insolvent  commoner.  For  as  the  patron  owed  his  client  protection, 
he  was  accounted  infamous  if  he  allowed  him  to  be  reduced  to  beggary :  and  thus 
we  read  of  patrons  granting  lands  to  their  clients,  which,  although  held  by  them 
only  at  will,  were  yet,  under  present  circumstances,  a  far  more  enviable  posses- 
sion than  the  freeholds  of  the  commons.  And  whilst  the  clients  had  thus  become 
more  numerous,  so  they  would  also,  from  the  same  causes,  become  more  wealthy, 
and  a  greater  number  of  them  would  thus  be  enrolled  in  the  higher  classes, 
whilst  the  commons,  on  the  other  hand,  were  continually  sinking  to  the  lower. 


II.  64.     Irata  plebs  interesse  consularibus  cornitiis  noluit.     Per  patres,  clientesqua 
Arum  consules  creati. 


54  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  VIII 

Yet,  amidst  the  general  distress  of  the  commons,  we  meet  with  an  extraordi- 
L    nary  statement  in  one  of  the  speeches23  in  Dionysius,  that  more  than 

Separation  of  the  rich-     r,  t  -in  111  -i     •  /• 

mawTfThe'k  oriw lh*  hundred  persons  had  been  raised  in  one  year  from  the  infan- 

try to  the  cavalry  service  on  account  of  their  wealth.  This,  strange 
as  it  seems  at  first,  is  probable,  and  full  of  instruction.  When  money  bore  so  high 
a  rate  of  interest,  capital  was  sure  to  increase  itself  rapidly,  and  in  a  time  of  dis- 
tress, whilst  many  become  poorer,  there  are  always  some  also  who,  from  that  very 
circumstance,  become  richer.  The  rich  commons  were  thus  likely  to  increase 
their  fortunes,  whilst  the  poorer  members  of  their  order  were  losing  every  thing. 
It  was,  then,  the  interest  of  the  burghers  to  separate  these  from  the  mass  of  the 
commons,  and  to  place  them  in  a  class  which  already  seems  to  have  acquired  its 
character  of  a  moneyed  and  commercial  interest;  a  class  which  resigned  the 
troubles  and  the  honors  of  political  contests  for  the  pursuit  and  safe  enjoyment 
of  riches.  Further,  the  removal  of  the  richest  commoners  from  the  infantry  ser- 
vice rendered  the  organization  of  the  phalanx  more  and  more  impracticable,  and 
thus  preserved  to  the  burghers,  whether  serving  as  cavalry  or  heavy-armed  in- 
fantry, their  old  superiority ;  for  that  the  burghers  in  these  times  did  sometimes 
serve  on  foot,24  although  generally  they  fought  on  horseback,  is  proved  not  only 
by  the  story  of  L.  Tarquitius,  whose  poverty,  it  is  said,  had  forced  him  to  do  so, 
but  by  the  legend  of  the  valiant  deeds  of  Cams  Marcius,  and  of  the  three  hun- 
dred Fabii  who  established  themselves  on  the  Cremera.  It  is  probable  that,  when 
occasion  required  it,  they  were  the  principes  in  rich  armor  who  fought  in  the  van 
of  the  infantry,  although,  in  ordinary  circumstances,  they  fought  on  horseback ; 
and  as  the  infantry  of  the  neighboring  nations  was  not  better  organized  than  their 
own,  the  horsemen  in  these  early  times  are  constantly  described  as  deciding  the 
issue  of  the  battle. 

Thus  the  monarchy  was  exchanged  for  an  exclusive  aristocracy,  in  which  the 
The  <mrnment  be  burghers  or  patricians  possessed  the  whole  dominion  of  the  state. 
iomcsg"aenrnmexnciusive  For,  mixed  as  was  the  influence  in  the  assembly  of  the  centuries, 
and  although  the  burghers  through  their  clients  exercised  no  small 
control  over  it,  still  they  did  not  think  it  safe  to  intrust  it  with  much  power.  In 
the  election  of  consuls,  the  centuries  could  only  choose  out  of  a  number  of  pa- 
trician or  burgher  candidates ;  and  even  after  this  election  it  remained  for  the 
burghers  in  their  great  council  in  the  curiee  to  ratify  or  to  annul  it,  by  conferring 
upon,  or  refusing  to  the  persons  so  elected,  "  the  Imperium ;"  in  other  words,  that 
sovereign  power  which  belonged  to  the  consuls  as  the  successors  of  the  kings,  and 
which,  except  so  far  as  it  was  limited  within  the  walls  of  the  city,  and  a  circle  of 
one  mile  without  them,  by  the  right  of  appeal,  was  absolute  over  life  and  death. 
As  for  any  legislative  power,  in  this  period  of  the  commonwealth,  the  consuls 
were  their  own  law.  No  doubt  the  burghers  had  their  customs,  which,  in  all 
great  points,  the  consuls  would  duly  observe,  because  otherwise,  on  the  expira- 
tion of  their  office,  they  would  be  liable  to  arraignment  before  the  curise,  and  to 
such  punishment  as  that  sovereign  assembly  might  please  to  inflict ;  but  the  com- 
mons had  no  such  security,  and  the  uncertainty  of  the  consuls'  judgments  was 
the  particular  grievance  which  afterwards  led  to  the  formation  of  the  code  of  the 
twelve  tables. 

We  are  told,  however,  that  within  ten  years  of  the  first  institution  of  the  con- 
suls, the  burghers  found  it  necessary  to  create  a  single  magistrate 

A.  U.  C.  253.  A,  C.  499.          • ,  •*  .  .-n  11,  i  •          ,  i         /»    n 

institution  of  the  dieu.  with  powers  still  more  absolute,  who  was  to  exercise  the  full  sov- 
ereignty of  a  king,  and  even  without  that  single  check  to  which  the 
kings  of  Rome  had  been  subjected.     The  Master  of  the  people,25  that  is,  of  the 

38  That  of  M.  Valerius  on  resigning  his  die-  foot,  are  given  by  Dionysius,  VI.  33,  and  VIII 

tatorship  in  the  year  260.     See  Dionysius,  VI.  67,  and  by  Livy,  II.  65.  III.  62.  IV.  38. 

48-45.  *  "  Magister  populi."    See  Varrp,  de  Ling. 

84  Instances  of  battles  won  by  the  cavalry,  Lat.  V.  82.  Ed.  Midler,  et  Festus  in  "  optimi 

when  they  had  left  their  horses  and  fought  on  lex." 


CHAP.  VIII]         .  ROME  AFTER  THE  END  OF  THE  MONARCHY.  55 

burghers,  or,  as  he  was  otherwise  called,  the  Dictator,  was  appointed,  it  is  true, 
for  six  months  only ;  and  therefore  liable,  like  the  consuls,  to  be  arraigned,  after 
the  expiration  of  his  office,  for  any  acts  of  tyranny  which  he  might  have  com- 
mitted during  its  continuance.  But  whilst  he  retained  his  office  he  was  as  abso- 
lute within  the  walls  of  the  city,  as  the  consuls  were  without  them  ;  neither  com- 
moners nor  burghers  had  any  right  to  appeal  from  his  sentence,  although  the  lat- 
ter had  enjoyed  this  protection  in  the  times  of  the  monarchy.  This  last  circum- 
stance seems  to  prove  that  the  original  appointment  of  the  dictator  was  a  meas- 
ure of  precaution  against  a  party  amongst  the  burghers  themselves,  rather  than 
against  the  commons ;  and  gives  a  probability  to  that  tradition28  which  Livy 
slighted,  namely,  that  the  consuls  who  were  for  the  first  time  superseded  by  "  the 
Master  of  the  burghers,"  were  inclined  to  favor  the  return  of  the  exiled  king.  It 
is  not  likely  that  they  were  the  only  Romans  so  disposed  :  and  if  a  strong  minor- 
ity amongst  the  burghers  themselves,  and  probably  a  large  portion  of  the  com- 
mons, were  known  to  favor  the  restoration  of  the  old  government,  it  is  very  intel- 
ligible that  the  majority  of  the  burghers  should  have  resolved  to  strengthen  the 
actual  government,  and  to  appoint  an  officer  who  might  summarily  punish  all  COE- 
spirators,  of  whatever  rank,  whether  belonging  to  the  commons  or  to  the  burghers. 

If  the  consuls  were  superseded  by  the  dictator  because  they  could  not  be  re- 
lied upon,  we  may  be  quite  sure  that  the  appointment  was  not  left  to  their  free 
choice.27  One  of  the  consuls  received  the  name  of  the  person  to  be  declared  dic- 
tator from  the  senate ;  he  then  declared  him  dictator,  and  he  was  confirmed  and 
received  the  imperium  by  a  vote  of  the  great. council  of  the  curiie.  The  dictator 
must  previously  have  held  the  highest  magistracy  in  the  state,28  that  is,  he  must 
have  been  prsetor,  the  old  title  of  the  consuls.  Thus,  afterwards,  when  the  powers 
of  the  original  prtetors  were  divided  between  the  consuls  and  praetors  of  the  later 
constitution,  any  man  who  had  been  prsetor  was  eligible  to  the  dictatorship,  no 
less  than  one  who  had  been  consul. 

Together  with  the  Master  of  the  burghers,  or  dictator,  there  was  always  ap- 
pointed, the  Master  of  the  knights  or  horsemen.  In  later  times  this  The  Master  of  lb- 
officer  was  always  named  by  the  dictator  himself,  but  at  first  it  kn^lltaor  homm.* 
seems  as  if  both  alike  were  chosen  by  the  senate.  The  Master  of  the  knights 
was  subject,  like  every  other  citizen,  to  the  Master  of  the  burghers  ;  but  his  own 
authority  was  equally  absolute  within  his  own  jurisdiction,  that  is,  over  the  knights 
and  the  rest  of  the  commons.  Lydus  expressly  says  that  from  his  sentence  there 
was  no  appeal ;  Varro  says  that  his  power  was  supreme29  over  the  knights  and 
over  the  accensi ;  but  who  are  meant  by  this  last  term  it  is  difficult  to  determine. 

Fifteen  years  after  the  expulsion  of  Tarquinius,  the  commons,  driven  to  de- 
spair by  their  distress,  and  exposed  without  protection  to  the  ca-  secession  of  the  com- 
pricious  cruelty  of  tV.e  burghers,  resolved  to  endure  their  degraded  §&%*?*£? .{ShS 
state  no  longer.  The  particulars  of  this  second  revolution  areas  men*  of  the  tribunes- 
uncertain  as  those  of  the  overthrow  of  the  monarchy ;  but  thus  much  is  certain, 
and  is  remarkable,  that  the  commons  sought  safety,  not  victory ;  they  desired  to 
escape  from  Rome,  not  to  govern  it.  It  may  be  true  that  the  commons  who  were 
left  in  Rome  gathered  together30  on  the  Aventine,  the  quarter  appropriated  to 
their  order,  and  occupied  the  hill  as  a  fortress ;  but  it  is  universally  agreed  that 
the  most  efficient  part  of  their  body,  who  were  at  that  time  in  the  field  as  sol- 
diers, deserted  their  generals,  and  marched  off  to  a  hill31  beyond  the  Anio ;  that 
is,  to  a  spot  beyond  the  limits  of  the  Ager  Romanus,  the  proper  territory  of  the 


88  Ex  factione  Tarquinia  essent  (consules),  id  OT  "  Magister  equitum,  quod  summa  potesiaa 

quoque  enim    traditur,   parum  creditum    sit.  huius  in  equites  etaccensos."    Varro,  de  L.  L., 

Livy,  II.  81.  V.  82.  Ed.  Miiller. 

71  See  on  this  point  Niebuhr,  Vol.  I.  p.  591,  *°  "Piso  auctor  est  in  Aventinum  secessio- 

8t  seqq.  nem  factam."    Livy,  II.  32.    S  o  also  Cicero,  de 

"Consulares  legere."    Livy,  II.  18.     This,  Kepublica,  II.  33,  and  Sallust,  Fragm.  Histor. 

in  the  language  of  the  time,  would  have  been  I.  2. 

"  praetorios  legere."  31  "  Trans  Anienem  amnem  est."  Livy,  !L  82, 


56  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  VIH 

burghers,  but  within  the  district  which  had  been  assigned  to  one  of  the  newly 
created  tribes  of  the  commons,  the  Crustuminian.31  Here  they  established  them- 
selves, and  here  they  proposed  to  found  a  new  city  of  their  own,  to  which  they 
would  have  gathered  their  families,  and  the  rest  of  their  order  who  were  left 
behind  in  Rome,  and  have  given  up  their  old  city  to  its  original  possessors,  the 
burghers  and  their  clients. 

But  the  burghers  were  as  unwilling  to  lose  the  services  of  the  commons,  as  the 
Egyptians  in  the  like  case  to  let  the  Israelites  go,  and  they  endeavored,  by  every 
means,  to  persuade  them  to  return.  To  show  how  little  the  commons  thought 
of  gaining  political  power,  we  have  only  to  notice  their  demands.  They  required88 
a  general  cancelling  of  the  obligations  of  insolvent  debtors,  and  the  release  of  all 
those  whose  persons,  in  default  of  payment,  had  been  assigned  over  to  the  power 
of  their  creditors  :  and,  further,  they  insisted  on  having  two34  of  their  own  body 
acknowledged  by  the  burghers  as  their  protectors  ;  and  to  make  this  protection 
effectual,  the  persons  of  those  who  afforded  it  were  to  be  as  inviolable  as  those 
of  the  heralds,  the  sacred  messengers  of  the  gods ;  whosoever  harmed  them  wa§ 
to  be  held  accursed,  and  might  be  slain  by  any  one  with  impunity.  To  these 
terms  the  burghers  agreed  ;  and  a  solemn  treaty  was  concluded  between  them 
and  the  commons,  as  between  two  distinct  nations ;  and  the  burghers  swore  for 
themselves,  and  for  their  posterity,  that  they  would  hold  inviolable  the  persons 
of  two  officers,  to  be  chosen  by  the  centuries  on  the  Field  of  Mars,  whose  business 
it  should  be  to  extend  full  protection  to  any  commoner  against  a  sentence  of  the 
consul ;  that  is  to  say,  who  might  rescue  any  debtor  from  the  power  of  his  cred- 
itor, if  they  conceived  it  to  be  capriciously  or  cruelly  exerted.  The  two  "officers 
thus  chosen  retained  the  name  which  the  chief  officers  of  the  commons  had  borne 
before :  they  were  called  Tribuni,  or  tribe-masters  ;  but  instead  of  being  merely 
the  officers  of  one  particular  tribe,  and  exercising  an  authority  only  over  the 
members  of  their  own  order,  they  were  named  tribunes  of  the  commons  at  large, 
and  their  power,  as  protectors  in  stopping  any  exercise  of  oppression  towards 
their  own  body,  extended  over  the  burghers,  and  was  by  them  solemnly  acknowl- 
edged. The  number  of  the  tribunes  was,  probably,  suggested  by  that  of  the 
consuls  ;35  there  were  to  be  two  chief  officers  of  the  commons,  as  there  were  of 
the  burghers. 

When  these  conditions  had  been  formally  agreed  to,  the  commons  returned  to 
Rome.  The  spot  on  which  this  great  deliverance  had  been  achieved  became  to 
the  Romans  what  Runnymede  is  to  Englishmen :  the  top  of  the  hill36  was  left 
forever  unenclosed  and  consecrated,  and  an  altar  was  built  on  it,  and  sacrifices 
offered  to  Jupiter,  who  strikes  men  with  terror  and  again  delivers  them  from 
their  fear ;  because  the  commons  had  fled  thither  in  fear,  and  were  now  return- 
ing in  safety.  So  the  hill  was  known  forever  by  the  name  of  the  Sacred  Hill. 

M  Hence  Varro  calls  it  "  seccssio  Crustume-  and  forwards  ;  and  it  may  have  been  raised  to 

rina,"  de  L.  L.,  V.  81.  Ed.  Miiller.  ten  in  the  year  261,  when  Sp.  Cassius  was  con- 

13  Dionysius,  VI.  83-89.  sul,  and  afterwards  reduced  to  its  original  num- 

s*  "  Two"  is  the  number  given  by  Piso  (Livy,  ber,  when  his  popular  measures  were  repealed 

II.  58),  and  by  Cicero,  Fragm.  pro  Cornelio,  23.  or  set  aside  by  the  opposite  party.    With  regard 

Ed.  Nobb.,  et  de  Eepublica,  II.  34.     "Two,"  to  the  curia;,  I  agree  with  Niebuhr,  that  theii 

according  to  Livy  and  Dionysius,  were  origin-  share  in  the  appointment  of  the  tribunes  must 

ally  created,  and  then  three  more  were  added  to  have  been  rather  a  confirmation  or  rejection  of 

the  number  immediately.    According  to  Piso,  the  choice  of  the  centuries,  than  an  original  elec- 

there  were  only  two  for  the  first  twenty-three  tion.    This  the  curias  would  claim  at  every  elec- 

years,  and  by  the  Publilian  law  they  became  five,  tion  made  by  the  centuries  ;  and  it  was  the  pb- 

Fourteen  years  after  this,  in  297,  the  number,  ject  of  the  Publilian  law  to  get  rid  of  this  claim, 

according  to  Livy  and  Dionysius,  was  raised  to  amongst  other  advantages,  by  transferring  the 

ten.   (Livy,  III.  30.   Dionys.  .X.  30.)   ButCice-  appointment  to  the  comitia  of  the  tribes. 

ro,  in  his  speech  for  the  tribune  Cornelius,  says  Or,  as  Niebuhr  supposes,  by  the  number  of 

that  ten  were  chosen  in  the  very  next  year  after  tribes,  at  this  time  reduced  to  twenty-one,  so 

the  first  institution  of  the  office,  and  chosen  by  that  each  decury  of  tribes  should  have  one  trib- 

the  comitia  curiata.    So  great  are  the  varieties  une  of  its  own.    But  the  odd  number,  twenty- 

in  the  traditions  of  these  times.  Possibly,  how-  one,  may  seem  to  make  against  this  supposition.. 

ever,  the  number  really  was  altered  backwards  3C  Dionysius,  VI.  90. 


CKAP.  IX.]  SPURIUS  CASSIUS— LEAGUE  WITH  THE  LATINS.  tf 

Thus  the  dissolution  of  the  Roman  nation  was  prevented  ;  the  commons  had 
gained  protection ;  their  rights  as  an  order  were  again  and  more  fully  recognized  ; 
their  oppressions  were  abated ;  better  times  came  to  relieve  their  distress,  and 
they  became  gradually  more  and  more  fitted  for  a  higher  condition,  to  become 
citizens  and  burghers  of  Rome  in  the  fullest  sense,  sharing  equally  with  the  old 
burghers  in  all  the  benefits  and  honors  of  their  common  country. 


CHAPTER  IX, 

Bl'URiUS    CASSIUS— THE   LEAGUE  WITH  THE   LATINS   AND   HEENICANS— THE 
AGEAEIAN  LAW.— A.  U.  C.  261-269. 


"  The  noble  Brutus 
Hath,  told  you,  Csesar  was  ambitious. 
If  it  were  so,  it  was  a  grievous  fault, 
And  grievously  hath  Ceesar  answered  it." 


Ot  irpoaTdrat  rov  Srjpov,  ore  jroAs/aKot  ylvoivro,  nfawttt  fircTtSevTo '  irdvTcs  &e  TOVTO  tSpuv  {uri  TO! 
juov  inffT£v3fvT£S,  t]  5c  iriffTis  tjv  f]  07rf'x$ua  17  Trpo?  TOO?  irAouaYouj. — ARISTOT.  Politic.  V.  5. 


BRUTUS  and  Poplicola  were  no  doubt  real  characters,  yet  fiction  has  been  so 
busy  with  their  actions,  that  history  cannot  venture  to  admit  them  within  her 
own  proper  domain.  By  a  strange  compensation  of  fortune,  the  first  Roman 
whose  greatness  is  really  historical,  is  the  man  whose  deeds  no  poet  sang,  and 
whose  memory  the  early  annalists,  repeating  the  language  of  the  party  who 
destroyed  him,  have  branded  with  the  charge  of  treason,  and  attempted  tyranny. 
This  was  Spurius  Cassius.  Amidst  the  silence  and  the  calumnies  of  his  enemies,  he 
is  known  as  the  author  of  three  works  to  which  Rome  owed  all  her  future  great- 
ness ;  he  concluded  the  league  with  the  Latins  in  his  second  consulship,  in  his 
third  he  concluded  the  league  with  the  Hernicans,  and  procured,  although  with 
the  price  of  his  own  life,  the  enactment  of  the  first  agrarian  law. 

I.  We  know  that  the  Latins  were  in  the  first  year  of  the  commonwealth 
subject  to  Rome.  We  know  that  almost  immediately  afterwards  ^^  with  the  ^ 
they  must  have  become  independent ;  and  it  is  probable  that  they  ins> 
may  have  aided  the  Tarquinii  in  some  of  their  attempts  to  effect  their  restoration. 
But  the  real  details  of  this  period  cannot  be  discovered :  this  only  is  certain, 
that  in  the  year  of  Rome  261,  the  Latin  confederacy,  consisting  of  the  old 
national  number  of  thirty  cities,  concluded  a  kague  with  Rome  on  terms  of 
perfect  equality ;  and  the  record  of  this  treaty,  which  existed  at  Rome  on  a 
brazen  pillar1  down  to  the  time  of  Cicero,  contained  the  name  of  Spurius  Cassius, 
as  the  consul  who  concluded  it,  and  took  the  oaths  to  the  Latin  deputies  on 
behalf  of  the  Romans.  It  may  be  that  the  Roman  burghers  desired  to  obtain 
the  aid  of  the  Latins  against  their  own  commons,  and  that  the  fear  of  this  union 
led  the  commons  at  the  Sacred  Hill  to  be  content  with  the  smallest  possible  con- 
cessions from  their  adversaries  ;  but  there  was  another  cause  for  the  alliance,  no 
less  natural,  in  the  common  danger  which  threatened  both  Rome  and  Latium 
from  the  growing  power  of  their  neighbors  on  the  south,  the  Oscan,  or  Ausonian, 
nations  of  the  -^Equians  and  the  Volscians. 

The  thirty  cities  which  at  this  time  formed  the  Latin  state,  and  concluded  the 

1  Cicero  pro  Balbo,  23.    Livy,  II.  83. 


58  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  IX 

league  with  Rome,  were  these:2  Ardea,  Aricia,  Bo.illre.  Buben* 

A.U.C.  261.  Thethir-     ,      &      .-  ~  ~.         ..          '    .    ,.      ~ '         .         _.  _ 

ty  states  of  L»tium.  turn,  Comiculum,  Carventum,  Circen,  Conoli,  Corbio,  Cora,  For« 
tuna  or  Foretii,  Gabii,  Laurentum,  Lanuvium,  Laviniura,  Lavici, 
Momentum,  Norba,  Prseneste,  Pedum,  Querquetulum,  Satricum,  Scaptia,  Setia, 
Tellena,  Tibur,  Tusculum,  Toleria,  Tricrinum,  Velitrse.  The  situation  of  several 
of  these  places  is  unknown ;  still  the  list  clearly  shows  to  how  short  a  distance 
from  the  Tiber  the  Roman  territory  at  this  time  extended,  and  how  little  wa8 
retained  of  the  great  dominion  enjoyed  by  the  last  kings  of  Rome.  Between 
this  Latin  confederacy  and  the  Romans  there  was  concluded  a  perpetual  league  :3 
"  There  shall  be  peace  between  them  so  long  as  the  heaven  shall  keep  its  place 
above  the  earth,  and  the  earth  its  place  below  the  heaven  :  they  shall  neither 
bring  nor  cause  to  be  brought  any  war  against  each  other,  nor  give  to  each 
other's  enemies  a  passage  through  their  land  ;  they  shall  aid  each  other  when 
attacked  with  all  their  might,  and  all  spoils  and  plunder  won  by  their  joint  arms 
shall  be  shared  equally  between  them.  Private  causes  shall  be  decided  within 
ten  days,  in  the  courts  of  that  city  where  the  business  which  gave  occasion  to 
the  dispute  may  have  taken  place."  Further,  it  was  agreed  that  the  command 
of  the  Roman  and  Latin  armies,  on  their  joint  expeditions,  should  one  year4  be 
given  to  the  Roman  general,  and  another  to  the  Latin  :  and  to  this  league  nothing 
was  to  be  added,  and  nothing  taken  away,  without  the  mutual  consent  of  the 
Romans  and  the  confederate  cities  of  the  Latins. 

II.  Seven  years  afterwards  the  same  Spurius  Cassius,  in  his  third  consulship,5 
A.  u.  c.268.  League  concluded  a  similar  league  with  the  cities  of  the  Hernicans.  The 
with  the  Hemiciuis.  Hernicans  were  a  Sabine,  not  a  Latin  people,  and  their  country 
lay  chiefly  in  that  high  valley  which  breaks  the  line  of  the  Apennines  at  Prseneste, 
and  running  towards  the  southeast,  falls  at  last  into  the  valley  of  the  Liris.  The 
number  of  their  cities  was  probably  sixteen  ;  but  with  the  exception  of  Anagnia, 
Verulae,  Alatrium,  and  Ferentinum,  the  names  of  all  are  unknown  to  us.  They, 
like  the  Latins,  had  been  the  dependent  allies  of  Rome  under  the  last  Tarquinius  ; 
they,  too,  had  broken  off  this  connection  after  the  establishment  of  the  common- 
wealth, and  now  renewed  it  on  more  equal  terms  for  mutual  protection  against 
the  ^Equians  and  Volscians.  The  situation  of  their  country,  indeed,  rendered 
their  condition  one  of  peculiar  danger ;  it  lay  interposed  in  the  very  midst  of  the 
country  of  these  enemies,  having  the  ^Equians  on  the  north,  and  the  Volscians 
on  the  south,  and  communicating  with  the  Latin  cities  and  with  Rome  only  by 
the  opening  in  the  Apennines  already  noticed  under  the  citadel  of  Prseneste. 

3  Dionysius,  V.  61.    I  have  followed  the  read-  and  only  gives  an  additional  proof  of  the  syste- 
ings  of  the  Vatican  MS.  given  in  the  various  matic  falsehood  of  the  Roman  annals  in  their 
readings  in  Reiske's  Edition,  with  Niebuhr's  accounts  of  the  relations  of  Rome  with  foreign- 
corrections.  Vol.  II.  p.  19,  2d  Ed.  ers.    It  is  true  that  the  words  of  Cincius,  "  quo 

8  Dionysius,  VI.  95.  anno,"  do  not  expressly  assert  that  the  com- 

4  Cincius  de  Consulum  Potestate,  quoted  by  mand  was  held  by  a  Roman  every  other  year ; 
Festus  in   "Praetor  ad  Portam."    The  whole  and  it  may  be  that  after  the  Hernicans  joined 
passage  is  remarkable.     "  Cincius  ait,  Albanos  the  alliance,  the  Romans  had  the  command  only 
rerum  potitos  usque  ad  Tullum  regem :  Alba  once  in  three  years.    But  as  the  Latin  states 
deinde  diruta  usque  ad  P.  Decium  Murem  cos.  were  considered  as  forming  one  people,  and  the 
populos  Latinos  ad  caput  Ferentinte,  quod  est  Romans  another,  it  is  most  likely  that  so  long 
sub  Monte  Albano,  consulere  solitos,  et  imperi-  as  the  alliance  subsisted  between  these  two  par- 
urn  communi  consilio  administrare.   Itaque  quo  ties  only,  the  command  shifted  from  the  one  to 
anno  Romanes  imperatores  ad  exercitum  mit-  the  other  year  by  vear. 

tere  oporteret  jussu  nominis  _  Latini,  complures  5  Dionysius,  VIII.  69.    Taj  Trpfc  "EpvtKas  ffy- 

nostros  in  Capitolio  a  sole  oriente  auspiciis  ope-  vcyKcv   o^oAoya?"  avrai  6'  Jjaav    avnypaQoi    TUV 

rum  dare  solitos.    Ubi  aves  addixissent,  mili-  irpds  Aarivovs  ytvoniwv.  Amongst  other  clauses, 

tern  ilium  qui  a  communi  Latio  missus  esset,  therefore,  of  the  treaty  was  one  which  secured  to 

ilium  quern  aves  addixerant  prastorem  salutare  the  Hernicans  their  equal  share  of  all  lands  con- 

solitum,  qui  earn  provinciam  obtineret  prastoris  quered  by_  the  confederates ;  namely,  one-third 

nomine."    Cincius  lived  in  the  time  of  the  sec-  part.    This  is  disfigured  by  the  annalist,  whom 

ond  Punic  war,  and  his  works  on  various  points  Livy  copied,  in  a  most  extraordinary  manner; 

of  Roman  law  and  antiquities  were  of  high  value,  he  represented  the  Hernicans  as  being  deprived 

His  statement,  which  bears  on  the  face  of  it  a  by  the  treaty  of  two-thirds  of  their  own  land, 

character  of  authenticity,  is  quite  in  agreement  "  Cum  Hernicis  foedus  ictum,  agri  partos  dua 

with  what  Dionvsius  reports  of  the  treaty  itself,  ademta)."    Livy,  II.  41 . 


CHAP.  IX.]  THE  AGRARIAN  LA.W.  59 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Romans  were  glad  to  obtain  the  willing  aid  of  a  brave 
and  numerous  people,  whose  position  enabled  them  to  threaten  the  rear  of  the 
Volscians,  so  soon  as  they  should  break  out  from  their  mountains  upon  the  plain 
of  Latium  or  the  hills  of  Alba. 

Thus  by  these  two  treaties  with  the  Latins  and  Hernicans,  Spurius  Cassius 
had,  so  far  as  was  possible,  repaired  the  losses  occasioned  to  the  importance  of  the»e  two 
Roman  power  by  the  expulsion  of  Tarquinius,  and  had  reorganized  treutie»- 
that  confederacy  to  which,  under  her  last  kings,  Rome  had  been  indebted  for  her 
greatness.  The  wound  was  healed  at  the  very  critical  moment,  before  the  storm  of 
the  great  Volscian  invasions  burst  upon  Latium.  It  happened  of  necessity  that 
the  Latins,  from  their  position,  bore  the  first  brunt  of  these  attacks  :  Rome  could 
only  be  reached  when  they  were  conquered :  whereas,  had  it  not  been  for  the 
treaty  concluded  by  Spurius  Cassius,  the  Volscians,  on  their  first  appearance  in 
Latium,  might  have  been  joined  by  the  Latins  ;  or  the  surviving  cities  of  the  con- 
federacy, after  the  conquest  of  some  of  their  number,  might  have  taken  refuge 
under  the  protection  of  the  conquerors. 

But  in  restoring  the  league  with  the  Latins  and  Hernicans,  Spurius  Cassius 
had  only  adopted  a  part  of  the  system  of  the  Roman  kings.  Sp.  Caaaiu8  profOKa  ^ 
Another,  and  a  far  more  difficult  part,  yet  remained :  to  strengthen  nsrarimi  law- 
the  state  within  ;  to  increase  the  number  of  those  who,  as  citizens,  claimed  their 
share  of  the  public  land,  and  out  of  this  public  land  to  relieve  the  poverty  of 
those  who  united  the  two  inconsistent  characters  of  citizenship  and  beggary. 
Spurius  Cassius  proposed,  what  tradition  ascribed  to  almost  every  one  of  the 
kings  as  amongst  his  noblest  acts,  an  agrarian  law.  But  he  was  not  a  king  ;  and 
it  is  but  too  often  a  thankless  act  in  the  eyes  of  the  aristocracy,  when  one  of 
their  own  members  endeavors  to  benefit  and  to  raise  the  condition  of  those  who 
are  not  of  his  own  order. 

If,  amongst  Niebuhr's  countless  services  to  Roman  history,  any  single  one  may 
claim  our  gratitude  beyond  the  rest,  it  is  his  explanation  of  the  The  trne  cilftracter  of 
true  nature  and  character  of  the  agrarian  laws.  Twenty-four  j&gJSi^lJftS! 
years  have  not  yet  elapsed  since  he  first  published  it,  but  it  has  bubr> 
already  overthrown  the  deeply  rooted  false  impressions  which  prevailed  univer- 
sally on  the  subject ;  and  its  truth,  like  Newton's  discoveries  in  natural  science, 
is  not  now  to  be  proved,  but  to  be  taken  as  the  very  corner-stone  of  all  our 
researches  into  the  internal  state  of  the  Roman  people.  I  am  now  to  copy  so 
much  of  it  as  may  be  necessary  to  the  right  understanding  of  the  views  and 
merits  of  Spurius  Cassius. 

It  seems  to  have  been  a  notion  generally  entertained  in  the  ancient  world,  that 
every  citizen  of  a  country  should  be  a  landholder,  and  that  the  of  the  puWic  or  de. 
territory  of  a  state,  so  far  as  it  was  not  left  unenclosed  or  reserved  Se  e0a^o™eaeiu£ 
for  public  purposes,  should  be  divided  in  equal  portions  amongst  8nd  iu  occuPatiou' 
the  citizens.  But  it  would  almost  always  happen  that  a  large  part  of  it  was  left 
unenclosed ;  the  complete  cultivation  of  a  whole  country,  without  distinction  of 
soil,  being  only  the  result  of  an  excess  of  population,  and  therefore  not  taking 
place  till  a  late  period.  The  part  thus  left  out  of  cultivation  was  mostly  kept  as 
pasture,  and  a  revenue  was  raised  from  it,  not  only  from  every  citizen  who  had 
turned  out  sheep  or  cattle  upon  it,  but  also  from  strangers,  who,  although  inca- 
pable of  buying  land,  might  yet  rent  a  right  of  pasture  for  their  flocks  and  herds. 
But  when  a  new  territory  was  gained  in  war,  the  richer  parts  of  it  already  in 
cultivation  were  too  valuable  to  be  given  up  to  pasture ;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
if  they  were  divided,  the  division  could  only  follow  the  general  rule,  and  allot 
an  equal  portion  to  every  citizen.  In  these  circumstances,  it  was  the  practice  at 
Rome,  and  doubtless  in  other  states  of  Italy,  to  allow  individuals  to  occupy  such 
lands,  and  to  enjoy  all  the  benefits  of  them,  on  condition  of  paying  to  the  state 
the  tithe  of  the  produce  as  an  acknowledgment  that  the  state  was  the  proprietor 
of  the  land,  and  the  individual  merely  the  occupier.  With  regard  to  the  state, 


60  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  IX 

the  occupier  was  merely  a  tenant  at  will  ;  but  with  respect  to  other  citizens,  he 
was  like  the  owner  of  the  soil,  and  could  alienate  the  land  which  he  occupied 
either  for  a  term  of  years  or  forever,  as  much  as  if  he  had  been  its  actual  pro- 
prietor. 

This  public  land  thus  occupied  was  naturally  looked  to  as  a  resource  on  every 
portions  of  it  were  admission  of  new  citizens.  They  were  to  receive  their  portion  of 
granted  to  new  citizens.  freeh0ld  land,  according  to  the  general  notion  of  a  citizen's  condi- 
tion ;  but  this  land  could  only  be  found  by  a  division  of  that  which  belonged  to 
the  public,  and  by  the  consequent  ejectment  of  its  tenants  at  will.  Hence,  in  the 
Greek  states,  every  large  accession  to  the  number  of  citizens6  was  followed  by  a 
call  for  a  division  of  the  public  land  ;  and  as  this  division  involved  the  sacrifice 
of  many  existing  interests,  it  was  regarded  with  horror  by  the  old  citizens,7  as  an 
act  of  revolutionary  violence.  For  although  the  land  was  undoubtedly  the 
property  of  the  state,  and  although  the  occupiers  of  it  were  in  relation  to  the 
state  mere  tenants  at  will,  yet  it  is  in  human  nature  that  a  long  undisturbed 
possession  should  give  a  feeling  of  ownership,  the  more  so,  as  while  the  state's 
claim  lay  dormant,  the  possessor  was  in  fact  the  proprietor  ;  and  the  land  would 
thus  be  repeatedly  passing  by  regular  sale  from  one  occupier  to  another.  And 
if  there  was  no  near  prospect  of  the  state's  claiming  its  right,  it  is  manifest  that 
the  price  of  land  thus  occupied  would,  after  some  years  of  undisturbed  possession, 
be  nearly  equal  to  that  of  an  actual  freehold. 

Under  such  circumstances  the  English  law,  with  its  characteristic  partiality  to 
The  occupiers  of  iho  individual  and  existing  interests,  would  no  doubt  have  decided,  as 
wScJejedctedul?  &  'li  did  in  the  somewhat  similar  case  of  the  copyholds,  that  the 
pleasure  of  the  state,  occupier  could  not  be  ejected  so  long  as  he  continued  to  pay  his 
tithe  to  the  state.  The  Roman  law,  on  the  other  hand,  in  a  spirit  no  less  charac- 
teristic, constantly  asserted  the  utterly  precarious  tenure  of  the  occupier,8  when- 
ever the  state  might  choose  to  take  its  property  into  its  own  hands.  And 
accordingly,  most  of  the  kings  of  Rome  are  said  to  have  carried  an  agrarian  law, 
that  is,  to  have  divided  a  portion,  more  or  less,  of  the  public  land  amongst  those 
whom  they  admitted  to  the  rights  of  citizenship.  Yet  it  was  understood  that 
these  new  citizens,  the  Roman  commons,  although  they  received  their  portion  of 
land  as  freehold,  whenever  the  public  land  was  divided,  had  still  no  right  to 
occupy  it9  while  it  lay  in  the  mass  unallotted  ;  while  the  old  burghers,  who 

8  A-tovrlvoi  —  TroAmts  re  iTredavTo  iroXAoirj,  Kal    possideret,"  was  understood  by  every  Roman 
.   Thucd.  V.  4.     without  the  addition  of  the  word  "public!"  to 


aSdvaoOat.   Thucyd.  V.  4.  without  the  addition  of  the  word  "publ 

So,  again,  when    the    Cyrenseans    in    Africa  "agri,"  because  the  word  "  possidere"  could 

wished  to  increase  the  number  of  their  citizens,  not  in  a  legal  sense  apply  to  private  property, 

they  invited  over  any  Greek  that  chose  to  come,  although  there  is  no  doubt  that  in  common  Ian- 

holding  out  the  temptation  of  an  allotment  of  guage  it  is  often  found  in  that  signification. 

land.     Herodotus,  IV.  159.  9  This  was  because  the  plebs  was  not  yet  con- 

7  Hence  it  was  a  clause  of  the  path  taken  by  sidered  to  be  a  part  of  the  populus  :  Srjftof  and 
every  member  of  the  court  of  Helisea  at  Athens,  ir6\ts  were  still  carefully  distinguished,  and  the 
that  he  would  allow  no  division  of  the  land  of  state,  or  people,  or  burghers,  claimed  the  ex- 
the  Athenians  (Demosthen.  Timocrat.  p.  74(5)  ;  flusive  administration  of  what  may  be  called 
by  which  it  was  not  meant  that  there  was  any  the  corporate  property  of  the  state.  'Those  who 
dream  of  a  division  of  the  private  property  of  are  acquainted  with  the  affairs  of  the  colleges 
Athenian  citizens,  but  of  the  public  land  of  the  of  the  English  universities  will  recollect  the 
commonwealth,  which  being  beneficially  en-  somewhat  similar  practice  there  with  regard  to 
joyed  by  the  existing  citizens,  could  not,  with-  fines.    Whatever  benefits  arise  out  of  fne  ad- 
out  loss  to  them,  be  allotted  out  to  furnish  free-  ministration  of  the  college  property  belong  ex- 
hold  properties,  K\ripoi,  for  any  citizens  newly  clusivelyto  the  ruling  part  of  the  society:  the 
admitted  to  the  franchise.  fellows  engross  the  fines  to  themselves,  just  aft 

8  I  have  used  the  words  "occupation"  and  the  burghers  at  Rome  enjoyed  the  exclusive 
"  occupier,"    rather  than    "  possession"    and  right  of  occupying  the  public  land.    But  the 
"  possessor"  to  express  the  Latin  terms  "  pps-  rents  of  college  lands  are  divided  in  certain 
sessio"  and  "  possessor,"  because  the  English  fixed  proportions  amongst  the  fellows  and  schol- 
word  "  possession"  is  often  used  to  denote  what  ars,  the  populus  and  plebs  of  the  society.    And 
is  a  man's  own  property,  whereas  it  was  an  es-  a  law  which  should  prohibit  the  practice  of 
Bential  part  of  the  definition  of  u  possessio,"  taking  a  fine  on  the  renewal  of  a  lease  of  col- 
that  it  could  relate  only  to  what  was  not  a  man's  lege  prppertv,  and  should  order  the  land  to  be 
own  property.    Hence  the  clause  in  the  Licin-  let  at  its  full  value,  in  order  to  secure  to  the 
ian  law,  "  No  quis  plus  quingenta  jugera  agri  scholars  their  due  share  in  all  the  benefits  aria* 


OHAP.  IX.]  THE  AGRARIAN  LAW.  61 

enjoyed  exclusively  the  right  of  occupation  with  regard  to  the  undivided  public 
land,  had  no  share  in  it  whatever  when  it  was  divided,  because  they  already 
enjoyed  from  ancient  allotment  a  freehold  property  of  their  own.  Thus  the 
public  land  was  wholly  unprofitable  to  the  commons,  so  long  as  it  was  undivided, 
and  became  wholly  lost  to  the  burghers  whenever  it  was  divided. 

Now  twenty-four  years  after  the  expulsion  of  Tarquinius,  there  must  have 
been  at  least  as  great  need  of  an  agrarian  law  as  at  any  former  An  agnrim  }&w  W(yl 
period  of  the  Roman  history.  The  loss  of  territory  on  the  right  {J^<?i£££J  i!li! 
bank  of  the  Tiber,  and  all  those  causes  which  had  brought  on  the  lory- 
general  distress  of  the  commons,  and  overwhelmed  them  hopelessly  in  debts, 
called  aloud  for  a  remedy  ;  and  this  remedy  was  to  be  found,  according  to  pre- 
cedent no  less  than  abstract  justice,  in  an  allotment  of  the  public  land.  For  as 
the  burghers  who  occupied  this  land  had  even  grown  rich  amidst  the  distress  of 
the  commons,  so  they  could  well  afford  to  make  some  sacrifice  ;  while  the  reser- 
vation to  them  of  the  exclusive  right  of  occupying  the  public  land  till  it  was 
divided,  held  out  to  them  the  hope  of  acquiring  fresh  possessions,  so  soon  as  the 
nation,  united  and  invigorated  by  the  proposed  relief,  should  be  in  a  condition  to 
make  new  conquests. 

Spurius  Cassius  accordingly  proposed  an  agrarian  law10  for  the  division  of  a 
certain  proportion  of  the  public  land,  while  from  the  occupiers  of  Splirlus  Cn88ius  pr(>. 
the  remainder,  he  intended  to  require  the  regular  payment  of  the  $£•$  'oppo^'d^by 
tithe,  which  had  been  greatly  neglected,  and  to  apply  the  revenue  the  bur»hers- 
thus  gained  to  paying  the  commons,  whenever  they  were  called  out  to  serve  as 
soldiers.  Had  he  been  king  he  could  have  carried  the  measure  without  difficulty, 
and  would  have  gone  down  to  posterity  invested  with  the  same  glory  which 
rendered  sacred  the  memory  of  the  good  king  Servius.  But  his  colleague, 
Proculus  Virginius,11  headed  the  aristocracy  in  resisting  his  law,  and  in  maligning 
the  motives  of  its  author.  His  treaties  with  the  Latins  and  Hernicans  were 
represented  as  derogating  from  the  old  supremacy  of  Rome  ;  and  this  cry  roused 
the  national  pride  even  of  the  commons  against  him,  as,  four  centuries  afterwards, 
a  similar  charge  of  sacrificing  the  rights  of  Rome  to  the  Italian  allies  ruined  the 
popularity  of  M.  Drusus.  Still  it  is  probable  that  the  popular  feeling  in  favor 
of  his  law  was  so  strong,  that  the  burghers  yielded  to  the  storm  for  the  moment, 
and  consented  to  pass  it.12  They  followed  the  constant  policy  of  an  aristocracy, 

ing  out  of  the  college  property,  would  give  no  been  that  the  law  was  passed,  and  its  execution 

bad  idea  of  the  nature  and  objects  of  an  agra-  fraudulently  evaded  ;  and  that  the  tribunes  de- 

rian  law  at  Kome.  manded  no"more  than  the  due  execution  of  an 

10  I  have  here  followed  Niebuhr  (Vol.  II.  188,  existing  law.    And  he  supposes  that  the  words 
2d  ed.)  in  assuming  as  the  original  proposal  of  of  Dionysius,  TOVTO  rb  Sdypa  ds  rbv  <5j}/*ov  ctVci'ex- 
Cassius,  what  is  represented  in  Dionysius  as  Oev.  r6v  re  Kdvcriov  e-xavae  rrjs  Stifiayuylas  KIH  n> 
the  proposal  of  A.   Sempronius  Atratinus,  to  Afa^tici^onivijv  IK  r&v  irw/rwv  vrdffiv  oi>K  t"aot  -KI* 
which  the  senate  assented.    Dionysius,  VIII.  pairtpw  irpoeXOclv,  VIII.  76,  are  taken  from  some 
75,  76.  Roman  annalist,  who  by  the  words  "ad  populum 

11  Livy,  II.  41.    This  was  the  great  quarrel  latum"  meant  the  old  populus,  the  assembly  of 
between  the  nobles  and  the  commons  in  Castile,  the  burghers  in  their  curia?.    At  any  rutt,  the 
The  commons  complained  that  the  crown  do-  words  its  rbv  Sn^ov  tio£v?xS£v  seem  to  imply  more 
mains  had  been  so  granted  away  to  the  nobles,  than  the  mere  communicating  to  the  people 
that  now,  as  the  nobles  were  exempt  from  tax-  the  knowledge  of  a  decree  of  the  senate.    They 
ation,  the  commons  were  obliged  to  defray  all  must  apparently  signify  that  the  decree  of  the 
the  expenses  of  the  public  service  at  their  own  senate,  as  a  Trpo/JoiJAtujua,  was  submitted  to  the 


private  cost.    And  it  was  the  commons'  insist-  people  for  its  acceptance  and  ratification  ;  and 

ing  that  the  nobles  should  give  up  the  domains  this  "  people1'1  must  have  been  the  burghers  in 

as_  being  strictly  public  property,  which  deter-  their  cunae,  and  by  its  being  stated  that  the 

mined  the  nobles  to  take  part  with  the  crown,  bringing  the  measure  before  the  people  put  an 

in  the  famous  war  of  the  commons  in  the  reign  end  to  the  agitation,  it  must  surely  be  con- 

of  Charles  V.    See  Ranke,  Fursten  und  Volker  ceived  that  the  measure  was  not  rejected,  but 

von  Siid-Europa.    Vol.  I.  p.  218.  passed.    For  the  words,  htyipsiv  els  r'bv  <5??/<ov,  as 

12  See  Niebuhr,  Vol.  II.  p.  196.    He  argues,  signifying  "to  submit  a  measure  to  the  people 

that  as  the  tribunes,  before  the  Publilian  laws,  for  their  confirmation  of  it,"  it  can  hardly  be 

had  no  power  of  originating  any  legislative  necessary  to  quote  instances,  row?  £uyypa0™?— 

measure,  and  as  we  hear  of  their  agitating  the  £uyypii^avra?  yvwprjv  fatvtyKttv  is  rdv  lijtiov.    Thu- 

question  of  the  agrarian  law,  year  after  year  cyd.  VIII.  67. 
from  the  death  of  Cassius,  the  fact  must  have 


(52  HISTOB.Y  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  X 

to  separate  the  people  from  their  leaders,  to  pacify  the  former  by  a  momentary 
resignation  of  the  point  in  dispute,  and  then  to  watch  their  time  for  destroying 
the  latter,  that  so  when  the  popular  party  is  deprived  of  its  defenders,  they  may 
wrest  from  its  hands  that  concession  which  it  is  then  unable  to  retain. 

When,  therefore,  the  year  was  over,  and  Spurius  Cassius  was  no  longer  consul, 
spur™  cuiiiii  is  im-  the  burghers  knew  that  their  hour  of  vengeance  had  arrived. 
i^hers,  bcedndeemned?  Ser.  Cornelius  and  Quintus  Fabius13  were  the  new  consuls  ;  Kseso 
«cd  executed.  '  FaoiUS)  the  consul's  brother,  and  Lucius  Valerius,  were  the  inquis- 
itors of  blood,  queestores  parricidii,  who,  as  they  tried  all  capital  offences  subject 
to  an  appeal  to  the  burghers  or  commons,  were  also  empowered  to  bring  any  of- 
fender at  once  before  those  supreme  tribunals,  instead  of  taking  cognizance  of  his 
case  themselves.  Cassius  was  charged  with  a  treasonable  attempt  to  make  him- 
self king,  and  the  burghers,  assembled  in  their  curiae,  found  him  guilty.  He 
shared  the  fate  of  Agis  and  of  Marino  Falieri ;  he  was  sentenced  to  die  as  a 
traitor,  and  was,  according  to  the  usage  of  the  Roman  law,  scourged  and  be- 
headed, and  his  house  razed  to  the  ground 


CHAPTER  X, 

ASCENDENCY  OF  THE  ARISTOCRACY— THE  FABII  AND  THEIR  SEVEN  CONSUL- 
SHIPS— THE  PUBLILIAN  LAW.— A.  U.  C.  269-283. 


xcv  6  <5?J^oj  KUI  Kard^rt^iv  roiatfrr/v  SHITS  Ktpdos  6  /xi  irdffx^v  rt  &iaiov.  tl  Kal  ffiyyri,  tvdnfy. 
— THUCYD.  VIII.  66. 

"  Lcs  abus  recens  avaicnt  brave  la  force  et  depasse  la  prevoyance  des  anciennes  lois :  il  fallait 
des  garantics  nouvelles,  explicites,  revetues  de  la  sanction  du  parlement  tout  entier.  C'etait  ne 
ricn  faire  que  de  renouvclcr  vaguement  des  promesses  tant  de  fois  violees,  des  statuts  si  long- 
temps  oublies." — GUIZOT,  Revolution  d'Angletcrre,  Livre  I.  p.  45. 


THE  release  of  all  existing  debts  by  the  covenant  concluded  at  the  Sacred  Hill, 
and  the  appointment  of  the  tribunes  to  prevent  any  tyrannical  en- 

The     burghers    claim    ,,  c,ii  /*     i    i  i  i'j.         f        ±t        j.- 

the  exclusive  nppoint-  lorcement  oi  the  law  ot  debtor  and  creditor  tor  the  time  to  come, 
had  relieved  the  Roman  commons  from  the  extreme  of  personal 
degradation  and  misery.  But  their  political  condition  had  made  no  perceptible 
advances  ;  their  election  of  their  own  tribunes  was  subject  to  the  approval  of  the 
burghers ;  and  their  choice  of  consuls,  subject  also  to  the  same  approval,  was 
further  limited  to  such  candidates  as  belonged  to  the  burghers'  order.  Even 
this,  however,  did  not  satisfy  the  burghers ;  the  death  of  Spurius  Cassius  enabled 
them  to  dare  any  usurpation ;  while  on  the  other  hand,  they  needed  a  more  ab- 
solute power  than  ever,  in  order  to  evade  their  own  concession  in  consenting  to 
Ivs  agrarian  law.  Accordingly,  they  proposed  to  elect1  the  consuls  themselves, 

11  Livy,  IT.  41.  ation  then  made  in  the  constitution.    And  Zo- 

1  See  Niebuhr,  Vol.  II.  p.  202,  et  seqq.  Dio-  naras,  who  copies  Dion  Cassius,  says  expressly 

nysius  and  Livy  both  ascribe  the  election  of  that  the  commons,  in  the  year  273,  insisted  on 

jKmilius  and  Fabius  to  the  influence  of  the  pa-  electing  one  of  the  consuls,  for  at  that  time  both 

tricians ;  but  Dionysius  (VIII.  S3)  further  noti-  were  chosen  by  the  patricians.    It  seems,  there- 

ces  their  coining  into  office  as  a  marked  period  fore,  probable  that  the  period  from  270  to  273 

in  the  Roman  history,  and  mentions  the  date,  was  marked  by  a  decided  usurpation  on  the  pant 

»nd  the  name  of  the  archcn  at  Athens  for  that  of  the  burghers,  and  that  during  that  time  thev 

jear ;  as  if  there  had  been  some  important  alter-  alone  elected  both  consuls. 


CHAP.  X.J  ASCENDENCY  OF  THE  ARISTOCRACY.  (33 

and  only  to  require  the  confirmation  of  them  by  the  centuries ;  a  form  which 
would  be  as  unessential  as  the  crowd's  acceptance  of  the  king  at  an  English  cor- 
onation, inasmuch  as  it  was  always  by  the  vote  of  the  burghers  in  their  curiee 
that  the  imperium  or  sovereignty  was  conferred ;  and  when  a  consul  was  already 
in  possession  of  this,  it  mattered  little  whether  the  centuries  acknowledged  his  title 
or  not.     In  this  manner  were  Lucius  ^Emilius,  and  Kseso  Fabius,  A  n  c  2.0 
the  prosecutor  of  Spurius  Cassius,  chosen  consuls  by  the  burghers  ; 
and  it  was  in  vain  that  the  commons  demanded  the  execution  of  the  agrarian 
law  ;  the  consuls  satisfied  the  object  of  those  who  had  elected  them,  and  the  law 
remained  a  dead  letter.     The  same  spirit  was  manifested  in  the 
elections  of  the  following  year,  and  was  attended  with  the  same 
result ;  the  other  prosecutor  of  Cassius,  L.  Valerius,  was  now  chosen  by  the 
burghers,  and  with  him  another  member  of  the  Fabian  house,  Marcus,  the  brother 
of  Kseso  and  of  Quintus. 

But  the  complete  usurpation  of  the  consulship  by  the  burghers  served  to  call 
into  action  the  hitherto  untried  powers  of  the  tribimeship.  In  the  The  tribuneg  protcct 
year  271,  the  tribune  Caius  Msenius8  set  the  first  example  of  ex-  }e^PtTnservetheaI 
tending  the  protection  of  his  sacred  office  to  those  of  the  com-  sol(iier8- 
mons,  who  on  public  grounds  resisted  the  sovereignty  of  the  consuls,  by  refusing 
to  serve  as  soldiers.  This  was  the  weapon  so  often  used  from  this  time  forwards 
in  defence  of  the  popular  cause :  the  Roman  commons,  like  those  of  England, 
sought  to  obtain  a  redress  of  grievances  by  refusing  to  aid  the  government  in  its 
wars ;  ihey  refused  to  furnish  men,  as  our  fathers  refused  to  furnish  money. 
But  the  first  exercise  of  this  privilege  was  overborne  with  a  high  hand  ;  the  con- 
suls held  their  enlistment  of  soldiers  without  the  city ;  there  the  tribunes'  pro- 
tection had  no  force  ;  and  if  any  man  refused  to  appear,  and  kept  his  person  safe 
within  the  range  of  the  tribunes'  aid,  the  consuls  proceeded  to  lay  waste  his  land, 
and  to  burn  and  destroy  his  stock  and  buildings,  by  virtue  of  that  sovereign 
power  which,  except  within  the  walls  of  the  city,  was  altogether  unlimited.  Ac- 
cordingly the  tribunes*  opposition  totally  failed,  and  the  consuls  obtained  the  army 
which  they  wanted. 

But  there  is  an  undying  power  in  justice  which  no  oppression  can  altogether 
put  down.     Caius  Msenius  had  failed,  but  his  attempt  was  not  -n^  centuries  recover 
entirely  fruitless  ;    a  spirit  was   excited  amongst  the    commons  }jj  0P°w0eurt  °ff  tlTtwo 
which  induced  the  burghers  the  next  year,  after  long  disputes  and  consult- 
delays,  to  choose  for  one  01'  the  consuls  a  man  well  affected  to  the  cause  of  the 
commons ;  and  the  year  afterwards  it  was  agreed  by  both  orders 
that  the  election  should  be  divided  between  them ;  that  one  consul 
should  be  chosen  by  the  burghers  in  their  curise,  and  the  other  by  the  whole 
people  in  their  centuries.     Still,  however,  it  must  not  be  forgotten,  that  the  votes 
of  the  burghers'  clients  were  at  this  time  so  numerous  in  the  centuries,  as  to  give 
to  their  patrons  no  small  influence  even  in  the  election  of  that  consul  who  was 
particularly  to  be  the  representative  of  the  commons.    Yet  the  commons  regarded 
the  change  as  a  triumph,  and  it  was  marked  as  a  memorable  event3  in  the  annals, 
that  in  the  year  273,  Kaeso  Fabius  was  again  chosen  consul  by  the  burghers,  and 
that  Spurius  Furius  was  elected  as  his  colleague  by  the  people  in  their  centuries. 

The  refusal  of  the  burghers  to  execute  the  agrarian  law  still  rankled  in  the 
minds  of  the  commons ;  and.  when  men  were  again  wanted  to  A.TJ.C.  873.  The  Re- 
serve against  the  ^Equians  and  Yeientians,  Spurius  Licinius,4  one  tKS^SXbe  beaten 
of  the  tribunes,  again  offered  his  protection  to  those  who  refused  i^iS*"!*  The^buS" 
to  enlist.  But  his  colleagues  betrayed  him,  and  either  as  being  a  era- 
majority  of  the  college  overruled  the  opposition  of  Licinius,  or  by  an  abuse  of 
their  peculiar  power,  offered  their  protection  to  the  consuls  in  enforcing  their 

1  Dionysius,  VIII.  57.  4  Livy,  II.  43. 

»  Zonaras,  VII.  17.    Dionysius,  IX.  1. 


64  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  X, 

orders  against  the  refractory.  Thus  an  army  was  raised  ;  but  the  soldiers  who 
followed  Kaeso  Fabius  into  the  field,  regarded  him  and  the  burghers  as  more  their 
enemies  than  the  Veientians,  and  according  to  the  Roman  annalists,  they  refused 
to  conquer,  and  retreated  before  an  enemy  whom  they  could  have  vanquished  if 
they  would.  This  is  merely  the  habitual  style  of  Roman  arrogance ;  but  that 
brave  men  may  be  found  capable  of  allowing  themselves  to  be  slaughtered  by 
the  enemy  rather  than  risk  the  possibility  of  winning  a  victory  for  a  commander 
whom  they  detest,  we  know,  not  merely  from  the  suspicious  accounts  of  the  Ro- 
man writers,  but  from  the  experience  of  our  own  naval  service  in  the  last  war,  in 
one  memorable  instance  as  melancholy  as  it  was  notorious. 

Marcus  Fabius  was  again  chosen  as  the  burghers'  consul  for  the  next  year,  and 
A.  u.  c.  274.  The  Cn.  Manlius5  was  elected  by  the  centuries.  Another  attempt  to 
JorTs6  thethceausob ofX  st°P  ^e  raising  of  an  army  was  made  by  the  tribune  Tiberius 
commons.  Pontificius,6  and  was  again  baffled  by  the  opposition  of  his  col- 

leagues. But  this  year  witnessed  an  accession  to  the  cause  of  the  commons,  of 
importance  more  than  enough  to  compensate  for  the  defection  of  the  majority  of 
the  tribunes.  The  Fabian  house  had  now  been  in  possession  of  one  place  in  the 
consulship  for  six  years  without  interruption,  a  clear  proof  that  no  other  house 
among  the  burghers  could  compare  with  them  in  credit  and  in  power.  Standing 
at  the  head  of  their  order,  they  had  been  most  zealous  in  its  cause,  and  had  in- 
curred proportionably  the  hatred  of  the  commons.  But  they  had  men  amongst 
them  of  a  noble  spirit,  who  could  not  bear  to  be  so  hated  by  their  countrymen, 
as  that  their  own  soldiers  should  rather  allow  themselves  to  be  slaughtered  by 
the  enemy  than  conquer  under  the  command  of  a  Fabius.  Thus  the  new  consul, 
Marcus  Fabius,  was  resolved  to  conciliate  the  commons  ;7  he  succeeded  so  far  as 
to  venture  to  give  battle  to  the  Veientians  ;  in  the  battle8  he  and  his  brothers 
fought  as  men  who  cared  for  nothing  else  than  to  recover  their  countrymen's 
love  ;  Quintus  Fabius,  the  consul  of  the  year  272,  was  killed  ;  but  the  Romans 
gained  the  victory.  Then  the  Fabii,  to  show  that  they  were  in  earnest,  persuaded 
the  burghers  to  divide  amongst  their  houses  the  care  of  the  wounded  soldiers ; 
they  themselves  took  charge  of  a  greater  number  than  any  other  house,  and  dis- 
charged the  duty  which  they  had  undertaken  with  all  kindness  and  liberality. 
Thus,  when  the  burghers  named  Kaeso  Fabius  to  be  again  their  consul,  he  was 
as  acceptable  to  the  centuries  as  his  colleague  whom  they  themselves  appointed, 
Titus  Virginius. 

Kaeso  did  not  delay  an  instant  in  showing  that  his  sense  of  the  wrongs  of  the 
commons  was  sincere  :  he  immediately9  required  that  the  agrarian 

A.  U.  C.  275.    Migra-    ,  -_,  .  ~          .  -          •,-,-,  11  •    J     •    A  rr      i          T>i 

tion  of  the  Fabii  to  the  law  of  Spurms  Cassms  should  be  duly  carried  into  effect.  13 ut 
outTtTby Iht  veiene-  the  burghers  treated  him  with  scorn  ;  the  consul,  they  said,  had 
forgotten  himself,  and  the  applause  of  the  commons  had  intoxi- 
cated him.  Then  Kseso  and  all  his  house,  finding  themselves  reproached  for 
having  deserted  their  former  cause,  resolved  to  quit  Rome  altogether.  The  wrai 
with  the  Veientians  showed  them  how  they  might  still  be  useful  to  their  old 
country :  they  established  themselves  on  the  Cremera,  a  little  stream  that  runs 
into  the  Tiber  from  the  west,  a  few  miles  above  Rome.  Here  they  settled  with 
their  wives  and  families,10  with  a  large  train  of  clients,11  and  with  some  of  the 
burghers  also  who  were  connected  with  them  by  personal  ties,  and  who  resolved 
to  share  their  fortune.  The  Fabii  left  Rome  as  the  Claudii  had  left  Regillus  a 
few  years  before ;  they  wished  to  establish  themselves  as  a  Latin  colony  in 
Etruria,  serving  the  cause  of  Rome  even  while  they  had  renounced  her.  But  two 

6  Patres — M.  Fabium  consulem  creant :  Fabio  9  Livy,  II.  48. 

collega  Cn.  Manlius  datur.    Livy,  II.  43.  10  See  Niebuhr,  Vol.  II.  p.  219.    Aulus  Gel- 

6  Livy,  II.  44.  lius  says,  Sex  et  trecenti  Fabii  cum  familiis  sula 

7  Neque  imrnemor  ei'us,  quod  initio  consula-  — curcumventi  perierunt. 

tus  imbiberat,  reconciliandi  animos  plebis,  &c.  "  ITeXa'ra?  rejovs  lavr&v  cnnyd^voi  Kal  <pi\ov$' 
Livy,  II.  17.  ad  fin.  and  again,  a  little  below,  TO  nev  irXciov  TrsAar&j 

8  Livy,  II.  45-47.  re  Kal  tratpuv  rjv.    Dionysius,  IX.  15. 


CHAP.  X.]  THE  PDBLILIAN  LAW.  65 

years  afterwards  they  fell  victims  to  the  Veientians,  who  surprised  A  u  c  27, 
them,  put  them  all  to  the  sword,  and  destroyed  their  settlement. 

The  commons  had  gained  strength  and  confidence  from  the  coming  over  of 
the  Fabii  to  their  cause ;  they  gratefully  honored  the  spirit  which 

'  J    O    ,        ,       J  , ,  ,  ,       -  \,      .  The  commons  impcack 

had  made  them  leave  Rome,  and  when  they  heard  of  their  over-  the  comui.  for  allowing 

ill  i  /»  i          •  i  i         the  Fabii  to  be  cut  off. 

throw,  they  at  once  accused  the  burghers  ot  having  treacherously 
betrayed  them.     Titus  Menenius,  one  of  the  consuls,  had  been  quietly  lying 
encamped12  near  the  Cremera  when  the  Fabii  were  cut  off.     He  was  accusedy 
therefore,  in  the  following  year  of  treason,  and  was  condemned ;  A 
but  the  tribunes  themselves  pressed  for  no  heavier  sentence  than 
a  fine,  although  he  actually  died  from  vexation  and  shame  at  having  been  sub- 
jected to  such  a  sentence.     In  the  next  year13  another  consul  was 
accused  by  the  tribunes,  because  he  had  been  defeated  in  battle 
by  the  Veientians,  but  he  defended  himself  manfully,  and  was  acquitted. 

This  habit  of  acting  on  the  offensive  for  two  successive  years  emboldened  the 
commons,  and  they  now  began  again  to  call  for  the  execution  of  Gemiciua  impeaches  the 
the  agrarian  law  of  Cassius.  The  consuls  L.  Furius  and  C.  Man-  SSS^JrtS1^ 
lius  resisted  this  demand  during  their  year  of  office,  but  as  soon  rianla"f- 
as  that  was  expired,  Cn.  Genucius,14  one  of  the  tribunes,  impeached  them  both 
before  the  commons  for  the  wrong  done  to  that  order.  A.  t  c.  9s/> 

The  burghers  were  now  alarmed,  for  they  saw  that  the  commons  were  learning 
their  own  strength,  and  putting  it  in  practice.     They  desired,  at 
any  risk,  to  produce  a  reaction,  and  they  acted  at  Rome  as  the  found'den'd  in'hu  b«i 
Spartans  some  years  afterwards  treated  their  Helots,  or  as  the 
Venetian  nobles  in  modern  times  silenced  those  bold  spirits  whom  they  dreaded. 
On  the  night  before  the  day  fixed  for  the  trial  of  the  consuls,  Genucius  the  trib- 
une was  found  dead  in  his  bed.15 

The  secrecy  and  treachery  of  assassination  are  always  terrifying  to  a  popular 
party,  who  have  neither  the  organization  amono;  themselves  to  be 

*i  1  •    j  .-,  -m  T.LT-I  •          Other  assassinations;  tl»? 

able  to  concert  reprisals,  nor  wealth  enough  to  bribe  an  assassin,  tribune  voie™  Pubmiu. 
even  if  no  better  feeling  restrained  them  from  seeking  such  aid. 
Besides,  the  burghers  were  not  satisfied  with  a  single  murder;  others  whom  they 
dreaded  were  put  out  of  the  way  by  the  same  means  as  Genucius  ;  and  like  the 
Athenian  aristocratical  conspirators  in  the  Peloponnesian  war,  they  freely  used 
the  assassin's  dagger  to  secure  their  ascendency.16  Thus  the  tribunes  for  awhile 
were  silenced,  and  the  consuls  proceeded  to  enlist  soldiers  to  serve  against  the 
^Equians  and  Volscians.  Amongst  the  rest  was  one  Volero  Publilius,17  who  had 
served  before  as  a  centurion,  and  who  was  now  called  on  to  serve  as  a  common 
soldier ;  he  refused  to  obey,  and  being  a  man  of  great  vigor  and  activity,  he 
excited  the  commons  to  support  him,  and  the  consuls  and  their  lictors  were 
driven  from  the  Forum.  Here  the  disturbance  rested  for  the  time,  but  Volero 
was  chosen  to  be  one  of  the  tribunes  for  the  year  ensuing. 

Volero  was  a  man  equal  to  the  need.  The  tribunitian  power  might  be  crip- 
pled by  the  influence  of  the  burghers  at  the  elections ;  the  burgh-  A.u.c.mThePub- 
ers'  clients  were  so  numerous  in  the  centuries,  that  they  could  lilianlaw- 
elect  whom  they  would ;  and  thus,  in  ordinary  times,  the  college  of  tribunes 
might,  perhaps,  contain  a  majority  who  were  the  mere  tools  of  the  burghers,  and 
who  could  utterly  baffle  the  efforts  of  their  colleagues.  This  Volero  was  impa- 
tient to  prevent,  and  taking  advantage  of  the  excitement  of  the  moment,  when 
the  commons  were  enraged  by  the  murder  of  Genucius,  he  proposed  a  law  that 
the  tribunes,  for  the  time  to  come,18  should  be  chosen  by  the  votes  of  the  com- 
mons in  their  tribes,  and  not  by  those  of  the  whole  people  in  their  centuries. 

M  Livy,  II.  52.  16  Zonaras.  VII.  17.    Dion  Cass.  Fra<nn.  Va> 

*  Livy,  II.  52.  tic.  XXII. 

14  Livy,  II.  54.  "  Livy.  II.  55. 

16  Livy,  II.  54.  *  Livv,  II.  56. 


66  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  X. 

No  tribune  could  be  persuaded  to  betray  the  cause  of  his  order  and  of  public 
it  i.  violently  opposed  freedom  by  opposing  Volero  on  this  occasion  ;  but  the  year  passed 
away,  and  the  burghers  were  thus  long  successful  in  obstructing 
the  further  progress  of  the  law.  It  should  be  remembered  that  Volero  could 
but  propose  his  measure  to  the  commons  assembled  in  their  tribes,  and  that  even 
if  accepted  by  them,  it  did  not,  therefore,  become  a  law,  but  rather  resembled 
the  old  petitions  of  the  house  of  commons,  which  required  the  sanction  of  the 
king  and  the  house  of  lords  before  they  could  become  the  law  of  the  land.  So 
any  resolution  of  the  tribes  was  no  more  than  a  petition  addressed  to  the  senate 
and  burghers  ;  but  there  is  a  moral  power  in  such  petitions  which  is  generally 
irresistible,  and  the  burghers  well  understood  the  policy  of  an  aristocracy,  to  fight 
its  battle  in  the  assembly  of  the  commons  themselves,  rather  than  to  commit  their 
order  in  an  open  contest  with  the  whole  order  of  the  commons.  Accordingly, 
the  burghers  labored  to  prevent  Volero  from  carrying  his  petition  in  the  assem- 
bly of  the  tribes.  With  this  view,  their  method  was  delay  :  the  tribes  met  to 
transact  business  only  once  in  eight  days,  once,  that  is,  in  a  Roman  week  ;19  and 
no  measure  could  be  proposed  unless  notice  had  been  given  of  it  two  full  weeks 
beforehand,  while  any  measure  that  was  not  carried  on  the  day  that  it  was 
brought  forward,  was  held  to  be  lost,  and  could  not  be  again  put  to  the  vote  till 
after  the  lapse  of  two  full  weeks  more.  The  object,  therefore,  of  the  burghers 
was  so  to  obstruct  the  course  of  business,  whenever  the  tribes  met,  as  to  spin  it 
out  to  sunset  without  a  division  ;  then  the  measure  was  lost,  and  could  not  be 
brought  on  again  till  after  a  fortnight's  interval.  And  they  interrupted  and  de- 
layed the  business  of  the  tribes,  by  appearing  with  their  clients  in  the  Forum, 
and  purposely  exciting  a  disturbance  with  the  commons.  Besides,  we  are  told 
that  Rome  was  this  year  visited  with  a  severe  epidemic  disorder,  which,  though 
it  lasted  only  a  little  while,  was  exceedingly  fatal.  This  was  an  interruption  to 
ordinary  business,  and  this,  together  with  the  arts  of  the  burghers,  prevented 
the  commons  from  coming  to  a  resolution  in  favor  of  their  measure  throughout 
the  whole  course  of  the  year. 

Volero  was  re-elected  tribune  ;20  Appius  Claudius  was  chosen  consul  by  the 
A.  u.  c.  ssa.  But  at  burghers,  and  T.  Quintius  was  elected  as  his  colleague  by  the 
centuries.  With  Volero  there  was  chosen  also  another  tribune 
more  active  than  himself,  Caius  Lsetorius  ;21  the  oldest  of  all  the  tribunes,  but  a 
man  endowed  with  a  resolute  spirit,  and  well  aware  of  the  duty  of  maintaining 
the  contest  vigorously.  Fresh  demands  were  added  to  those  contained  in  Vo- 
lero's  first  law  :  the  sediles  were  to  be  chosen  by  the  tribes  as  well  as  the  tribunes, 
and  the  tribes  were  to  be  competent22  to  consider  all  questions  affecting  the  whole 
nation,  and  not  such  only  as  might  concern  the  commons.  Thus  the  proposed 
law  was  rendered  more  unwelcome  to  the  burghers  than  ever,  and  Appius  de- 
termined to  resist  it  by  force.  Lsetorius  was  provoked  by  the  insulting  language 
of  the  consul,  and  he  swore  that  on  the  next  day  on  which  the  law  could  be 
brought  forward,  he  would  either  get  it  passed  by  the  commons  before  evening, 
or  would  lay  down  his  life  upon  the  place.23  Accordingly,  when  the  tribes  as- 
sembled, Appius  stationed  himself  in  the  Forum,  surrounded  by  a  multitude  of  the 
younger  burghers  and  of  his  own  clients,  ready  to  interrupt  the  proceedings  of  the 
commons.  Laetorius  called  the  tribes  to  vote,  and  gave  the  usual  order^that  all 
strangers,  that  is,  all  who  did  not  belong  to  any  tribe,  should  withdraw  from  the 
Forum.  Appius  refused  to  stir  ;24  the  tribune  sent  his  officer  to  enforce  obe- 
dience, but  the  consul's  lictors  beat  off  the  officer,  and  a  general  fray  ensued,  in 

w  In  the  Eoman  Kalcndars  which  have  been  elusive  manner  of  reckoning,  common  to  all  tho 

preserved  to  us,  eight  letters  are  used  to  mark  nations  of  antiquity, 
the  several  days  of  the  month,  just  as  seven  are        ao  Livy,  II.  56. 
used  by  us.    Thus,  the  nones  of  the  month  fell        2l  Dionysius,  IX.  46. 
always  one  Eoman  week  before  the  ides  ;  the        M  Dionysius,  IX.  43.     Zonaras,  VII.  17. 
term  nouas,  like  that  of  nundinae  to  express  the        ^  Livy,  II.  56. 
weekly  market-day,  having  reference  to  the  in-        2*  Livy,  II.  56. 


CHAP.  X.]  THE  PUBLILIAN  LAW.  (57 

which  Lsetorius  received  some  blows  ;  and  matters  would  have  come  to  extrem- 
ity, it  is  said,  had  not  T.  Quintius  interposed,  and  with  great  difficulty  parted  the 
combatants.  This,  however,  appears  to  be  one  of  the  usual  softenings  of  the 
annals,  which  delighted  to  invest  these  early  times  with  a  character  of  romantic 
forbearance  and  innocence.  Both  parties  were  thoroughly  in  earnest ;  Leeto- 
rius  had  received  such  injuries  as  to  rouse  the  fury  of  the  commons  to  the  utmost; 
again  had  the  sacred  persons  of  the  tribunes  been  profaned  by  violence,  and  Lse- 
torius might  soon  share  the  fate  of  Genucius.  Accordingly,  the  commons  acted 
this  time  on  the  offensive :  they  neither  withdrew  to  the  Sacred  Hill,  nor  shut 
themselves  up  in  their  own  quarter  on  the  Aventine,  but  they  attacked  and  occu- 
pied25 the  Capitol,  and  held  it  for  some  time  as  a  fortress,  keeping  regular  guard, 
under  the  command  of  their  tribunes,  both  night  and  day.  The  occupation  of 
the  citadel  in  the  ancient  commonwealths  implied  an  attempt  to  effect  a  revolu- 
tion ;  and  a  popular  tribune,  thus  holding  the  Capitol  with  his  partisans,  might, 
at  any  instant,  make  himself  absolute,  and  establish  his  tyranny,  like  so  many  of 
the  popular  leaders  in  Greece,  upon  the  ruins  of  the  old  aristocracy.  The  sen- 
ate, therefore,  and  the  wiser  consul,  T.  Quintius,  resisted  the  violent  counsels  of 
Appius  and  the  mass  of  the  burghers ;  it  was  resolved  that  the  law,  which  we 
must  suppose  had  been  passed  by  the  commons  immediately  before  they  took 
possession  of  the  Capitol,  should  be  immediately  laid  before  the  senate,  to  re- 
ceive the  assent  of  that  body.  It  received  the  senate's  sanction,28  and  with  this 
double  authority  it  was  brought  before  the  burghers  in  their  curise,  to  receive 
their  consent  also  ;  the  only  form  wanting  to  give  it  the  force  of  a  law.  But  the 
decision  of  the  wisest  and  most  illustrious  members  of  their  own  body  overcame 
the  obstinacy  of  the  burghers :  they  yielded  to  necessity ;  and  the  second  great 
charter  of  Roman  liberties,  the  Publilian  law,  was  finally  carried,  and  became  the 
law  of  the  land.  Some  said  that  even  the  number  of  tribunes  was  now,  for  the 
first  time,  raised  to  five,  having  consisted  hitherto  of  two  only.  At  any  rate,  the 
names  of  the  first  five  tribunes,  freely  chosen  by  their  own  order,  were  handed 
down  to  posterity;  they  were  C.  Siccius,27  L.  Numitorius,  M.  Duilius,  Sp.  Icilius, 
and  L.  Maecilius. 

In  this  list  we  meet  with  neither  Volero  nor  Lsetorius.  Yolero,  as  having 
been  already  tribune  for  two  years  together,  and  having  been  less  prominent  in 
the  final  struggle,  may  naturally  have  been  passed  over;  but  Lastorius,  like 
Sextius  at  a  later  period,  would  surely  have  been  the  first  choice  of  the  com- 
mons, when  they  came  to  exercise  a  power  which  they  owed  mainly  to  his  exer- 
tions. Was  it,  then,  that  his  own  words  had  been  prophetic  ;  that  he  had,  in  fact, 
given  up  his  life  in  the  Forum  on  the  day  when  he  brought  forward  the  law ;  that 
the  blows  of  Appius'  burghers  were  as  deadly  as  those  of  Keeso  Quinctius,  or  of 
the  murderers  of  Genucius,  and  that  Lsetorius  was  not  only  the  founder  of  the 
greatness  of  his  order,  but  its  martyr  also  ? 

Thus,  after  a  period  of  extreme  depression  and  danger,  the  commons  had  again 
begun  to  advance,  and  the  Publilian  law,  going  beyond  any  former  charter,  was 
a  sure  warrant  for  a  more  complete  enfranchisement  yet*to  come.  The  com-, 
mons  could  now  elect  their  tribunes  freely,  and  they  had  formally  obtained  the 
right  of  discussing  all  national  questions  in  their  own  assembly.  Thus  their  power 
spread  itself  out  on  every  side,  and  tried  its  strength,  against  that  time  when, 
from  being  independent,  it  aspired  to  become  sovereign,  and  swallowed  up  in  itself 
all  the  powers  of  the  rest  of  the  community. 

*  Dionysius,  IX.  43.  *  Livy,  II.  58.    He  borrows  the  names  from 

18  Dionysius,  IX.  49.  the  annals  of  Piso. 


CHAPTER  XL 

WAES   WITH  THE  ^QUIANS   AND  VOLSCIANS— LEGENDS   CONNECTED  WITH 
THESE  WAES— STORIES  OF  COEIOLANUS,  AND  OF  CINCINNATUS. 


"  Pandite  nunc  Helicona  Dese,  cantusque  movete : 
Qui  bello  exciti  reges  ;  quse  quemque  secutse 
Complerint  campos  acies  ;  quibus  Itala  jam  turn 
Floruerit  terra  alma  viris,  quibus  arserit  armis." 

VIBGIL,  JSn.  VII.  641. 

NOTHING  conveys  a  juster  notion  of  the  greatness  of  Roman  history  than  those 
introduction  to  the  for-  chapters  in  Gibbon's  work,  in  which  he  brings  before  us  the  state 
eignMatoryofRome.  of  t^Q  east  and  of  the  north,  of  Persia  and  of  Germany,  and  is  led 
unavoidably  to  write  a  universal  history,  because  all  nations  were  mixed  up  with 
the  greatness  and  the  decline  of  Rome.  This,  indeed,  is  the  peculiar  magnifi- 
cence of  our  subject,  that  the  history  of  Rome  must  be  in  some  sort  the  history 
of  the  world  ;  no  nation,  no  language,  no  country  of  the  ancient  world,  can  alto- 
gether escape  our  researches,  if  we  follow  on  steadily  the  progress  of  the  Roman 
dominion  till  it  reached  its  greatest  extent.  On  this  vast  field  we  are  now  begin- 
ning to  enter ;  our  view  must  be  carried  a  little  beyond  the  valley  of  the  Tiber, 
and  the  plain  of  the  Campagna ;  we  must  go  as  far  as  the  mountains  which  di- 
vide Latium  from  Campagna,  which  look  down  upon  the  level  of  the  Pontine 
marshes,  and  even  command  the  island  summits  of  the  Alban  hills  :  we  must 
cross  the  Tiber,  and  enter  upon  a  people  of  foreign  extraction  and  language,  a 
mighty  people,  whose  southern  cities  were  almost  within  sight  of  Rome,  while 
their  most  northern  settlements  were  planted  beyond  the  Apennines,  and,  from 
the  great  plain  of  the  Eridanus,  looked  up  to  that  enormous  Alpine  barrier  which 
divided  them  from  the  unknown  wildernesses  watered  by  the  Ister  and  his  thou- 
sand tributary  rivers. 

In  the  days  of  Thucydides,  the  Greek  city  of  Cuma1  is  described  as  situated 
The  op;™™  or  Ausoni.  m  the  land  of  the  Opicans.  The  Opicans,  Oscans,  or  Ausonians, 
can  MtlontV^Si-  f°r  the  three  names  all  express  the  same  people,  occupied  all  the 
ansandvoi'scians.  country  between  (Enotria  and  Tyrrhenia,  that  is  to  say,  between 
the  Silarus  and  the  Tiber ;  but  the  sea-coast  of  this  district  was  full  of  towns 
belonging  to  people  of  other  nations,  such  as  the  Greek  cities  of  Cuma  and  Ne- 
apolis,  and  those  belonging  to  the  Tyrrhenian  Pelasgians,  such  as  Tarracina,  Cir- 
ceii,  Antium,  and  Ardea.  The  Opicans  were  an  inland  people,  and  it  was  only 
by  conquest  that  they  at  last  came  down  to  the  sea-coast,  and  established  them- 
selves in  some  of  the  Tyrrhenian  towns.  They  had  various  subdivisions ;  but 
the  two  nations  of  them  with  whom  the  Romans  had  most  to  do,  and  whose 
encroachments  on  Latium  we  are  now  to  notice,  are  known  to  us  under  the  name 
of  the  ^Equians  and  Volscians. 

It  is  absolutely  impossible  to  offer  any  thing  like  a  connected  history  of  the 
Volscian  and  ^Equian  wars  with  Rome  during  the  first  half  century  from  the 
beginning  of  the  commonwealth.  But  in  order  to  give  some  clearness  to  the 
following  sketch,  I  must  first  describe  the  position  of  the  two  nations,  arid  class 
their  contests  with  Rome,  whether  carried  on  singly  or  jointly,  under  the  names 
respectively  of  the  ^Equian  and  Volscian  wars,  according  to  the  quarter  which 
was  the  principal  field  of  action. 

1  Thucyd.  VI.  4. 


CHAP.  XI.]  WARS  WITH  THE  ^EQUIANS  AND  VOLSCIAN8.  69 

The  Volscians,  when  they  first  appear  in  Roman  history,  are  found  partly 
settled  on  the  line  of  highlands  overlooking  the  plain  of  Latium,  Their  geographical  po- 
from  near  Praeneste  to  Tarracina,  and  partly  at  the  foot  of  the  8Itlon- 
hills,  in  the  plain  itself.  It  has  been  already  noticed,  that  just  to  the  south  of 
Praeneste  a  remarkable  break  occurs  in  this  mountain  wall,  so  that  only  its  mere 
base  has  been  left  standing,  a  tract  of  ground2  barely  of  sufficient  elevation  to 
turn  the  waters  in  different  directions,  and  to  separate  the  source  of  the  Tresus^ 
which  feeds  the  Liris,  from  the  streams  of  the  Campagna  of  Rome.  This  breach 
or  gap  in  the  mountains  forms  the  head  of  the  country  of  the  Hernicans,  who 
occupied  the  higher  part  of  the  valley  of  the  Trerus,  and  the  hills  on  its  left  bank, 
downward  as  far  as  its  confluence  with  the  Liris.  But  at  Prseneste  the  mount- 
ain wall  rises  again  to  its  full  height,  and  continues  stretching  to  the  northward 
in  an  unbroken  line,  till  it  is  again  interrupted  at  Tibur  or  Tivoli  by  the  deep  val- 
ley of  the  Anio.  Thus  from  the  Anio  to  the  sea  at  Tarracina,  the  line  of  hills 
is  interrupted  only  at  a  single  point,  immediately  to  the  south  of  Praeneste,  and 
is  by  this  breach  divided  into  two  parts  of  unequal  length,  the  shorter  one  ex- 
tending from  Tibur  to  Praeneste,  the  longer  one  reaching  from  the  point  where 
the  hills  again  rise  opposite  to  Prseneste  as  far  as  Tarracina  and  the  sea.  Of 
this  mountain  wall  the  longer  portion  was  held  by  the  Volscians,  the  shorter  by 
the  ^Equians. 

But  it  is  not  to  be  understood  that  the  whole  of  this  highland  country  was 
possessed  by  these  two  Opican  nations.  Latin  towns  were  scat-  Seat  of «,,  ^m^th 
tered  along  the  edge  of  it  overlooking  the  plain  of  Latium,  such  thejEiuiaM; 
as  Tibur  and  Prasneste  in  the  ^Equian  portion  of  it,  and  in  the  Volscian,  Ortona, 
Cora,  Norba,  and  Setia.  The  ^Equians  dwelt  rather  in  the  interior  of  the  mount- 
ain country ;  their  oldest  seats  were  in  the  heart  of  the  Apennines,  on  the  lake 
of  Fucinus,  from  whence  they  had  advanced  towards  the  west,  till  they  had 
reached  the  edge  overhanging  the  plain.  Nor  is  it  possible  to  state  at  what  time 
the  several  Latin  cities  of  the  Apennines  were  first  conquered,  or  how  often  they 
recovered  their  independence.  Tibur  and  Prseneste  never  fell  into  the  hands  of 
the  JEquians,  their  natural  strength  helping,  probably,  to  secure  them  from  the 
invaders.  The  ^Equians  seem  rather  to  have  directed  their  efforts  in  another 
direction,  against  the  Latin  towns  of  the  Alban  hills,  pouring  out  readily  through 
the  breach  in  the  mountain  line  already  noticed,  and  gaining  thus  an  advanced 
position  from  which  to  command  the  plain  of  Rome  itself. 

The  Volscian  conquests,  on  the  other  hand,  were  effected  either  in  their  own 
portion  of  the  mountain  line,  or  in  the  plain  nearer  the  sea,  or 

~        n  .,  '  ,          with     the     VoUciang. 

finally,  on  the  southern  and  western  parts  of  the  cluster  of  the  voucian  conqu<»u  in 
Alban  hills,  as  the  ^Equians  attacked  their  eastern  and  northern 
parts.  Tarracina3  appears  to  have  fallen  into  their  hands  very  soon  after  the 
overthrow  of  the  Roman  monarchy ;  and  Antium4  was  also  an  early  conquest. 
In  the  year  261,  Bovillae,  Circeii,  Corioli,  Lavinium,  Satricum,  and  Velitrse,  were 
still  Latin  cities  ;  but  all5  these  were  conquered  at  one  time  or  other  by  the  Vol- 

*  Taking  a  parallel  case  from  English  geogra-  seems,  therefore,  to  have  fallen  soon  after  tne 

phy,  the  gap  in  the  oolitic  limestone  chain  of  date  of  the  treaty  with  Carthage,  in  which  it  is 

hills  which  occurs  in  Warwickshire,  between  spoken  of  as  a  Latin  city. 

Faraborough  and  Edge  Hill,  may  be  compared  *  It  belonged  to  the  Volscians  in  the  year  261, 

to  the  gap  at  Praeneste  ;  the  line  of  hills  north-  the  year  in  which  the  Roman  league  with  the 

ward  and  southward  from  this  point,  overlook-  Latins  was  concluded.    Livy,  II.  33. 

ing  the  lias  plain  of  Warwickshire,  may  repre-  6  The  present  text  of  Dionvsius  has  BoXa?  or 

sent  respectively  the  countries  of  the  JEqumns  BwArf j  (VIII.  20).    Plutarch  has  BdXAas  (Cori- 

and  Volscians ;  whilst  Banbury  and  the  valley  olanus,  29) ;  but  it  appears  that  Bovillte,  and  not 

of  the  Cherwell  answer  to  the  country  of  the  Bola,  is  meant,  because  the  conquest  of  Bola  is 

Hernicans.  mentioned  separately  by  both  writers,  and  be- 

'  It  is  mentioned  as  a  Volscian  town  under  cause  Plutarch  gives  the  distance  of  B6\\at  from 

the  name  of  Anxur  in  the  year  349.    (Livy,  IV.  Eome  at  one  hundred  stadia,  which  suits  Bo- 

59.)    Its  capture  by  the  Volscians  is  nowhere  villa;,  but  is  too  little  for  Bola.     The  conquest 

recorded;  but  in  the  earliest  Volscian  wars,  af-  of  Circeii,  Corioli,  Lavinium,  and.  Satricum,  is 

ter  the  expulsion  of  the  Tarquins,  the  scat  of  noticed  by  Livy,  II.  39.     Velitrae  was  taken  by 

war  lies  always  on  thtj  lioinan  side  of  it.    It  the  Romans  from  the  Volscians  in  the  year  250, 


70  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XI 

scians,  so  that  at  the  period  of  their  greatest  success  they  must  have  advanced 
within  twelve  miles  of  the  gates  of  Rome.  The  legend  of  Coriolanus  represents 
these  towns,  with  the  exception  of  Velitrse,  as  having  been  taken  between  the 
years  263  and  266,  in  the  great  invasion  conducted  jointly  by  Coriolanus  and  by 
Attius  Tullius.  But  Niebuhr  has  given  reasons  for  believing  that  these  con- 
quests were  not  made  till  some  years  later,  and  that  they  were  effected  not  all 
at  once,  but  in  the  course  of  several  years.  Be  this  as  it  may,  it  is  certain  that 
some  of  the  towns  thus  taken,  Satricum,  for  instance,  Cerceii,  and  Velitrao,  re- 
mained for  many  years  in  possession  of  the  Volscians.  Corioli  was  destroyed, 
and  is  no  more  heard  of  in  history,  while  Bovillae  and  Lavinium  were  in  all  prob- 
ability soon  recovered  either  by  the  Romans  or  by  the  Latins. 

Whilst  the  Volscians  were  thus  tearing  Latium  to  pieces  on  one  side,  the  ^Equi- 
/Equian  con  uesta  &us  were  assailing  it  with  equal  success  on  the  other.  Their  con- 
quests also  are  assigned  by  the  legend  of  Coriolanus  to  his  famous 
invasion,  when  he  is  said  to  have  taken  Corbio,6  Vitellia,  Trebia,  Lavici,  and  Pedum. 
All  these  places,  with  the  exception  of  Trebia,  stood  either  on  the  Alban  hills,  or 
close  to  them,  and  three  of  them,  Corbio,  Lavici,  and  Pedum,  are  amongst  the 
thirty  Latin  cities  which  concluded  the  treaty  with  Spurius  Cassius  in  the  year 
261.  They  were  retained  for  many  years7  by  their  conquerors ;  and  thus  Tibur 
and  Prseneste  were  isolated  from  the  rest  of  Latium,  and  the  JEquians  had 
established  themselves  on  the  Alban  hills  above  and  around  Tusculum,  which 
remained  the  only  unconquered  Latin  city  in  that  quarter,  and  was  so  thrown 
more  than  ever  into  the  arms  of  Rome. 

Now,  had  all  these  conquests  been  indeed  achieved  as  early  as  the  year  266, 
The«e  conquests  were  and  within  the  space  of  one  or  two  years,  what  could  have  pre- 
Sf?pLSdtf«wS  vented  the  ^Equians  and  Volscians  from  effecting  the  total  con- 
?heanthiartd  thcentu^e  of  quest  of  Rome,  or  what  could  their  armies  have  been  doing  in 
the  years  from  273  to  278,  when  the  Romans  were  struggling  so 
hardly  against  the  Veientians  ?  Or  how  comes  it,  as  Niebuhr  well  observes,  if 
the  JEquians  had  taken  Pedum,  and  Corbio,  and  Lavici,  in  266,  that  their  armies 
are  mentioned  as  encamping  on  Algidus  for  the  first  time  in  the  year  289  ;  a 
spot  which  from  that  time  forwards  they  continued  to  occupy,  year  after  year, 
till  Rome  regained  the  ascendency  ?  It  is  much  more  probable  that  the  first 
years  of  the  war  after  263  were  marked  by  no  decisive  events  ;  that  the  league 
with  the  Hernicans  in  268  opposed  an  additional  obstacle  to  the  progress  of  the 
Opican  nations ;  but  that  subsequently,  the  wars  with  the  Veientians,  and  the 
domestic  disputes  which  raged  with  more  or  less  violence  from  the  death  of  Spu- 
rius Cassius  to  the  passing  of  the  Publilian  law,  distracted  the  attention  of  the 
Romans,  and  enabled  the  ^Equians  and  Volscians  to  press  with  more  effect  upon 
the  Latins  and  Hernicans.  But  Antium  was  wrested  from  the  Volscians  by  the 
three  confederate  nations  in  286 ;  and  the  great  period  of  the  Roman  disasters 
is  to  be  placed  in  the  ten  years  following  that  event,  unless  we  choose  to  separ- 
ate the  date  of  the  Volscian  conquests  from  those  of  the  ^Equians.  We  must, 
then,  suppose  that  Corioli,  Satricum,  Lavinium,  and  the  towns  in  that  quarter, 
had  been  taken  by  the  Volscians  between  266  and  286,  that  some  of  these  were 
afterwards  recovered,  and  that  the  Romans  during  the  latter  part  of  the  period 

but  it  must  afterwards  have  been  lost  again ;  pretended  revolts  of  Roman  colonies  to  have 

for  we  find  it  in  arms  with  the  Volscians  against  been  properly  a  revolt  of  the  old  inhabitants,  iu 

Rome,  and  afterwards  with  the  Latins ;  and  al-  which  the  Roman  colonists,  as  a  matter  of  course, 

though  this  is  spoken  of  as  the  revolt  of  a  Ro-  were  expelled  or  massacred.    See  Vol.  II.  p.  44, 

man  colony,  as  if  the  descendants  of  the  colo-  45.  Engl.  Transl. 

nists,  sent  there  after  its  first  conquest  in  260,  8  Livy,  II.  39. 

had  always  continued  in  possession  of  it,  yet  7  Lavici  was  conquered  by  the  Romans  in  336. 


again, 

Saggio  di  Lingua  Etrusca,  Vol.  III.  p.  616.     I    is  mentioned  in  the  time  of  the  great  Latin  war 
believe  Niebuhr  is  right  in  considering  such    as  taking  an  active  part  on  the  Latin  side. 


CflAP.Xl.J  WARS  WITH  THE  ^EQUIANS  AND  VOLSCIANS.  71 

had  been  regaining  their  lost  ground,  till  in  286  they  became,  in  their  turn,  the 
assailants,  and  conquered  Antium.  Then  the  ^Equians  united  their  arms  more 
zealously  with  the  Volscians ;  the  seat  of  the  Avar  was  removed  to  the  frontier  of 
Latium,  bordering  on  the  ^Equians,  and  then  followed  the  invasion  of  that  fron- 
tier, the  establishment  of  the  ^Equians  on  Algidus,  and  the  repeated  ravages  o/ 
the  Roman  territory  between  Tusculum  and  Rome. 

The  period  between  the  year  286  and  the  end  of  the  century  was  marked  by 
the  visitations  of  pestilence  as  well  as  by  those  of  war.  A  short  That  eriod  w~^ 
but  most  severe  epidemic  had  raged  in  the  year  282  ;8  it  broke  marked  by  the  viuu. 
out  again  in  288,9  and  then  in  2 9 1,10  when  its  ravages  were  most 
fearful.  It  carried  off  both  the  consuls,  two  out  of  the  four  augurs,  the  Curio 
Maximus,  with  a  great  number  of  other  persons  of  all  ages  and  conditions  ;  and 
this  sickness,  like  the  plague  of  Athens,  was  aggravated  by  the  inroads  of  the 
^Equians  and  Volscians,  which  had  driven  the  country  people  to  fly  with  their 
cattle  into  Rome,  and  thus  crowded  a  large  population  into  a  narrow  space  with 
deficient  accommodations,  while  the  state  of  the  atmosphere  wae  in  itself  pesti- 
lential, even  had  it  been  met  under  circumstances  the  most  favorable.  It  is  man- 
ifest that  at  this  time  the  Romans  were  in  possession  of  no  fortified  towns  between 
Rome  and  the  ^Equian  frontier ;  when  the  Roman  armies  could  not  keep  the 
field,  the  enemy  might  march  without  obstacle  up  to  the  very  walls  of  Rome 
itself;  and  there  was  nothing  for  them  to  win,  except  the  plunder  of  the  Roman 
territory,  and  the  possession  of  the  capital. 

Perhaps,  too,  these  disastrous  times  were  further  aggravated  by  another  evil, 
which  the  Roman  annals  were  unwilling  openly  to  avow.  When  And  by  int?rnal  dto. 
matters  came  to  such  a  crisis  that  the  commons  occupied  the  Cap-  mftnvRon^nlclineSr9! 
itol  in  arms,  as  was  the  case  immediately  before  the  passing  of  the  ^hoi... 
Publilian  law,  when  we  read  of  dissensions  so  violent,  that  the  Volscians- 
consuls  of  three  successive  years  were  impeached  by  the  tribunes,  and  a  tribune 
was  on  the  other  hand  murdered  by  the  aristocracy  ;  when  again,  at  a  somewhat 
later  period,  we  read  of  the  disputes  about  the  Terentilian  law,  and  hear  of  the 
banishment  of  Kseso  Quinctius  for  his  violences  towards  the  commons  on  that 
occasion,  we  may  suspect  that  the  whole  truth  has  not  been  revealed  to  us,  and 
that  the  factions  of  Rome,  like  those  of  Greece,  were  attended  by  the  banish- 
ment of  a  considerable  number  of  the  vanquished  party,  so  that  Roman  exiles 
were  often  to  be  found  in  the  neighboring  cities,  as  eager  to  return  as  the  Tar- 
quinii  had  been  formerly,  and  as  little  scrupulous  as  they  of  effecting  that  retur' 
through  foreign  aid.  That  this  was  actually  the  case,  is  shown  by  the  surprise 
of  the  Capitol,  in  the  year  294,  when  a  body  of  men,  consisting,  as  it  is  expressly 
said,  of  exiles  and  slaves,11  and  headed  by  Appius  Herdonius,  a  Sabine,  made 

8  Dionysius,  IX.  42.  admit  of  no  doubt.    THv  ti  abrou  yvci/i?  /isni  T* 

9  Liyy,  III.  2.     Dionysius?  IX.  60.  /cpan/ovu  rtiv  hiKaipoTdTuv  r6*<»v  (of'Eome,  name- 
8  Livy,  III.  6,  7.     Dionysius,  IX.  67.                    ly)  rows  re  $vyd5as  elaMxtaOai,  xal  TOVS  Sofaovs  ««J 

11  It  is  not,  indeed,  expressly  said  that  the  frwdeptav  KaXt'iv.     These  can  certainly  be  no 

exiles  were  Eoman  exiles  ;  and.  Livy?  who,  in  other  than  the  exiles  and  the  slaves  of'Eome, 

his  whole  narrative  of  the  transaction,   says  The  supposition  in  the  text  receives  further 

nothing  of  Kseso,  or  of  his  connection  with  the  confirmation  from   a  remarkable  statement  in 

conspiracy,  uses  language  which  might  be  ap-  Dionysius,  that  in  the  year  262,  just  before  the 

gicable  to  the  case  of  exiles  of  other  countries,  banishment  of  Coriolanus,  many  Eoman  citizens 

e  makes  Ilerdonius  say  (III.  15),  "Se  miser-  were  invited  by  the  neighboring  cities  to  leave 

rimi  cuj usque  suscepisse  causam,  ut  exules  in-  their  country  and  to  come  and  live  with  them 

juria  pulsos  in  patriam   reduceret;    id  malle  and  enjoy  their  franchise  of  citizenship.    And 

populo  Eomano  auctore  fieri :  si  ibi  spes  non  a  great  many  TroXXoi  now  left  Eome  with  their 

sit,  Volscos  et  ^Equos,  et  omnia  extrema  ten-  families,  he  says,  on  these  terms ;  some  of  whom 

taturum  et  concitaturum."      Still  even  these  returned  afterwards,  when  better  times  arrived, 

words,  especially  the  expression  "  in  patriam,"  but  others  continued  to  live  in  their  new  coun- 

instead  of  "in  patrias,"  are  most  naturally  to  tries.    See  Dionys.  VII.  18.     This  undoubtedly 

be  understood  of  Eoman  exiles  ;   if  they  had  must  mean  that  many  Eomans  were  obliged  to 

been  all  Sabines,  or  ^quians,  or  Volscians,  the  go  into  banishment,  and  these  availed  them- 

attempt  would  have  been  made  on  the  citadel  selves  of  the  treaty  with  the  Latins,   which 

of  Cures,  or  Lavici,  or  Anxur ;  not  on  the  Capi-  established  an  interchange  of  citizenship  bo- 

tol  at  Eome.    But  Dionysius'  words  (X.  14)  tween  Eome  and  Latium,  and  became  citizens 


72  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  (CHAP.  XX 

themselves  masters  of  the  citadel  of  Rome.  There  is,  therefore,  in  all  probabil- 
ity, a  foundation  in  truth  for  the  famous  story  of  Coriolanus,  but  it  must  be 
referred  to  a  period  much  later  than  the  year  263,  the  date  assigned  to  it  in  the 
common  annals ;  and  the  circumstances  are  so  disguised,  that  it  is  impossible  to 
guess  from  what  reality  they  have  been  corrupted.  It  would  be  a  beautiful 
story,  could  we  believe  that  Coriolanus  joined  the  conquering  ^Equians  and  Vol- 
scians  with  a  body  of  Roman  exiles ;  that  the  victories  of  foreigners  put  it  in  his 
power  to  procure  his  own  recall  and  that  of  his  companions,  but  that,  overcome 
by  the  prayers  of  his  mother,  he  refrained  from  doing  such  violence  to  the  laws 
of  his  country ;  and,  contented  with  the  conquests  of  his  protectors,  he  refused 
to  turn  them  to  his  own  personal  benefit,  and  chose  rather  to  live  and  die  an 
exile  than  to  owe  his  restoration  to  the  swords  of  strangers.  Be  this  as  it  may, 
the  common  story  is  so  famous  and  so  striking  that  it  must  not  be  suppressed ; 
and  the  life  and  death  of  Coriolanus  are  no  unworthy  sequel  to  the  story  of  the 
life  and  death  of  the  last  king  Tarquinius. 

CAIUS  MARCius12  was  a  noble  Roman,  of  ti-.e  race  of  that  worthy  king,  Ancus 
story  of  corioiMiiw.  Marcius  ;lz  his  father  died  when  he  was  a  child,  but  his  mother, 
Sf.  uttto^fS'SfcJ  whose  name  was  Volumnia,  performed  to  him  the  part  both  of 
father  and  of  mother ;  and  Caius  loved  her  exceedingly,  and  when 
he  gained  glory  by  his  feats  of  arms,  it  was  his  greatest  joy  that  his  mother 
should  hear  his  praises ;  and  when  he  was  rewarded  for  his  noble  deeds,  it  was 
his  greatest  joy  that  his  mother  should  see  him  receive  his  crown.  And  ne 
fought  at  the  battle  by  the  lake  Regillus,14  against  king  Tarquinius  and  the  Lat- 
ins, and  he  was  then  a  youth  of  seventeen  years  of  age  ;  and  in  the  heat  of  the 
battle  he  saw  a  Roman  beaten  to  the  ground,  and  his  foe  was  rushing  on  him  to 
slay  him,  but  Caius  stepped  before  him,  and  covered  him,  and  slew  the  enemy, 
and  saved  the  life  of  his  fellow-soldier.  So  Aulus,  the  general,  rewarded  him 
with  an  oaken  wreath,  for  such  was  the  reward  given  to  those  who  saved  the  life 
of  a  comrade  in  battle.  And  this  was  his  first  crown,  but  after  this  he  won  many 
in  many  battles,  for  he  was  strong  and  valiant,  and  none  of  the  Romans  could 
compare  with  him. 

After  this  there  was  a  war  between  the  Romans  and  the  Volscians  ;  and  the 
Romans  attacked  the  city  of  Corioli.15  The  citizens  of  Corioli 

IIow  he  took  the  city  .      ,  ,*'  .,  _. 

of  corioii,  and  won  opened  their  gates  and  made  a  sally,  and  drove  the  Romans  back 

the  name  of  Corioknu*.      .  r    .  ,      .  m,  -,    .  pi  •    -,  n  -, 

to  their  camp.  I  hen  Cams  ran  forwards  with  a  lew  brave  men, 
and  called  back  the  runaways,  and  he  stayed  the  enemy,  and  turned  the  tide  of 
the  battle,  so  that  the  Volscians  fled  back  into  the  city.  But  Caius  followed 
them,  and  when  he  saw  the  gates  still  open,  for  the  Volscians  were  flying  into 
the  city,  then  he  called  to  the  Romans,  and  said,  "  For  us  are  yon  gates  set  wide 
rather  than  for  the  Volscians  ;  why  are  we  afraid  to  rush  in  ?"  He  himself  fol- 
lowed the  fugitives  into  the  town,  and  the  enemy  fled  before  him  ;  but  when  they 
saw  that  he  was  but  one  man  they  turned  against  him,  but  Caius  held  his  ground, 
for  he  was  strong  of  hand,  and  light  of  foot,  and  stout  of  heart,  and  he  drove  the 
Volscians  to  the  farthest  side  of  the  town,  and  all  was  clear  behind  him ;  so  that 
the  Romans  came  in  after  him  without  any  trouble,  and  took  the  city.  Then  all 

of  some  Latin  city.    And  this  is  the  simplest  respect,  as  well  as  in  calling  the  mother  of  the 
way  of  accounting  for  the  name  Coriolanus,  to  hero  Volumnia,  and  his  wife  Virgilia,  I  have  re- 
suppose  that  he  settled  at  Corioli,  ajid  became  garded  Shakspeare's  authority  as  decisive. 
a  citizen  there ;  and  afterwards,  when  Corioli  13  Plutarch,  Coriolanus,  I.  4. 
was  conquered  by  the  Volscians,  joined  their  "  Plutarch,  Coriolanus,  3. 
army  in  order  to  prosecute  his  revenge  against  15  Plutarch,  Coriolanus,  VIII.    The  story  rep- 
flicme,  resents  Corioli  as  a  Volscian  town,  and  as  "taken 
13  Zonaras,  copying  Dion  Cassius,  and  most  by  the  Komans  in  the  consulship  of  Postumus 
of  itbe  MSS.  of  Livy,  give  the  pragnonien  of  Co-  Cominius,  A.  U.  C.  261.    The  authentic  monu- 
rioEaaaus  as  Cnceus,  and  not  Cams.    Historically  ment  of  these  times,  the  treaty  between  the  Ko- 
the  point  is  of  no  consequence ;  but  the  richest  mans  and  Latins  concluded  in  this  very  same 
poetry  in  which  the  story  of  Coriolanus  was  ever  year,  shows  that  Corioli  was  then  not  a  Volscian 
recorded,  Shakspeare's  tragedy  on  that  subject,  but  a  Latin  town,  and  one  of  the  thirty  states 
aas  oounecrated  the  name  of  Caius ;  aad  in" this  which  made  the  alliance  with  Koine. 


CHAP.  XL]  STORY  OF  CORIOLANTJS.  73 

men  said,  "  Caius  and  none  else  has  won  Corioli ;"  and  Cominius  the  general  said, 
"  Let  him  be  called  after  the  name  of  the  city."  So  they  called  him  Caius  Mar- 
cius  Coriolanus.16 

After  this  there  was  a  great  scarcity  of  corn,  and  the  commons  were  much 
distressed  for  want,  and  the  king17  of  the  Greeks  in  Sicily  sent  Caius  offendg  the  CO)1V. 
ships  laden  with  corn  to  Rome :  so  the  senate  resolved  to  sell  the  mon8' ond  u  bft"uhe"- 
corn  to  the  poor  commons,  lest  they  should  die  of  hunger.  But  Caius  hated  the 
commons,  and  he  was  angry  that  they  had  got  tribunes  to  be  their  leaders,  Tmd~ 
he  said,  "If  they  want  corn,  let  them  show  themselves  obedient  to  the  burghers 
as  their  fathers  did,  and  let  them  give  up  their  tribunes;' and  then  will  we  let 
them  have  corn  to  eat,  and  will  take  care  of  them."  The  commons,  when  they 
heard  this,  were  quite  furious,  and  they  would  have  set  upon  Caius  as  he  came 
out  of  the  senate-house  and  torn  him  to  pieces,  but  the  tribunes  said,  "  Nay,  ye 
shall  judge  him  yourselves  in  your  comitia,  and  we  will  be  his  accusers."  So 
they  accused  Caius  before  the  commons  ;  arid  Caius  knew  ths*  they  would  show 
him  no  mercy,  therefore  he  stayed  not  for  the  day  of  his  -trial,18  but  fled  from 
Rome,  and  took  refuge  among  the  Volscians.  They  and  Attius  IIe  poeg  to  the  Voi. 
Tullius,  their  chief,  received  him  kindly,  and  he  lived  among  them  8Cians: 
a  banished  man. 

Attius  said  to  himself,  "Caius,  who  used  to  fight  against  us,  is  now  on  our 
side  ;  we  will  make  war  asrain  upon  the  Romans."     But  the  Vol- 

.,      .,  i  A  i    •  f  i    L  i-  /•-•!          Attins  Tnllius  stirs  tip 

scians  were  afraid  ;  so  that  Attius  was  forced  to  practice  craftily,  war  betwoen  the  Ro- 
to make  them  do  what  he  wished,  whether  they  would  or  no.  K  h«"  contrh'eTto 
Now  the  manner  of  his  practice  was  as  follows  :19  The  great 
games  at  Rome  were  finished,  but  they  were  going  to  be  celebrated  over  again 
with  great  pomp  and  cost,  to  appease  the  wrath  of  Jupiter.  For  Jupiter  had 
spoken  in  a  dream  to  Titus  Latinius,  a  man  of  the  commons,  and  said,  "  Go  and 
bid  the  consuls  to  celebrate  the  games  over  again  with  great  pomp,  for  one 
danced  at  the  opening  of  the  games20  but  now,  whom  I  liked  not ;  and  venge- 
ance is  coming  therefore  upon  this  city."  But  Titus  feared  to  go  to  the  consuls, 
for  he  thought  that  every  one  would  laugh  at  him,  and  so  he  did  not  obey  the 
god.  A  few  days  after  his  son  fell  sick  and  died  ;  and  again  the  vision  appeared 
to  him  in  his  sleep,  and  said,  "  Wilt  thou  still  despise  what  I  tell  thee  ?  Thy 
son  is  dead,  but  if  thou  go  not  quickly,  and  do  my  bidding,  it  shall  be  yet  worse 
for  thee."  But  Titus  still  lingered,  so  he  was  himself  stricken  with  a  palsy  ;  and 
he  could  not  walk,  but  they  carried  him  in  a  litter.  Then  he  delayed  no  longer, 
but  said  to  his  kinsmen,  "  Carry  me  into  the  forum,  to  the  consuls."  And  they 
carried  him  in  his  litter,  and  he  told  the  consuls  the  bidding  of  the  god,  and  all 
that  had  befallen  himself.  When  he  had  finished  his  story,  the  consuls  remem- 
bered how  that  on  the  morning  of  the  first  day  of  the  games,  a  burgher  had  taken 
his  slave  and  scourged  him  in  the  midst  of  the  circus  where  the  games  were  to 


16  The  story  of  the  talcing  of  Corioli  was  an  at-  nology  as  little  as  Shakspeare  did  about  that  ol 
tempt  to  explain  the  name  of  Coriolanus,  which  Some ;  and  as  he  makes  Titus  Lartius  talk  of 
in  reality  merely  showed  that  Marcius  had  been  Cato  the  censor,  so  they  made  Dionysius  the  ty- 
settled  at  Corioli,  and  had  become  a  citizen  of  rant  contemporary  with  the  battle  of  Marathon, 
that  place  after  his  banishment  from  Eome.  and  said  that  it  was  he  who  relieved  the  scarci- 
The  same  explanation  will  serve,  perhaps,  for  ty  at  Rome  in  the  year  262. 

some  other  Latin  surnames,  such  as  Mcdullinus,  18  Livy,  II.  35.      Ipse  quum  die  dicta  non 

Eegillensis,  Malventanus,  and  others,  recording  adesset,  perseveratmn  in  ir4  est.    Dionysius, 

the  connection  of  Roman  families  at  some  period  whom  Plutarch  follows,  says  that  the  tribunes 

or  other  with  the  towns  from  which  they  took  fixed  perpetual  banishment  as  the  penalty  which 

their  names.     See  note  11.  the  accused  should  suffer  if  found  guilty ;  that 

17  Plutarch  names  Gclon,  tyrant  of  Syracuse,  he  was  found  guilty  by  the  votes  of  twelve  tribes 
Livy  merely  says  that  the  corn  came  from  Sici-  oiit  of  twenty-one,  and  banished  accordingly, 
lyj   Dionysius  calls  Gelon  "the  most  distin-  Dionysius  and  Plutarch  seem  to  have  forgotten 
guished  of  the  tyrants  of  Sicily  at  that  time,"  that  exile  as  a  punishment  was  unknown  to  the 
without  specifying  whether,  at  the  time  of  the  Roman  law  till  a  much  later  period. 

famine  at  Rome,  he  was  tyrant  of  Gela  or  of  19  Livy,  II.  36. 

Syracuse.    The  old  Roman  annalists,  Licini us  20  Visus  Jupiter  dicere,  "Sibi  ludis  prscsulta 

Macer  and  Cn.  Gellius,  cared  about  Greek  chro-  torem  displicuisse."    Livy,  II.  86. 


74  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  Xl 

be  held ;  and  the  burgher  regarded  it  not,  but  Jupiter  saw  it  and  was  wroth :  for 
it  was  a  holy  day,  and  a  day  for  mirth  and  gladness,  and  not  for  crying  and  foi 
torment.  So  the  consuls  believed  what  Titus  said,  and  brought  him  into  the 
senate,  and  he  told  the  story  again  to  the  senators.  When  lo !  so  soon  as  he 
had  ended  his  story,  the  palsy  left  him,  and  his  limbs  became  strong  as  be- 
fore, and  he  needed  no  more  to  be  carried  in  his  litter,  but  walked  home  on  his 
feet. 

Thus  the  great  games21  were  celebrated  over  again  at  Rome,  and  many  of  the 
The  voiscians  are  driv-  Volscians  went  to  Rome  to  see  the  sight.  Then  Attius  went  to 
Se7rat0ioaRof"hea^baet  th e  consuls  privately,  and  said  to  them :  "  A  great  multitude  of 
games.  Volscians  are  now  in  Rome.  I  remember  now  on  a  like  occasion, 

not  many  years  since,  the  Sabines  made  a  riot  in  this  city,  and  great  mischief 
was  like  to  come  of  it;  loth  were  I  that  my  people  should  do  aught  of  the 
same  kind  :  but  it  becomes  your  wisdom  rather  to  hinder  evil  than  to  mend  it." 
When  the  consuls  told  this  to  the  senate,  the  senate  -was  afraid ;  and  it  was 
thought  best  to  send  the  criers  round  the  city,  to  give  notice  that  every  Volscian 
should  be  gone  from  Rome  before  the  setting  of  the  sun.  The  Volscians  were 
very  angry  at  this,  for  they  said  to  one  another,  "  Do  these  men  then  hold  us  to 
be  so  profane  and  unholy,  that  our  presence  is  an  offence  to  the  blessed  gods  ?" 
So  they  left  Rome  in  haste,  and  went  home  towards  their  own  country,  full  of 
indignation  at  the  shame  which  was  put  upon  them. 

Their  way  home  was  over  the  hills  of  Alba,8*  by  the  well-head  of  the  water 
of  Ferentina,  where  the  councils  of  the  Latins  had  been  used  to 

Attms  meets  them,  and  /•       i  -i  .-i  i  i         -v-r    i       •  i  t     i  i    • 

excites  them  to  go  to  meet  of  old.     Attms  Knew  that  the  Volscians  would  be  driven 

war  with  the  Romans.      /.  T-,  -111  i  1-11 

trom  Rome,  and  would  pass  that  way,  so  he  waited  there  to  meet 
them.  At  last  they  came  up  in  a  long  train,  each  as  he  could  go,  and  Attius 
spoke  to  them,  and  asked  them  what  was  the  matter,  that  they  had  so  suddenly 
left  Rome.  When  they  told  him,  he  called  them  to  follow  him  from  the  road, 
down  to  the  grass  which  was  by  the  side  of  the  stream,  and  there  they  gathered 
round  him,  and  he  made  a  speech  to  them,  and  said,  "  What  is  it  that  these  men 
have  done  to  you  ?  They  have  made  a  show  of  you  at  their  games  before  all  the 
neighboring  nations.  Ye,  and  your  wives,  and  your  children,  were  cast  out  at 
the  voice  of  the  crier,  as  though  ye  were  profane  and  unholy,  and  as  if  your  pres- 
ence before  the  sight  of  the  gods  were  a  sacrilege.  Do  ye  not  count  them  for 
your  enemies  already,  seeing  if  ye  had  not  made  such  good  haste  in  coming  away 
ye  would  have  been  all  dead  men  ere  now  ?  They  have  made  war  upon  us  :  see 
to  it,  if  ye  be  men,  that  ye  make  them  rue  their  deed."  So  the  Yolscians  eagerly 
listened  to  his  words,  and  all  their  tribes  made  it  a  common  quarrel,  and  they 
raised  a  great  army,  and  chose  Attius  and  Caius  Marcius,  the  Roman,  to  com- 
mand it. 

When  this  great  host  took  the  field,  the  Romans  feared  to  go  out  to  battle 
HOW  caius  and  Attius  against  it.  So  Caius  and  Attius  attacked  the  cities  of  the  Latins, 
.niched  against  Rome.  ^  ft^y.  first  to()k  circeii,23  and  afterwards  Satricum,  and  Lon- 
gula,  and  Polusca,  and  Corioli ;  and  then  they  took  Lavinium,  which  was  to  the 
Romans  a  sacred  city,  because  JEneas  was  its  founder,  and  because  the  holy 
things  of  the  gods  of  their  fathers  were  kept  there.  After  this  Caius  and  Attius 
took  Corbio,  and  Vitellia,  and  Trebia,  and  Lavici,  and  Pedum ;  and  from  Pedum 
they  went  towards  Rome,  and  they  encamped  by  the  Cluilian  dyke,  which  was 
no  more  than  five  miles  from  the  city ;  and  they  laid  waste  the  lands  of  the  com- 
mons of  Rome,  but  they  spared  those  of  the  burghers  ;  Caius,  for  his  part,  think- 
ing that  his  quarrel  was  with  the  commons  only,  and  that  the  burghers  were  his 
friends ;  and  Attius,  thinking  that  it  would  cause  the  Romans  to  be  jealous  of 
each  other,  and  so  make  Rome  the  easier  to  be  conquered.  So  the  host  of  the 
Volscians  lay  encamped  near  Rome. 

*  Livy,  II.  37.  »  Livy,  II.  38.  »  Livy,  II.  89. 


CHAP.  XL]  STORY  OF  CORIOLAtfUS.  m      75 

Within  the  city,  meanwhile,  there  was  a  great  tumult ;  the  women  ran  to  the 
temples  of  the  gods  to  pray  for  mercy,  the  poorer  peop  e  cried  The  Romnng  §ue  fw 
out  in  the  streets  that  they  would  have  peace,  and  that  the  senate  p^dbut  il  *•  not 
should  send  deputies  to  Caius  and  to  Attius.  So  deputies  were 
sent,24  five  men  of  the  chief  of  the  burghers ;  but  Caius  answered  them,  "  We 
will  give  you  no  peace,  till  ye  restore  to  the  Volscians  all  the  land  and  all  the 
cities  which  ye  or  your  fathers  have  ever  taken  from  them ;  and  till25  ye  make 
them  your  citizens,  and  give  them  all  the  rights  which  ye  have  yourselves,  as  ye 
have  done  to  the  Latins."  The  deputies  could  not  accept  such  hard  conditions, 
so  thev  went  back  to  Rome.  And  when  the  senate  sent  them  again  to  ask  for 
gentler  terms,  Caius  would  not  suffer  them  to  enter  the  camp. 

After  this26  the  senate  sent  all  the  priests  of  the  gods,  and  the  augurs,  all 
clothed  in  their  sacred  garments,  and  bearing  in  their  hands  the  The  priegtg  of  tl]e  goAl 
tokens  of  the  gods  whom  they  served.  But  neither  would  Caius  R£Eu!/3K3 
listen  to  these ;  so  they  too  went  back  again  to  Rome. 

Yet,  when  the  help  of  man  had  failed  the  Romans,  the  help  of  the  gods  de- 
livered them :  for  amonsf  the  women  who  were  sitting  as  suppli- 

T  T  />    T  •        j.1          /~i        «i    1  TT    1       •      91      1         A   nobl«    la<1y»    called 

ants  m  the  temple  of  Jupiter  in  the  Capitol,  was  Valeria/7  the  Valeria,  persuades  &• 
sister  of  that  Publius  Valerius  who  had  been  called  Poplicola,  a  ca' 


virtuous  and  noble  lady,  whom  all  held  in  honor.  As  she  was  sit- 
ting in  the  temple  as  a  suppliant  before  the  image  of  Jupiter,  Jupiter  seemed  to 
inspire  her  with  a  sudden  thought,  and  she  immediately  rose,  and  called  upon  all 
the  other  noble  ladies  who  were  with  her  to  arise  also,  and  she  led  them  to  the 
house  of  Volumnia,  the  mother  of  Caius.  There  she  found  Virgilia,  the  wife  of 
Caius,  with  his  mother,  and  also  his  little  children.  Valeria  then  addressed  Vo- 
lumnia and  Virgilia,  and  said,  "Our  coming  here  to  you  is  our  own  doing ; 
neither  the  senate  nor  any  other  mortal  man  have  sent  us ;  but  the  god  in  whose 
temple  we  were  sitting  as  suppliants  put  it  into  our  hearts,  that  we  should  come 
and  ask  you  to  join  with  us,  women  with  women,  without  any  aid  of  men,  to  win 
for  our  country  a  great  deliverance,  and  for  ourselves  a  name  glorious  above  all 
women,  even  above  those  Sabine  wives  in  the  old  time,  who  stopped  the  battle 
between  their  husbands  and  their  fathers.  Come  then  with  us  to  the  camp  of 
Caius,  and  let  us  pray  to  him  to  show  us  mercy."  Volumnia  said,  "  We  will  go 
with  you :"  and  Virgilia  took  her  young  children  with  her,  and  they  all  went  to 
the  camp  of  the  enemy. 

It  was  a  sad  and  solemn  sight28  to  see  this  train  of  noble  ladies',  and  the  very 
Volscian  soldiers  stood  in  silence  as  they  passed  by,  and  pitied  How  his  wife  and 
them  and  honored  them.  They  found  Caius  sitting  on  the  gen-  him^nndTow^e^ied 
eral's  seat  in  the  midst  of  the  camp,  and  the  Volscian  chiefs  were  awayhiaarmy- 
standing  round  him.  When  he  first  saw  them  he  wondered  what  it  could  be  ; 
but  presently  he  knew  his  mother,  who  was  walking  at  the  head  of  the  train ; 
and  then  he  could  not  contain  himself,  but  leaped  down  from  his  seat,  and  ran 
to  meet  her,  and  was  going  to  kiss  her.  But  she  stopped  him  and  said,29  "  Ere 
thou  kiss  me,  let  me  know  whether  I  am  speaking  to  an  enemy  or  to  my  son ; 
whether  I  stand  in  thy  camp  as  thy  prisoner  or  as  thy  mother."  Caius  could 
not  answer  her,  and  then  she  went  on  and  said,  "  Must  it  be,  then,  that  had  I 
never  borne  a  son,  Rome  never  should  have  seen  the  camp  of  an  enemy ;  that 
had  I  remained  childless,  I  should  have  died  a  free  woman  in  a  free  city  ?  But 
I  am  too  old  to  bear  much  longer  either  thy  shame  or  my  misery.  Rather  look 
to  thy  wife  and  children,  whom  if  thou  persistest  thou  art  dooming  to  an  untimely 
death,  or  a  long  life  of  bondage."  Then  Virgilia  and  his  children  came  up  to 
him  ttnd  kissed  him,  and  all  the  noble  ladies  wept,  and  bemoaned  their  own  fate 

Vand  the  fate  of  their  country.     At  last  Caius  cried  out,  "  0  mother,  what  hast 
84  Dionysius,  VIII.  22.  ""  Plutarch,  Coriolan.  32,  33. 

86  Dionysius,  VIII.  35.  Plutarch,  Coriolan.  30.        28  Plutarch,  Coriolan.  84. 
86  Idvy,"  II.  89.    Plutarch,  Coriolan.  32.  "  Livy,  II.  40. 


7(J  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XI 

them  done  to  me  ?"  and  he  wrung  her  hand  vehemently,  and  said,  "  Mother,  thine 
is  the  victory  ;  a  happy  victory  for  thee  and  for  Rome,  but  shame  and  ruin  to  thy 
son."  Then  he  fell  on  her  neck  and  embraced  her,  and  he  embraced  his  wife  and 
his  children,  and  sent  them  back  to  Rome  ;  and  led  away  the  army  of  the  Vol- 
Bcians,  and  never  afterwards  attacked  Rome  any  more  ;  and  he  lived  on  a  ban- 
ished man  amongst  the  Volscians,  and  when  he  was  very  old,  and  had  neither  wife 
nor  children  around  him,  he  was  wont  to  say,  "  That  now  in  old  age30  he  knew 
the  full  bitterness  of  banishment."  So  Caius  lived  and  died  amongst  the  Vol- 
scians. 

The  Romans,  as  was  right,  honored  Volumnia  and  Valeria  for  their  deed,  and 
a  temple  was  built  and  dedicated  to  "Woman's  Fortune,"31  just 
he  nouTiadies  on  the  spot  where  Caius  had  yielded  to  his  mother's  words  ;  and 


" 


the  first  priestess  of  the  temple  was  Valeria,  into  whose  heart  Ju- 
piter had  first  put  the  thought  to  go  to  Volumnia,  and  to  call  upon  her  to  go  out 
to  the  enemy's  camp  and  entreat  her  son. 

Such  is  the  famous  story  which  has  rendered  the  Volscian  wars  with  Rome  so 
memorable  ;  the  wars  with  the  ^Equians  are  marked  by  a  name  and  a  story  not 
less  celebrated,  those  of  L.  Quinctius  Cincinnatus. 

There  had  been  peace  between  the  Romans  and  the  ^Equians  :  but  the  ^Equi- 

ans  and  Gracchus  Clcelius,32  their  chief,  broke  the  peace,  and 

n»Aqn!ambr£rttiM  plundered  the  lands  of  the  people  of  Lavici  and  of  the  people  of 

peace  with  Ro?ne,  mid    ;,-,  ,  mi  ,-,  •,    i       i    .i      •  ,1  c     »  i     •  i 

•com  the  complaints  of  lusculum.     Ihey  then  pitched  ui&ft  camp  on  the  top  ot  Algidus  ; 

and  the  Romans  sent  deputies  to  them  to  complain  of  the  wrong 
which  they  had  done.  It  happened  that  the  tent  of  Gracchus  was  pitched  under 
the  shade  of  a  great  evergreen  oak,  and  he  was  sitting  in  his  tent  when  the  depu- 
ties came  to  him.  His  answer  was  full  of  mockery  :  "  I,  for  my  part,"  said  he, 
"  am  busy  with  other  matters  ;  I  cannot  hear  you  ;  you  had  better  tell  your  mes- 
sage to  the  oak  yonder."  Immediately  one  of  the  deputies  answered,  "  Yea,  let 
this  sacred  oak  hear,  and  let  all  the  gods  hear  likewise,  how  treacherously  you 
have  broken  the  peace  !  They  shall  hear  it  now,  and  shall  soon  avenge  it  ;  for 
you  have  scorned  alike  the  laws  of  the  gods  and  of  men."  Then  they  went  back 
to  Rome,  and  the  senate  resolved  upon  war  :  and  Lucius  Minucius,  the  consul, 
led  his  legions  towards  Algidus,  to  fight  with  the  proud  enemy. 

But  Gracchus  was  a  skilful  soldier,33  and  he  pretended  to  be  afraid  of  the  Ro- 

mans, and  retreated  before  them,  and  they  followed  him,  without 

How  the  army  of  the    i          •«•  ••  ••  «r^i  •  i 

consul   Mim.cms  feii  heeding  where  they  were  cromp;.     So  they  came  into  a  narrow  val- 

into  an  ambush.  ,  P.     ,  .,,  "i^,  •  j        i  •     i  i       .  i    i  i      i 

ley,  with  hills  on  either  side,  high,  and  steep,  and  bare  ;  and  then 
Gracchus  sent  men  secretly,  who  closed  up  the  way  by  which  they  had  entered 
into  the  valley,  so  that  they  could  not  get  back  ;  and  the  hills34  closed  round  the 
valley  in  front  of  them,  and  on  the  right  and  left,  and  on  the  top  of  these  hills 
Gracchus  lay  with  his  army,  while  the  Romans  were  shut  up  in  the  valley  below. 
In  this  valley  there  was  neither  grass  for  the  horses,  nor  food  for  the  men  ;  but 

"°  "Multo  miserius  seni  exilium  esse."     Fa-  **  Dionysius,  X.  23. 

bins,  quoted  by  Livy,  II.  40.  M  This  'is  just  the  description  of  the  famous 

11  Livy,  II.  40.  Dionysius,  VIII.  55.    It  is  one  Furcas  Caudinse,  in  which  the  Romans  were 

of  Nieb'uhr's  most  ingenious  conjectures  that  blockaded  by  C.  Pontius.    It  suits  the  charac- 

the  foundation  of  this  temple,  and  the  fact  that  tcr  of  the  Apennine  valleys,  but  I  never  saw 

Valeria  was  the  first  priestess  of  it,  gave  occa-  any  such  spots  on  the  Alban  hills,  where  the 

sion  to  the  date  assigned  to  the  story  of  Corio-  scene  of  Cincinnatus'  victory  is  laid.    It  is  likely 

lanus,  and  to  the  introduction  of  Valeria  into  enough,  however,  that  Dionysius,  or  the  annal- 

it,  as  the  first  suggester  of  the  step  which  saved  ist  whom  he  followed,  did  actually  take  their 

Rome.    Niebuhr  observes  that  Fortuna  Mulie-  description  from  that  of  the  Caudine  Forks,  and 

bris  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  successful  em-  that  it  made  no  part  of  the  old  legend.    Livy's 

bassy  of  Volumnia  and  Valeria,  but  correspond-  account  says  nothing  of  any  natural  disadvan- 

ed  to  Fortuna  Virilis  ;  and  that  both  were  an-  tages  of  position  :  he  merely  says  that  the  Ro- 

ciently  worshipped  ;  the  one  as  influencing  the  mans  kept  within  their  camp  through  feai,  and 

fortunes  of  men,  the  other  those  of  women,  that  this  encouraged  the  JEquians  to  blockade 

Vol.  II.  p.  115.  2d  edit.  them. 

•Livy,  III.  25. 


CHAP.  XL]  STORY  OF  CINCINNATUS.  77 

five  horsemen  had  broken  out,  before  the  road  in  the  rear  of  the  Romans  was 
quite  closed  up,  and  these  rode  to  Rome,  and  told  the  senate  of  the  great  danger 
of  the  consul  and  of  the  army. 

Upon  this  Quintus  Fabius,35  the  warden  of  the  city,  sent  in  haste  for  Caius 
Nautius,  the  other  consul,  who  was  with  his  army  in  the  country  The  R0mani  at  Rome 
of  the  Sabines.  When  he  came,  they  consulted  together,  and  the  were  'm  greHt  nlarm> 
senate  said,  "  There  is  only  one  man  who  can  deliver  us  ;  we  must  make  Lucius 
Quinctius  Master  of  the  people."  So  Caius,  as  the  manner  was,  named  Lupins 
to  be  Master  of  the  people  ;  and  then  he  hastened  back  to  his  army  before  the 
sun  was  risen. 

This  Lucius  Quinctius  let  his  hair  grow,36  and  tended  it  carefully  :  and  was  so 
famous  for  his  curled  and  crisped  locks  that  men  called  him  Cin- 
cinnatus,  or  the  "  crisp-haired."  He  was  a  frugal  man,37  and  did  GaiJcthuto  i»  Mwtel 
not  care  to  be  rich  ;  and  his  land  was  on  the  other  side  of  the  Ti- 
ber, a  plot  of  four  jugera,  where  he  dwelt  with  his  wife  Racilia,  and  busied  him- 
self in  the  tilling  of  his  ground.  So  in  the  morning  early  the  senate  sent  depu- 
ties to  Lucius  to  tell  him  that  he  was  chosen  to  be  Master  of  the  people.  The 
deputies  went  over  the  river,  and  came  to  his  house,  and  found  him  in  his  field 
at  work  without  his  toga  or  cloak,  and  digging  with  his  spade  in  his  ground, 
They  saluted  him  and  said,  "  We  bring  thee  a  message  from  the  senate,  so  thou 
must  put  on  thy  cloak  that  thou  mayest  receive  it  as  is  fitting."  Then  he  said, 
"  Hath  aught  of  evil  befallen  the  state  ?"  and  he  bade  his  wife  to  bring  his  cloak, 
and  when  he  had  put  it  on  he  went  out  to  meet  the  deputies.  Then  they  said, 
"Hail  to  thee,  Lucius  Quinctius,  the  senate  declares  thee  Master  of  the  people, 
and  calls  thee  to  the  city  ;  for  the  consul  and  the  army  in  the  country  of  the 
j^Equians  are  in  great  danger."  There  was  then  a  boat  made  ready  to  carry  him 
over  the  Tiber,  and  when  he  stepped  out  of  the  boat  his  three  sons  came  to  meet 
him,  and  his  kinsmen  and  his  friends,  and  the  greater  part  of  the  senators.  He 
was  thus  led  home  in  great  state  to  his  house,  and  the  four-and-twenty  lictors, 
with  their  rods  and  axes,  walked  before  him.  As  for  the  multitude,  they  crowded 
round  to  see  him,  but  they  feared  his  four-and-twenty  lictors  ;  for  they  were  a 
sign  that  the  power  of  the  Master  of  the  people  was  as  sovereign  as  that  of  the 
kings  of  old. 

Lucius  chose  Lucius  Tarquitius38  to  be  Master  of  the  horse,  a  brave  man,  and 
of  a  burgher's  house  :  but  so  poor  withal  that  he  had  been  used 

.  -i  /.  •?  •,.  .  -if  11  Lucius  marc 

to  serve  among  the  toot  soldiers  instead  ot  among  the  horse,  deliver  the 
Then  the  Master  of  the  people  and  the  Master  of  the  horse  went  ar"'y' 
together  into  the  Forum,  and  bade  every  man  to  shut  up  his  booth,  and  stopped 
all  causes  at  law,  and  gave  an  order  that  none  should  look  to  his  own  affairs  till 
the  consul  and  his  army  were  delivered  from  the  enemy.  They  ordered  also  that 
every  man,  who  was  of  an  age  to  go  out  to  battle,  should  be  ready  in  the  Field 
of  Mars  before  sunset,  and  should  have  with  him  victuals  for  five  days,  and 
twelve  stakes  ;  and  the  older  men  dressed  the  victuals  for  the  soldiers,  whilst  the 
soldiers  went  about  everywhere  to  get  their  stakes  ;  and  they  cut  them  where 
they  would,  without  any  hinderance.  So  the  army  was  ready  in  the  Field  ot 
Mars  at  the  time  appointed,  and  they  set  forth  from  the  ci'ty,  and  made  such 
haste,  that  ere  the  night  was  half  spent  they  came  to  Algidus  ;  and  when  they 
perceived  that  they  were  near  the  enemy,  they  made  a  halt. 

Then  Lucius  rode  on,  and  saw39  how  the  camp  of  the  enemy  lay  ;  and  he  or- 

35  Dionysius,  X.  23.  more  than  distance  ;  and  as  it  had  brought  tho 

30  Zonaras,  VII.  p.  346.    Ed.  Paris,  p.  260.  Koman  array  from  Rome  to  Algidus  between 

Ed.  Venet.  sunset  and  midnight,  though  each  soldier  had 

"  Livy,  III.  26.  to  carry  his  baggage  and  twelve  stakes  besides, 

88  Livy,  III.  27.  so  it  made  Cincinnatus  reconnoitre  the  enemy 

'  "Quantum  nocte  prospici  poterat"  is  Livy's  as  soon  as  he  arrived  in  their  neighborhood, 

qualification  of  the  story  ;  but  the  original  le-  without  considering  that  on  its  own  showing 

gend,  in  all  probability,  regarded  darkness  no  his  arrival  took  place  at  midnight. 


marcheg  out  to 


78  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XI 

H*  conquer,  the  jEqui  dered  his  soldiers  to  throw  down  all  their  baggage  into  one  place, 
*"'•  but  to  keep  each  man  his  arms  and  his  twelve  stakes.  Then  they 

set  out  again  in  their  order  of  march  as  they  had  come  from  Rome,  and  they 
spread  themselves  round  the  camp  of  the  enemy  on  every  side.  When  this  was 
done,  upon  a  signal  given  they  raised  a  great  shout,  and  directly  every  man  be- 
gan to  dig  a  ditch  just  where  he  stood,  and  to  set  in  his  stakes.  The  shout  rang 
through  the  camp  of  the  enemy,  and  filled  them  with  fear ;  and  it  sounded  even 
to  the  camp  of  the  Romans  who  were  shut  up  in  the  valley,  and  the  consul's 
men  said  one  to  another,  "  Rescue  is  surely  at  hand,  for  that  is  the  shout  of  Ro- 
mans." They  themselves  shouted  in  answer,  and  sallied  to  attack  the  camp  of 
the  enemy ;  and  they  fought  so  fiercely,  that  they  hindered  the  enemy  from  in- 
terrupting the  work  of  the  Romans  without  their  camp  ;  and  this  went  on  all 
the  night,  till  when  it  was  morning,  the  Romans  who  were  without  had  drawn  a 
ditch  all  round  the  enemy,  and  had  fenced  it  with  their  stakes  ;  and-  now  they 
left  their  work,  and  began  to  take  part  in  the  battle.  Then  the  JEquians  saw 
that  there  was  no  hope,  and  they  began  to  ask  for  mercy.  Lucius  answered, 
"  Give  me  Gracchus  and  your  other  chiefs  bound,  and  then  I  will  set  two  speirs 
upright  in  the  ground,  and  I  will  put  a  third  spear  across,  and  you  shall  give  up 
your  arms,  and  your  cloaks,  and  shall  pass,  every  man  of  you,  under  the  spear 
bound  across  as  under  a  yoke,  and  then  you  may  go  away  free."  This  was 
done  accordingly ;  Gracchus  and  the  other  chiefs  were  bound,  and  the  ^Equians 
left  their  camp  to  the  Romans,  with  all  its  spoil,  and  put  off  their  cloaks,  and 
passed  each  man  under  the  yoke,  and  then  went  home  full  of  shame. 

But  Lucius  would  not  suffer40  the  consul's  army  to  have  any  share  of  the  spoil, 
nor  did  he  let  the  consul  keep  his  power,  but  made  him  his  own  under-officer, 
and  then  marched  back  to  Rome.  Nor  did  the  consul's  soldiers  complain  ;  but 
they  were  rather  full  of  thankfulness  to  Lucius  for  having  rescued  them  from  the 
enemy,  and  they  agreed  to  give  him  a  golden  crown ;  as  he  returned  to  Rome, 
they  shouted  after  him,  and  called  him  their  protector  and  their  father. 

Great  was  now  the  joy  in  Rome,  and  the  senate  decreed  that  Lucius  should 
Lucius  marches  back  to  enter  the  city  in  triumph,  in  the  order  in  which  the  army  was  re- 
Rome  in  triumph.  turning  from  Algidus,  and  he  rode  in  his  chariot,  while  Gracchus 
and  the  chiefs  of  the  ^Equians  were  led  bound  before  him ;  and  the  standards 
were  borne  before  him,  and  all  the  soldiers,  laden  with  their  spoil,  followed  be- 
hind. And  tables  were  set  out  at  the  door  of  every  house,  with  meat  and  drink 
for  the  soldiers,  and  they  and  the  people  feasted  together,  and  followed  the 
chariot  of  Lucius,  with  singing  and  great  rejoicings.  Thus  the  gods  took 
vengeance  up^n  Gracchus  and  the  JEquians  ;  and  thus  Lucius  delivered  the 
consul  and  his  army ;  and  all  was  done  so  quickly,  that  he  went  out  on  one 
evening,  and  came  home  the  next  day  at  evening  victorious  and  triumphant. 

This  famous  story  is  placed  by  the  annalists  in  the  year  of  Rome  296,  thirteen 
General  »tate  of  the  years  after  the  passing  of  the  Publilian  law.  In  such  a  warfare 
mans  bande t"ethoPka°n  as  that  of  the  Romans  with  the  ^Equians  and  Volscians,  there  are 


,ions   at  the   end 


third  century  of  always  sufficient  alternations  of  success  to  furnish  the  annalists  on 
Rome-  either  side  with  matter  of  triumph  ;  and  by  exaggerating  every 

victory,  and  omitting  or  slightly  noticing  every  defeat,  they  form  a  picture  such 
as  national  vanity  most  delights  in.  But  we  neither  can,  nor  need  we  desire  to 
correct  and  supply  the  omissions  of  the  details  of  the  Roman  historians  :  it  is 
enough  to  say,  that  at  the  close  of  the  third  century  of  Rome,  the  warfare  which 
the  Romans  had  to  maintain  against  the  Opican  nations  was  generally  defensive ; 
that  the  ^Equians  and  Volscians  had  advanced  from  the  line  of  the  Apennines 
and  established  themselves  on  the  Alban  hills,  in  the  heart  of  Latium ;  that  of 
the  thirty  Latin  states  which  had  formed  the  league  with  Rome  in  the  year  261, 
thirteen41  were  now  either  destroyed,  or  were  in  the  possession  of  the  Opicans ; 

40  Livy,  III.  29.  Fortona  (if  it  be  the  same  with  Ortona),  Lavici, 

*l  ( Jarveutunij  Circeii,  Corioli,  Corbie,  Cora,    Norba,  Pedum,  Satricum,  Setia,  Tollaa,  ana 


CHAP.  XII]  WARS  WITH  THE  ETRUSCANS.  79 

that  on  the  Alban  hills  themselves,  Tusculum  alone  remained  independent ;  and 
that  there  was  no  other  friendly  city  to  obstruct  the  irruptions  of  the  enemy  into 
the  territory  of  Rome.  Accordingly,  that  territory  was  plundered  year  after  year, 
and  whatever  defeats  the  plunderers  may  at  times  have  sustained,  yet  they  were 
never  deterred  from  renewing  a  contest  which  they  found  in  the  main  profitable 
and  glorious.  So  greatly  had  the  power  and  dominion  of  Rome  fallen  since  the 
overthrow  of  the  monarchy.  We  have  now  to  notice  her  wars  with  another 
enemy,  the  Etruscans  ;  and  to  trace  on  this  side  also  an  equal  decline  in  glory 
and  greatness  since  the  reigns  of  the  later  kings. 


CHAPTER  XII, 

WAKS  WITH  THE  ETRUSCANS— VEII— LEGEND  OF  THE  SLAUGHTER  OF  THE 
FABII  AT  THE  RIVER  CREMERA. 


"  Our  hands  alone 

Suffice  for  this  ; — take  ye  no  thought  for  it. 
While  the  mole  breaks  the  waves,  and  bides  the  tempest, 
The  ship  within  rides  safe :  while  on  the  mountain 
The  wind  is  battling  with  the  adventurous  pines, 
He  stirs  no  leaf  in  the  valley.    So  your  state, 
We  standing  thus  in  guard  upon  the  border, 
Shall  feel  no  ruffling  of  the  rudest  blast 
That  sweeps  from  Veii." 


AFTER  the  great  war  of  king  Porsenna,  the  Etruscans,  for  several  years,  ap- 
pear to  have  lived  in  peace  with  the  Romans  ;  and  in  the  famine  BeSmnin?  of  honmu* 
of  the  year  262,  when  the  enmity  of  the  Volscians  would  allow  withVeil- 
no  supplies  of  corn  to  be  sent  to  Rome  from  the  countrj-  on  the  left  bank  of  the 
Tiber,  the  Etruscan  cities,  we  are  told,1  allowed  the  Romans  to  purchase  what 
the}'  wanted,  and  the  corn  thus  obtained  was  the  principal  support  of  the  people. 
But  nine  years  afterwards,  in  271,  a  war  broke  out,  not  with  the  Etruscans  gen- 
erally, but  with  the  people  of  the  neighboring  city  of  Veii.  The  quarrel  is  said2 
to  have  arisen  out  of  some  plundering  inroads  made  by  the  Veientian  borderers 
upon  the  Roman  territory ;  but  it  suited  the  Roman  aristocracy  at  this  period  to 
involve  the  nation  in  foreign  contests,3  in  order  to  prevent  the  commons  from  in- 
sisting on  the  due  execution  of  Cassius'  agrarian  law;  and  quarrels,  which  at  an- 
other time  might  easily  have  been  settled,  were  now  gladly  allowed  to  end  in 
open  war. 

Veii4  lay  about  ten  miles  from  Rome,  between  two  small  streams  which  meet 
a  little  below  the  city,  and  run  down  into  the  Tiber,  falling  into  situation  and  aize  of 
it  nearly  opposite  to  Castel  Giubileo,  the  ancient  Fidenss.  Insig-  Veiu 

Velitroe.    Carventum  seems  to  have  been  one  Cora.    Another  supposition,  as  Mr.  Bunscn  in- 

of  the  towns  of  the  Alban  hills,  and  Niebuhr  forms  me,  places  it  on  Monte  Ariano,  the  liigh- 

Buprgests  that  we  should  read  Kopwevrai/oHnstead  est  eastern    point  of  that  volcanic  range  of 

ofkoptoAavoi  in  Dionvsius,  VIII.  19,  as  the  pco-  mountains  of  which  Monte  Cavo  is  the  most 

pie  conquered  by  Coriolanus,  for  they  are  placed  western  point.    But  nothing  is  really  known 

in  the  neighborhood   of  Corbia  and  Pedum  ;  on  the  question. 

•whereas  the  conquest  of  the  real  Coriolani  is  1  Livy,  II.  34. 

mentioned  in  another  place  (VIII.  36),  and  in  2  Dionysius,  VIII.  81,  91. 

their  proper  neighborhood.     Sir  W.  Gell  sup-  8  Dionysius,  VIII.  81.    Dion  Cassius,  Fragm, 

poses  Carventum  to  have  been  at  Roca  Massi-  Vatican,  XX. 

mi,  a  high  point  on  the  Volscian  highlands  near  *  See  Sir  W.  Gell's  Map  of  the  Campagna. 


80  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XII. 

nificant  in  point  of  size,  these  little  streams,  however,  like  those  of  the  Campagna 
generally,  are  edged  by  precipitous  rocky  cliffs,  and  thus  are  capable  of  affording 
a  natural  defence  to  a  town  built  on  the  table-land  above  and  between  them. 
The  space  inclosed  by  the  walls  of  Yeii  was  equal  to  the  extent5  of  Rome  itself, 
so  long  as  the  walls  of  Servius  Tullius  were  the  boundary  of  the  city  :  the  citadel 
stood  on  a  distinct  eminence,  divided  by  one  of  the  little  streams  from  the  rest 
of  the  town,  and  defended  by  another  similar  valley  on  the  other  side.  In  the 
magnificence  of  its  public  and  private  buildings,  Veii  is  said  to  have  been  pre- 
ferred by  the  Roman  commons  to  Rome  ;6  and  we  know  enough  of  the  great 
works  of  the  Etruscans  to  render  this  not  impossible ;  but  the  language  is  too 
vague  to  be  insisted  on ;  and  the  Etruscan  Veii  was  as  unknown  to  the  Roman 
annalists  as  to  us.  On  the  other  hand,  Rome  had  itself  been  embellished  by 
Etruscan  art,  and  had  been  under  its  kings  the  seat  of  a  far  mightier  power 
than  Veii. 

The  government  of  Veii,  like  that  of  the  other  Etruscan  cities,  was  in  the  hands 
of  an  aristocracy  of  birth,  one  or  more  of  whom  were  elected  an- 

IU  government.  ...  1111  •  •     • 

nually  by  the  whole  body  to  command  in  war  and  administer  jus- 
tice. There  were  no  free  commons ;  but  a  large  population  of  serfs  or  vassals, 
who  cultivated  the  lands  of  the  ruling  class.  In  Avars  of  peculiar  importance,7 
we  read  from  time  to  time  of  the  appointment  of  a  king,  but  his  office  was  for 
life  only,  and  was  not  perpetuated  in  his  family.  The  hereditary  principle  pre- 
vailed, however,  in  the  priesthoods  ;  none  but  members  of  one  particular  family 
could  be  priests  of  Juno,8  the  goddess  especially  honored  at  Veii. 

The  Veientians,  like  the  other  Etruscans,  fought  in  the  close  order9  of  the  pha- 
chnracter  of  its  miiita-  kmx  J  their  arms  being  the  small  round  shield,  and  the  long  pike. 
We  know  not  whether  they  ventured,  like  the  Parthians,  to  trust 
their  serfs  with  arms  equal  to  their  own,  and  to  enrol  them  in  the  phalanx ;  but 
we  may  more  probably  suppose  that  they  employed  them  only  as  light-armed 
troops ;  and  if  this  were  so,  their  armies  must  have  encountered  the  Romans  at 
a  disadvantage,  their  regular  infantry  being  probably  inferior  in  numbers  to  the 
legions,  and  their  light  troops,  except  for  desultory  warfare,  still  more  inferior  in 
quality.  To  make  up  for  this,  they  employed  the  services  of  mercenaries,  who 
were  generally  to  be  hired  from  one  or  other  of  the  states  of  Etruria,  even  when 
their  respective  countries  refused  to  take  part  publicly  in  the  quarrel. 

The  war  between  the  Romans  and  Veientians,  which  began  in  the  year  271, 

6  Dionysius  compares  the  size  both  of  Rome  bitionis  regem  creav6re,"  imply  that  the  govern- 
and  Veii  with  that  of  Athens,  II.  54.  IV.  13.  mcnt  was  commonly  exercised  by  one  or  more 
Sir  W.  Gell  told  me  that  the  traces  of  the  walls  magistrates  annually  chosen,  like  the  consuls  at 
of  Veii,  which  he  had  clearly  made  out,  quite  Rome.    Niebuhr  refers  to  the  case  of  Lars  To- 
justilied  the  comparison  of  Veii  in  point  of  extent  lumnius,  who  had  been  king  of  Veii  thirtv- 
with  Rome.  And  his  map  shows  the  same  thing,  four  years  before  the  time  of  which  Livy  is  speak- 

8  Livy,  V.  24.    Urbem  quoque  urbi  Romse  vel  ing;  and  he  thinks  that  Livy  is  mistaken,  in 

situ  vel  magnificentia  publicorum  privatorum-  supposing  the  appointment  ot  a  king  in  the  last 

quo  tectorum  ac  locormn  prseponebant.     This  war  with  Rome  to  have  been  any  thing  unusual, 

being  no  more  than  an  expression  of  opinion  (Vol.  I.  p.  128.  2d  ed.  note  344.)    But  we  read 

ascribed  to  the  commons,  we  cannot  be  sure  of  no  king  after  Lars  Tolumnius  till  the  period 

that  Livy  had  any  authority  for  it  at  all,  any  of  the  last  war,  nor  of  any  before  him  in  the 

more  than  for  the  language  of  his  speeches^,  earlier  wars  with  Rome.     And  as  the  lucumo, 

But  suppose  that  he  found  it  in  some  one  of  or  chief  magistrate  of  a  single  Etruscan  city,  was 

the  older  annalists,  still  it  can  hardly  be  more  appointed  sometimes  chief  over  the  whole  con- 

than  the  expression  of  that  annalist's  opinion,  federacy,  when  any  general  war  broke  out ;  so 

grounded  possibly  upon  some  tradition  of  the  the  annual  lucumo  may  have  been  made  lucumo 

splendor  of  Veii,  but  possibly  also  upon  noth-  for  life  in  times  of  clanger,  if  he  were  a  man  ol 

ing  more  than  the  fact  that  the  Roman  com-  commanding  character  and  ability, 

mons  were  at  one  time  anxious  to  re-move  to  8  Livy,  V.  22. 

Veii.    And  if  the  Roman  commons  had  actually  9  Diodorus.     Fragm.    Vatican.  Lib.  XXIII. 

said  that  Veii  was  a  finer  city  than  Rome,  when  Tvpfavol  xaX*ca?j  acriai  (pa^ayyonaxovvres,  for  so 

they  were  extolling  its  advantages,  is  such  an  we  must  correct  the  reading  ^dXayya  paxovvres, 

assertion  to  be  taken  as  an  historical  fact,  to  just  as  a  little  below  in  the  same  passage  we  read 

justify  us  in  passing  a  judgment  as  to  the  com-  WnpoTj,  i.  e.  cohortibus,  or  manipulis,  instead 

parative  magnificence  of  the  two  cities?  of  rretpa??,  which  Mai  absurdly  renders  "  cus- 

7  Livy,  V.  1.    His  words,  "  Ttedio  annuoe  am-  pidibus." 


CHAP.  XJI.]  LEGEND  OF  THE  FABII.  81 

lasted  nine  years.  It  is  difficult  to  say  what  portion  of  the  events  Outlin(1  of the war  ftom 
recorded  of  it  is  deserving  of  credit ;  nor  would  the  details,10  at  any  211  to  2b°- 
rate,  be  worth  repeating  now.  But  it  seems  to  have  been  carried  on  with  equal 
fortune  on  both  sides,  and  to  have  been  ended  by  a  perfectly  equal  treaty.  The 
Romans  established  themselves  on  the  Cremera,  within  the  Veientian  territory, 
built  a  sort  of  town  there,  and,  after  having  maintained  their  post  for  some  time, 
to  the  great  annoyance  of  the  enemy,  they  were  at  last  surprised,  and  their  whole 
force  slaughtered,  and  the  post  abandoned.  Then  the  Veientians,  in  their  turn,~ 
established  themselves  on  the  hill  Janiculum,  within  the  Roman  territory ;  retal- 
iated, by  their  plundering  excursions  across  the  Tiber,  the  damage  which  their 
own  lands  had  sustained  from  the  post  on  the  Cremera ;  held  their  ground  for 
more  than  a  year,  and  then  were,  in  their  turn,  defeated  and  obliged  to  evacuate 
their  conquest.  Two  years  afterwards,  in  280,  a  peace  was  concluded  between 
the  two  nations,  to  last  for  forty  years  ;  and,  as  the  Roman  historians  name  no 
other  stipulations,  we  may  safely  believe  that  the  treaty11  merely  placed  matters 
on  the  footing  on  which  they  had  been  before  the  war ;  the  Romans  gave  up  all 
pretensions  to  the  town  which  they  had  founded  on  the  Cremera ;  the  Veientians 
equally  resigned  their  claim  to  the  settlement  which  they  had  made  on  the  hill 
Janiculum. 

But  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  history  of  this  war,  it  has  been  the  sub- 
ject of  one  memorable  legend,  the  story  of  the  self-devotion  of  the 
Fabii,  and  of  their  slaughter  by  the  river  Cremera.     The  truth  of  St°ry°f 
domestic  events,  no  less  than  of  foreign,  has  been,  probably,  disregarded  by  this 
legend ;  and  what  seems  a  more  real  account  of  the  origin  of  the  settlement  on 
the  Cremera,  has  been  given  in  a  former  chapter.     The  story  itself,  however,  I 
shall  now,  according  to  my  usual  plan,  proceed  to  offer  in  its  own  form. 

The  Veientians  dared  not  meet  the  Romans12  in  the  open  field,  but  they  troubled 
them  exceedingly  with  their  incursions  to  plunder  the  country.  And  The  Fa 


to   take    the   war 


on  the  other  side,  the  JEquians  and  the  Volscians  were  making  ^fh  the  yeienti*M 
war  upon  the  Romans  year  after  year;  and  while  one  consul  went  wholly  upon  itself- 
to  fight  with  the  ^Equians  and  the  other  with  the  Volscians,  there  was  no  one  to 
stop  the  plunderings  of  the  Veientians.  So  the  men  of  the  Fabian  house  con- 
sulted together,  and  when  they  were  resolved  what  to  do,  they  all  went  to  the 
senate-house.  And  Kseso  Fabius,  who  was  consul  for  that  year,  went  into  the 
senate  and  said,  "  We  of  the  house  of  the  Fabii  take  upon  us  to  fight  with  the  Vei- 
entians. We  ask  neither  men  nor  money  from  the  commonwealth,  but  we  will 
wage  the  war  with  our  own  bodies,  at  our  own  cost."  The  senate  heard  him  joy- 
fully ;  and  then  he  went  home,  and  the  other  men  of  his  house  followed  him ; 
and  he  told  them  to  come  to  him  the  next  day,  each  man  in  his  full  arms ;  and 
they  departed. 

The  house  of  Koeso  was  on  the  Quirinal  Hill ;  and  thither  all  the  Fabii  came  to 
im  the  next  day,  as  he  had  desired  them  ;  and  there  they  stood  in 
-  ray  in  the  outer  court  of  his  house.     Kseso  then  put  on  his  vest,  ^msefv^'onTh^iS 
ch  as  the  Roman  generals  were  used  to  wear  in  battle,  and  came  ei 
ut  to  the  men  of  his  house,  and  led  them  forth  on  their  way.     As  they  went,  a 

The  Boman  accounts  of  the  war  may  be  Porsenna,  were  at  this  time  recovered.    But  if 

found  in  Li vy,  11.42-54,  and  in  Dionysius,  VIII.  _  so,  the  annalist  would  surely  have  boasted  of 

L.  91.    IX.  1-36.     I  imagine  both  the  post  on  the  cessions  of  territory  made' by  the  Veientians, 

the  Cremera  and  that  on  the  Janiculum  to  have  even  if  they  had  been  consistent  enough  not  to 

been  designed  for  permanent  cities;   the  one,  describe  the  country  recovered  as  the  very  samo 

probably,  being  as  near  to  Veii  as  the  other  was  which  they  had  made  Porsenna  restore  out  of 

to  Rome.    These  were  exactly  the  f-m/xt^ara  generosity  more  than  thirty  years  before.     Is 

of  the  Greeks,  when  executed  on  a  larger  scale  there  any  reason  to  believe  that  the  Bomans  ad- 

its  rival  cities,  and  not  mere  forts.     I  may,  per-  vanced  their  frontier  on  the  right  bank  of  the 

haps,  be  allowed  to  refer  to  my  note  on  Tim-  Tiber  opposite  Koine,  beyond  the  hills  which 

cvdides,  I.  142,  where  the  two  kinds  of  fa  ITU-  bound  the  valley  of  the  river,  previously  to  their 

Xierjia  are  distinguished.  conquest  of  Veii  ? 

|  Kiebuhr  supposes  that  the  septem  pagi,  12  Livy,  II.  48.  et  seqq. 
wMch  the  Romans  had  lost  in  the  war  with 
6 


The  veientian. 


82  HISTORY  OF  ROMR  [CHAP.  XIL 

great  crowd  followed  after  them  and  blessed  them,  and  prayed  the  gods  for  their 
prosperity.  They  were,  in  all,  three  hundred  and  six  men,  and  they  went  down 
from  the  Quirinal  Hill  and  passed  along  by  the  Capitol,  and  went  out  of  the  city 
by  the  gate  Carmentalis,  by  the  right-hand  passage  of  the  gate.  Then  they 
came  to  the  Tiber,  and  went  over  the  bridge,  and  entered  into  the  country  of  the 
Veientians,  and  pitched  their  camp  by  the  river  Cremera  ;  for  there  it  was  their 
purpose  to  dwell,  and  to  make  it  a  stronghold,  from  which  they  might  lay  waste 
the  lands  of  the  Veientians,  and  carry  off  their  cattle.  So  they  built  their  for- 
tress by  the  river  Cremera,  and  held  it  for  more  than  a  year  ;  and  the  Veientians 
were  greatly  distressed,  for  their  cattle  and  all  their  goods  became  the  spoil  of  the 
Fabians. 

But  there  was  a  certain  day13  on  which  the  men  of  the  house  of  the  Fabians 
n.  ia  m  were  accustomed  to  offer  sacrifice  and  to  keep  festival  together  to 
for  them,  and  the  gods  of  their  race,  in  the  seat  of  their  fathers,  on  the  hill  Qui- 
rinal. So  when  the  day  drew  near,  the  Fabians  set  out  from  the 
river  Cremera,  three  hundred  and  six  men  in  all,  and  went  towards  Rome  ;  for 
they  thought  that  as  they  were  going  to  sacrifice  to  their  gods,  and  as  it  was  a 
holy  time,  and  a  time  of  peace,  no  enemy  would  set  upon  them.  But  the  Veien- 
tians knew  of  their  going,  and  laid  an  ambush  for  them  on  their  way,  and  fol- 
lowed them  with  a  great  army.  So  when  the  Fabians  came  to  the  place  where 
the  ambush  was,  behold  the  enemy  attacked  them  on  the  right  and  on  the  left, 
and  the  army  of  the  Veientians  that  followed  them  fell  upon  them  from  behind  : 
and  they  threw  their  darts  and  shot  their  arrows  against  the  Fabians,  without 
daring  to  come  within  reach  of  spear  or  sword,  till  they  slew  them  every  man. 
Three  hundred  and  six  men  of  the  house  of  the  Fabians  were  there  killed,  and 
there  was  not  a  grown  man  of  the  house  left  alive  :  one  boy  only,  on  account  of 
his  youth,  had  been  left  behind  in  Rome,  and  he  lived  and  became  a  man,  and 
preserved  the  race  of  the  Fabians  ;  for  it  was  the  pleasure  of  the  gods  that  great 
deeds  should  be  done  for  the  Romans  by  the  house  of  the  Fabians  in  after-times. 

13  This  latter  part  of  the  story  is  one  of  the  The  devotion  of  the  Fabians  to  the  sacrifices  of 

versions  of  it  given  by  Dionysius,  which  he  re-  their  house  on  the  Quirinal  was  a  part  of  their 

iects  as  improbable.     Of  course  I  am  not  main-  traditional  character  ;  a  similar  story  was  told 

laining  its  probability,  but  I  agree  with  Nie-  of  C.  Fabius  Dorso,  who  broke  put  from  the 

buhr  in  thinking  it  a  far  more  striking  story  Capitol  Awhile  the  Gauls  were_  besieging  it,  and 


than  that  which  Dionysius  prefers  to  it,  and    made  his  way  to  the  Qu-rinal  Hill  to  perform  the 
has  been  adopted  by  Livy  and  by  Ovid,    appointed  sacrifice  of  his  house. 


which 


CHAPTER  XIII, 

INTERNAL  HISTORY— THE  TERENTILIAN  LAW— APPOINTMENT  OF  THE  TEN 

HIGH  COMMISSIONERS  TO  FRAME  A  CODE  OF  WRITTEN  LAWS. 

A.  U.  C.  28^303. 


$Hifav  a<pt\opfvrj  ?%£*'     a  u^wv  o'i  re  cvvdptvoi  /cat  ol  vioi  icpoSvpovvTai,  abvvara  Iv  ptya\r)  ir6\ei  Karaff" 
4e7i/.— THUCYDIDES,  VI.  39. 

TiTaprov  £ib8$  6\tyap%ta$,  '6rav  na?s  avTi  irarpbs  ftcrlrj.  Ktn  cipxy  f '/  &  vd^oy  aAA'  ot  apxovTC$,  Kat  sartv 
ivTicrpotyos  a^TTj  tv  raHs  (5Atya(9%<'rttf,  wcnrtp  fi  Tvpavvts  iv  ra?j  novapxlas,  /cat  ?r£pt  ^j  TfAswrataf  e'vctev  SQ* 
HOKOQTtas  tv  rats  Srjp.oKpaTLatg. — ^ARISTOTLE,  Politic.  IV.  5. 


to  1 

I 


NOTHING  is  more  unjust  than  the  vague  charge  sometimes  brought  against 
Niebuhr,  that  he  has  denied  the  reality  of  all  the  early  history  of  Rome.  On  the 
contrary,  he  has  rescued  from  the  dominion  of  skepticism  much  which  less  pro- 
found inquirers  had  before  too  hastily  given  up  to  it ;  he  has  restored  and  estab- 
lished far  more  than  he  has  overthrown.  Ferguson  finds  no  sure  ground  to  rest 
on  till  he  comes  to  the  second  Punic  war.  In  his  view,  not  only  the  period  of 
the  kings  and  the  first  years  of  the  commonwealth,  but  the  whole  of  two  addi- 
tional centuries, — not  only  the  wars  with  the  .JDquians  and  Volscians,  but  those 
with  the  Gauls,  the  Samnites,  and  even  with  Pyrrhus, — are  involved  in  consid- 
erable uncertainty.  The  progress  of  the  constitution  he  is  content  to  trace  in  the 
merest  outline :  particular  events,  and  still  more  particular  characters,  appear  to 
him  to  belong  to  poetry  or  romance,  rather  than  to  history.  Whereas  Niebuhr 
maintains  that  a  true  history  of  Rome,  with  many  details  of  dates,  places,  events, 
and  characters,  may  be  recovered  from  the  beginning  of  the  commonwealth.  It 
has  been  greatly  corrupted  and  disguised  by  ignorant  and  uncritical  writers,  but 
there  exist,  he  thinks,  sufficient  materials  to  enable  us,  not  only  to  get  rid  of 
these  corruptions,  but  to  restore  that  genuine  and  original  edifice,  which  they 
have  so  long  overgrown  and  hidden  from  our  view.  And  accordingly,  far  from 
passing  over  hastily,  like  Ferguson,  the  period  from  the  expulsion  of  Tarquinius 
to  the  first  Punic  war,  he  has  devoted  to  it  somewhat  more  than  two  large  vol- 
mes ;  and  from  much,  that  to  former  writers  seemed  a  hopeless  chaos,  he  has 
rawn  a  living  picture  of  events  and  institutions,  as  rich  in  its  coloring,  as  perfect 

its  composition,  as  it  is  faithful  to  the  truth  of  nature. 

Were  I,  indeed,  to  venture  to  criticise  the  work  of  this  great  man,  I  should  be 
nclined  to  charge  him  with  having  overvalued,  rather  than  undervalued,  the  pos- 
sible certainty  of  the  early  history  of  the  Roman  commonwealth.  He  may  seem, 
m  some  instances,  rather  to  lean  too  confidently  on  the  authority  of  the  ancient 
writers,  than  to  reject  it  too  indiscriminately.  But  let  no  man  judge  him  hastily, 
till,  by  long  experience  in  similar  researches,  he  has  learnt  to  estimate  sufficiently 
the  instinctive  power  of  discerning  truth,  which  even  ordinary  minds  acquire  by 
constant  practice.  In  Niebuhr,  practice,  combined  with  the  natural  acuteness  of 
his  mind,  brought  this  power  to  a  perfection  which  has  never  been  surpassed. 
It  is  not  caprice,  but  a  most  sure  instinct,  which  has  led  him  to  seize  on  some 
particular  passage  of  a  careless  and  ill-informed  writer,  and  to  perceive  in  it  the 
marks  of  most  important  truth  ;  while,  on  other  occasions,  he  has  set  aside  the 
statements  of  this  same  writer,  with  no  deference  to  his  authority  whatever.  To 
ly  that  his  instinct  is  not  absolutely  infallible,  is  only  to  say  that  he  was  a  man  ; 
ut  he  who  follows  him  most  carefully,  and  thinks  over  the  subject  of  his  re- 


84  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [Cuxp.XIU 

searches  most  deeply,  will  find  the  feeling  of  respect  for  his  judgment  continually 
increasing,  and  will  be  more  unwilling  to  believe  what  Niebuhr  doubted,  or  to 
doubt  what  he  believed. 

I  have  said  thus  much  as  a  preface  to  the  ensuing  chapter,  in  which  1  am  to 
trace  the  internal  history  of  Rome,  from  the  passing  of  the  Publilian  law  to  the 
appointment  of  the  decemvirs.  The  detail  itself  will  show  how  little  Niebuhr  has 
deserved  to  be  charged  with  overthrowing  the  Roman  history ;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  if  I  have  followed  him  even  on  ground  on  which,  had  he  not  pro- 
nounced it  to  be  firm,  I  might  myself  have  feared  to  venture,  I  have  done  it,  not 
in  blind  or  servile  imitation,  but  in  the  reasonable  confidence  inspired  by  expe- 
rience. For  many  years  I  had  doubted  and  disputed  Niebuhr's  views  on  several 
points  of  importance,  but  having  had  reason  at  last  to  be  convinced  that  they 
were  right,  I  feel  for  him  now  a  deference  the  more  unhesitating,  as  it  was  not 
hastily  given,  nor  without  inquiry. 

Immediately  after  the  passing  of  the  Publilian  law,1  the  consuls  took  the  field 
A  u  c  ass  AC  agams^  tne  -^Equians  and  Volscians.  It  was  now  the  period  when 
4kw  ctoudhf8" Bains'  ^nose  ^wo  nations  were  pressing  most  dangerously  upon  Latium, 
idLuf quiuns  and  Vol~  no^  onty  overrunning  the  territory  both  of  the  Latins  and  Romans 
with  their  plundering  incursions,  but  taking  or  destroying  the 
cities  of  the  Latin  confederacy.  There  was  no  choice,  therefore,  but  to  oppose 
them ;  and  thus  the  hated  Appius  Claudius,  as  well  as  his  colleague,  T.  Quinc- 
tius,  led  out  an  army  from  the  city.  But  the  mutual  suspicion  and  hatred  be- 
tween him  and  the  commons  was  so  great  that  they  could  not  act  together.  He 
was  tyrannical,  and  his  soldiers  became  discontented  and  disobedient.  In  this 
temper  they  met  the  Volscians  and  were  beaten ;  and  Appius,  finding  it  hope- 
less to  continue  the  campaign,  began  to  retreat  towards  Rome.  On  his  retreat 
he  wras  again  attacked  and  again  beaten ;  the  soldiers,  it  is  said,  throwing  away 
their  arms  and  flying  at  the  first  onset.  Thus  doubly  embittered  by  the  shame 
of  his  defeats,  and  having  obtained  some  color  for  his  vengeance,  Appius,  as  soon 
as  he  had  rallied  his  army  on  ground  out  of  the  reach  of  the  enemy,  proceeded 
to  indulge  his  old  feelings  of  hatred  to  the  commons.  By  the  aid  of  the  Latin 
and  Hernican  troops  who  were  present  in  the  army,  and,  above  all,  of  the  Roman 
burghers,  who  formed  the  best  armed  and  best  trained  part  of  his  own  forces, 
he  was  enabled  to  seize  and  execute  every  centurion  whose  century  had  fled,  and 
every  standard-bearer  who  had  lost  his  standard,  and  then  to  put  to  death  one 
out  of  every  ten  men  of  the  whole  multitude  of  legionary  soldiers. 

The  maintenance  of  military  discipline,  by  whatever  degree  of  severity  it  was 
is  brought  to  effected,  was  regarded  by  the  Romans,  not  as  a  crime,  but  as  a 
Sfthisnt8ubse-  sacred  duty  ;  nor  would  even  the  commons  have  complained  of 
Appius  for  simply  punishing  with  rigor  his  cowardly  or  mutinous 
soldiers.  But  when  new  consuls  were  come  into  office,  L.  Valerius  and  T.  ^Emil- 
A.  u.  c.  248.  A.  c.  ius>2  and  both  showed  themselves  inclined  to  carry  into  effect  the 
agrarian  law  of  Sp.  Cassius,  while  Appius  still  opposed  it,  and 
was  most  forward  in  defeating  the  measure,  then  two  of  the  tribunes,  M.  Duilius 
and  C.  Sicinius,3  brought  him  to  trial  before  the  commons  as  the  perpetual  ene- 
my of  their  order ;  accusing  him  of  giving  evil  counsels  to  the  senate,  of  having 
laid  violent  hands  on  the  sacred  person  of  a  tribune  in  the  disputes  about  the 
Publilian  law,  and  lastly,  of  having  brought  loss  and  shame  on  the  common- 
wealth, by  his  ill  conduct  in  his  late  expedition  against  the  Volscians.  His 
bloody  executions  were  not  charged  as  a  crime  against  him ;  but  every  friend  or 
relation  of  his  victims  would  feel,  that  he  who  had  dealt  such  severe  justice  to 

1  Livy,  II.  58,  59.     Dionysius,  IX.  50.  the  consuls  at  this  period  began  their  year  on 

2  Livy,  II.  61.    Dionysius,  IX.  51-54.  the  first   of  August  (Livy,  III.  6) ;  when  the 
8  These  were  two   of  the  tribunes   elected    tribunes  began  theirs,  before  the  decemvirate, 

when  the  Publilian  law  was  passed.    The  trib-    is  uncertain.    See  Niebuhr,  Vol.  II.  p.  227,  and 
nnes  and  consuls  came  into  office,  it  should    note  492,  2d  edit. 
t»e  remembered,  at  different  times  of  the  year ; 


CHAP.XIII.]  PERIOD  OF  PESTILENCE.  95 

others,  could  claim  no  mitigation  of  justice  towards  himself;  and  Appius  felt 
this  also,  and  neither  expected  mercy  from  the  commons,  nor  would  yield  to  ask 
it.  A  most  extraordinary  difference  prevails,  however,  in  the  accounts  of  his 
subsequent  fate.  The  common  story  says  that  he  died  in  prison  before  his  trial, 
implying  that  he  killed  himself  to  escape  his  sentence  ;  but,  according  to  the  Fasti 
Capitolini,4  it  was  this  same  Appius  who,  twenty  years  afterwards,  became  de- 
cemvir ;  and  we  must  suppose,  therefore,  that  he  now  fled  from  Rome,  and  lived 
for  some  years  in  exile  at  Regillus,  till  circumstances  enabled  him  to  return,  and 
to  take  part  in  public  affairs  once  more. 

The  two  following  years  were  marked5  by  continued  contests  about  the  agra- 
rian law  of  Cassius,  which  still  led  to  no  result.  The  fortune  of  A  u  c.  2s5.  A.  c 
war,  however,  gave  some  relief  to  the  necessities  of  the  poorer  JSfcSuSJtffjK 
commons :  for,  in  the  year  285,  the  port6  of  Antium  was  taken,  mans- 
and  a  quantity  of  merchandise  was  found  there,  which  was  all  given  up  to  the 
soldiers ;  and  the  year  following  Antium  itself  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Romans  ; 
and  on  this  occasion,  also,  the  soldiers  derived  some  profit  from  their  conquest. 

In  the  year  287,  Ti.  ^Emilius,  one  of  the  consuls,  supported  the  demand  oi 
the  tribunes  for  the  execution  of  the  agrarian  law ;  and  we  are  A>  Ut  c.  286  A.  c 
told  that  the  senate,7  in  order  to  pacify  the  commons  by  a  partial  46>6> 
compliance,  proposed  to  send  a  colony  to  Antium,  and  to  allow  the  commons,  as 
well  as  the  burghers,  to  enrol  themselves  amongst  the  colonists.  But  as  the 
colony  was  to  consist  equally  of  Romans,8  Latins,  and  Hernicans,  and  would  be 
placed  in  a  position  of  great  insecurity,  being,  in  fact,  no  other  than  a  garrison, 
which  would  have  at  once  to  keep  down  the  old  population  of  the  city  within, 
and  to  defend  itself  against  enemies  without,  the  relief  thus  offered  to  the  com- 
mons was  neither  very  considerable  in  its  amount,  nor  in  its  nature  very  desirable. 

The  next  year  began  a  period  of  distress  and  suffering  so  severe,  and  arising 
from  such  various  causes,  that  political  disputes  were  of  necessity  Seyere  Visitati0n8  M 
suspended,  and  for  four  years  no  mention  is  made  of  any  demands  Pestilence- 
for  the  agrarian  law,  or  of  any  other  proceeding  of  the  tribunes.  The  middle  ot 
the  fifth  century  before  the  Christian  era  was  one  of  those  periods  in  the  history 
of  mankind  which,  from  causes  to  us  unknown,  have  been  marked  by  the  ravages 
of  pestilence ;  when  a  disease  of  unusual  virulence  has,  in  a  manner,  travelled  up 
and  down  over  the  habitable  world  during  the  space  of  twenty,  thirty,  or  even 
fifty  years ;  returning  often  to  the  same  place  after  a  certain  interval ;  pausing 
sometimes  in  its  fury,  and  appearing  to  sleep,  but  again  breaking  out  on  some 
point  or  other  within  its  range,  till,  at  the  end  of  its  appointed  period,  it  disap- 
pears altogether.  Rome  was  first  visited  by  one  of  these  pestilences,  as  has 
been  already  mentioned,  in  the  year  282,  when  it  caused  a  very  great  mortality ; 
it  now  returned  again  in  288,9  and  crippled  the  operations  of  the  Roman  army 
— ;ainst  the  ^Equians.  Whether  it  continued  in  the  following  year  A  u>c<  28g.  A.  c' 

uncertain,  but  the  ^Equians  plundered  the  Roman  territory  with  466> 
t  success ;  and  although  the  Roman  annalists  pretend  that,  towards  the  end 

the  year,  the  consul,  Q.  Fabius,  cut  off  the  main  body  of  the  plunderers,  and 

en  in  turn  ravaged  the  lands  of  the  enemy,  yet  it  is  manifest  that  the  cam. 

'gn  was  on  the  whole  unfavorable  to  the  Romans.     So  it  was  the  next  year 

*  It  had  been  long  known  that  the  Fasti        6  Livy  calls  this  place  Ceno ;  the  Antiates,  it 

11 /-wl     A  *-, %-L ; •. •. .-,    4-u «    ,1 « ^^ •„      ££    A  „     Tr*    ~\ir    XT  M      -.„ _i _i i_  _  _i "S ±1   _      •_  _    •  _          />      i  •    T 

E 

as  me  son  oi  an  Appius.    But  one  oi  trie  re-  tafcen  by  the  Komans  was  partly,  it  is  said,  ob- 

cently  discovered  fragments  of  the  Fasti  calls  tained  in  this  manner,  prooably  from  the  Car- 

the  decemvir,  under  the  year  802,  "Appius  thaginians.    The  situation  of  Ceno  is  unknown : 

Claudius,  Ap.  F.  M.  N.  Crassin.  Eegill.  Sabi-  Strabo  speaks*  of  Antium  itself  as  being  with- 

nus,  II.,"  clearly  showing  that  by  calling  the  out  a  harbor,  as  standing  high  upon  cliffs, 

consulship  of  302  his  second  consulship,  the  7  Livy,  III.  1. 

author  of  the  Fasti  considered  him  to  be  the  8  Dionysius,  IX.  59. 

Bame  man  who  had  been  consul  in  283.  9  Livy,  III.  2. 
6  Livy,  II.  63-65.    Dionysius,  IX.  56-58. 


, 

called  Appius  the  decemvir,  "  Ap.  F.  M.  N."  seems,  already  liad  begun  the  piracies,  of  which 
"  Appii  Filius,  Marci  Nepos ;"  whereas  the  Demetrius  Poliorcetes  complained  long  after- 
common  storv  makes  him  the  grandson,  as  well  wards  to  the  Komans ;  and  the  merchandise 
as  the  son  of  an  Appius.  But  one  of  the  re-  taken  by  the  Komans  was  partly,  it  is  said,  ob- 


80  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  X1IX 

also  :  the  united  forces  of  the  Romans,  Latins,  and  Hernicaus,  could  not  prevent 
the  total  ravaging  of  the  Roman  territory ;  and  the  crowding10  of  the  fugitives 
from  the  country  into  the  city  was  a  cause  or  an  aggravation  of  the  return  of  the 
pestilence,  which  broke  out  again  in  the  autumn,  soon  after  the  appointment  of 
the  consuls  for  the  year  291,  with  unparalleled  fury.  During  the  whole  of  this 
fatal  year,  the  Romans  were  dying  by  thousands  within  the  city,  while  the  ^Equi- 
ans  and  Volscians  were  ravaging  the  whole  country  without  opposition,  and  de- 
feated with  great  loss  the  Latins  and  Hernicans,  who  vainly  attempted  to  defend 
A  c  46Q  the  territory  of  their  allies  and  their  own.  At  last  the  pestilence 

abated,  and  the  new  consuls,  in  the  autumn  of  292, H  took  the  field, 
and  made  head  against  the  enemy  with  some  effect.  Immediately  on  this  first 
gleam  of  better  times,  the  political  grievances  of  the  commons  began  again  to  ex- 
cite attention  and  to  claim  redress. 

We  are  told  that  one  of  the  tribunes12  again  brought  forward  the  question  of 
F^t  proposal  of  the  the  agrarian  law ;  but  that  the  commons  themselves  refused  to 
Terenuiian  law.  entertain  it,  and  resolved  to  put  it  cff  till  a  more  favorable  oppor- 
tunity. This  is  ascribed  by  Dionysius  to  the  zeal  which  all  orders  felt  to  take 
vengeance  on  their  foreign  enemies ;  but  he  forgets  that  another  measure,  no 
less  obnoxious  to  the  burghers,  was  brought  forward  in  this  year,  and  readily 
received  by  the  commons  :  and  the  better  explanation  is,  that  the  leaders  of  the 
commons  began  to  see  that  they  must  vary  their  course  of  proceeding ;  that  to 
contend  for  the  agrarian  law  under  the  actual  constitution,  was  expecting  fresh 
and  pure  water  from  a  defiled  spring ;  the  real  evil  lay  deeper,  and  the  commons 
must  obtain  equal  rights  and  equal  power  with  the  burghers,  before  they  could 
hope  to  carry  such  measures  as  most  concerned  their  welfare.  Accordingly, 
Caius  Terentilius13  Harsa,  one  of  the  tribunes,  proposed  a  law  for  a  complete  re- 
form of  the  existing  state  of  things.  Its  purport  was,  that14  ten  commissioners 
should  be  chosen,  five  by  the  commons  and  five  by  the  burghers,  and  that  those 
so  chosen  should  draw  \\p  a  constitution,  which  should  define  all  points  of  con- 
stitutional, civil,  and  criminal  law ;  and  should  thus  determine,  on  just  and  fixed 
principles,  all  the  political,  social,  and  civil  relations  of  all  orders  of  the  Roman 
people. 

Now,  as  a  popular  cry  of  reform  has  never  originated  in  the  love  of  abstract 
Actual  grievances  of  the  justice,  or  in  th  e  mere  desire  of  establishing  a  perfect  form  of  gov- 
ernment, but  has  been  always  provoked  by  actual  grievances,  and 
has  looked  especially  for  some  definite  and  particular  relief,  so  the  Roman  com- 
mons, in  supporting  the  Terentilian  law,  were  moved  by  certain  practical  evils, 
which  lay  so  deep  in  the  existing  state  of  things,  that  nothing  else  than  a  total 
reform  of  the  constitution  could  remove  them.  These  were,  the  extreme  separa- 
tion and  unequal  rights  of  the  burghers  and  the  commons,  the  arbitrary  powers 
of  the  consuls,  and  the  uncertainty  and  variety  of  the  law ;  evils  which  affected 
every  part  of  men's  daily  life ;  and  the  first  of  them,  in  particular,  was  a  direct 
obstacle  to  that  execution  of  Cassius'  agrarian  law,  on  which  the  actual  subsist- 


10  Livy,  III.  6.  Terentilian  law,  Sixa  ai^pas  /A/o-0' 

11  Livy,  III.  8.  abroKparopas — Kafl*   8   n   aptara  rj    TrdAi?   otKrjffcrat. 

12  Dionysius,  IX.  69.    The  name  of  the  trib-  We  are  so  accustomed  to  distinguish  between  a 
une  is  corrupt,  Zffrov  Tt'rou.     Gelenius  propo-  constitution  and  a  code  of  laws,  that  we  have  nc 
ses  to  read  Tm'ou.  one  word  which  will  express  both,  or  convey  & 

13  Livy,  III.  9.    Niebuhr  writes  the  tribune's  full  idea  of  the  wide  range  of  the  commission- 
name  "Terentilius,"  according  to  some  of  the  er's  powers;  which  embraced  at  once  the  work 
best  MSS.  oi  Livy.    Dionysius  calls  him  "  Te-  of  the  French  constituent  assembly,  and  thatot 
rentius."  Napoleon  when  he  drew  up  his  code.    But  this 

M  Livy  speaks  only  of  five  ;  Dionysius  of  ten :  comprehensiveness  belonged  to  the  character  of 

Niebuhr  reconciles  the  two  statements  in  the  the  ancient  lawgivers ;  a  far  higher  term  than 

manner  given  in  the  text.  legislators^  although  etymologically  the  same ; 

These   "high  commissioners,"  "Decemviri  they  provided  for  the  whole  life  of  their  citizens 

Ifegibus  scribendis,"  were  like  the  Greek  vofiodf-  in  all  its  relations,  social,  civil,  political,  moral, 

rat,  or,  in  the  language  of  Thucydides  (VIII.  and  religious. 
87),  wliich  exactly  expresses  the  object  of  the 


CHAP.  XIII]  THE  TERENTILIAN  LAW.  87 

ence  of  the  poorer  commons  after  the  late  times  of  misery  and  ruin  might  be 
said  to  depend. 

Society  has  almost  always  begun  in  inequality,  and  its  tendency  is  towards 
equality.  This  is  a  sure  progress  ;  but  the  inequality  of  its  first  T]ieir  original  political 
stage  is  neither  unnatural  nor  unjust ;  it  is  only  the  error  of  pre-  BJS&KSSffS 
serving  instead  of  improving  which  has  led  to  injustice  ;  the  folly  cumstances- 
of  thinking  that  men's  institutions  can  be  perpetual  when  every  thing  else  in  the 
world  is  continually  changing.  When  the  conquered  Latins  were  first  brought 
to  Rome  by  those  who  were  then  the  only  Roman  citizens,  when  they  were  al- 
lowed to  retain  their  personal  liberty,  to  enjoy  landed  property,  and  to  become  so 
far  a  part  of  the  Roman  people,  it  was  not  required  that  they  should  at  once 
pass  from  the  condition  of  foreigners  to  that  of  perfect  citizens ;  the  condition  of 
commons  was  a  fit  state  of  transition  from  the  one  rank  to  the  other.  But  after 
years  had  passed  away,  and  both  they  and  their  original  conquerors  were,  in 
fact,  become  one  people  ;  above  all,  when  this  truth  had  been  already  practically 
acknowledged  by  the  constitution  of  Servius  Tuliius,  to  continue  the  old  distinc- 
tions was  but  provoking  a  renewal  of  the  old  hostility :  if  the  burghers  and  the 
commons  were  still  to  be  like  two  nations,  the  one  sovereign  and  the  other  sub- 
ject, the  commons  must  retain  the  natural  right  of  asserting  their  independence 
on  the  first  opportunity,  of  wholly  dissolving  their  connection  with  those  who  re- 
fused to  carry  it  out  to  its  full  completion.  That  their  desire  was  for  complete 
union,  rather  than  for  independence,  arose,  over  and  above  all  other  particular 
causes,  from  that  innate  fondness  for  remaining  as  we  are,  which  nothing  but  the 
most  intolerable  misery  can  wholly  eradicate. 

The  burghers  resolved  to  resist  the  Terentilian  law,  but  they  wished,  apparent- 
ly, as  in  the  case  of  the  Publilian  laws,  to  prevent  its  beiner  passed 

f      .-,  .-,      '       .    .,  .,  -I  i  •  °  •         i      •       Means  adopted  by  the 

by  the  commons  in  their  tribes,  rather  than  to  throw  it  out  in  their  burghers  to  oppose  the 

1  -i  f     ,1  •  ,i  A  Tii  Terentilian   law.      Im- 

own  assembly  of  the  cunse  or  m  the  senate.  Accordingly,  they  penchment  of  K«M 
again  proceeded  by  an  organized  system  of  violence ;  the  younger 
burghers  were  accustomed  to  have  their  brotherhoods  or  clubs,  like  the  young 
men  of  the  aristocratical  party  in  Athens  ;  the  members  of  these  clubs  were  ready 
to  dare  any  thing  for  the  support  of  their  order,  and  being  far  more  practised  in 
martial  exercises  than  the  commons,  were  superior  in  activity,  if  not  in  actual 
strength,  and,  by  acting  in  a  body,  repeatedly  interrupted  all  business,  and  drove 
their  antagonists  from  the  Forum.  At  the  head  of  these  systematic  rioters  was 
Kaeso  Quinctius, 5  the  son  of  the  famous  L.  Quinctius  Cincinnatus ;  and  he  made 
himself  so  conspicuous,  that  A.  Virginius,  one  of  the  tribunes,  impeached  him 
before  the  assemby  of  the  tribes,  and  named  a  day  on  which  he  was  to  appear  to 
answer  to  the  charge. 

This  is  the  fifth  instance  of  impeachment  by  the  tribunes,  which  we  have  met 
with  in  the  course  of  fifteen  years,  besides  the  famous  case  of  Co- 
riolanus.  The  right  in  the  present  case  was  grounded  on  the  Icil-  £hiKg!llf£j&i5 
ian  law,  brought  forward  by  a  tribune,  Sp.  Icilius,  which  I  have 
not  noticed  before,  because  the  time  at  which  it  passed  is  doubted.  Dionysius, 
who  alone  mentions  it,  places16  it  as  early  as  the  year  262,  in  the  year  after  the 
first  appointment  of  the  tribunes ;  while  Niebuhr  thinks  that  it  could  not  have 
been  earlier  than  the  year  284,  and  that  it  was  one  of  the  consequences  of  the 
success  of  the  Publilian  laws.  It  established  the  important  point,  that  if  any 
burgher  interrupted  a  tribune  when  speaking  to  the  commons  in  their  own  assem- 
bly, the  tribune  might  impeach  him  before  the  commons,  and  might  require  him 
to  give  sureties  to  such  an  amount  as  the  accuser  should  think  proper ;  if  he  re- 
fused to  give  security,  he  was  to  be  put  to  death  and  his  property  confiscated ; 
if  he  demurred  to  the  amount  of  the  sum  required,  this  question  also  was  to  bo 
tried  by  the  commons.  The  great  object  in  this  law  was  to  assert  the  jurisdic- 


M  Livy,  III.  11.     Dionysius,  X.  4,  5.  u  Dionysius,  VII.  17. 


88  HISTORY  OF  ROME  [CHAP.  XIII 

tion  of  the  commons  over  a  burgher ;  hence  the  seventy  of  the  punishment  if  the 
accused  refused  to  give  the  required  security  ;  he  was  then  to  be  put  to  death  as 
an  open  enemy ;  but  if  he  complied,  and  appeared  to  answer  to  the  charge,  the 
ordinary  sentence  for  a  mere  interruption  of  the  business  of  the  assembly  of  the 
tribes,  would  probably  be  no  more  than  a  fine ;  and  this  seems  to  have  caused 
the  confusion  of  Dionysius'  statement,  for  he  represents  the  sureties  as  required, 
not  for  the  accused  person's  appearance  at  his  trial,  but  for  his  payment  of  such 
a  fine  as  the  tribunes  might  impose,  as  if  the  sentence  could,  in  no  case,  exceed 
a  fine.  Whereas  the  case  of  Appius  Claudius,  as  well  as  that  of  Kseso,  proved 
the  contrary ;  and  of  Kaeso,  Livy  says17  expressly  that  the  tribune  impeached  him 
for  a  capital  offence,  before  the  alleged  charge  of  murder  was  brought  against 
him.  In  fact,  where  there  is  no  fixed  criminal  law,  awarding  certain  punishments 
for  certain  offences,  the  relation  of  judge  implies  a  power  of  deciding  not  only  as 
to  the  guilt  or  innocence  of  the  prisoner,  but  also  as  to  the  degree  of  his  guilt, 
and  the  nature  of  the  punishment  to  be  inflicted.  And  much  more  would  this 
be  the  case  when  the  judgment  was  exercised,  not  by  an  individual  magistrate, 
but  by  the  sovereign  society  itself. 

According  to  the  Icilian  law,  the  tribune  called  upon  Kseso  Quinctius  to  give 
Ka»o  goes  into  exile  sureties  for  his  appearance,  and  the  amount  of  the  security  required 
before  his  trial.  was  heavy  .  jje  was  {o  gn(j  ^en  sureties,18  at  three  thousand  ases 

each.  But  in  the  mean  time  a  witness,  M.  Volscius  Fictor,  who  had  'aeen  trib- 
une some  years  before,  came  forward  to  charge  Kseso  with  another  and  a  totally 
distinct  crime.  "  During  the  time  of  the  plague,"  he  said,  "  he  and  his  brother, 
a  man  advanced  in  years,  and  not  completely  recovered  from  an  attack  of  the 
pestilence,  had  fallen  in  with  Kseso  and  a  party  of  his  club  in  all  the  license  of 
riot  in  the  Suburra.  An  affray  had  followed,  and  his  brother  had  been  knocked 
down  by  Kaeso :  the  old  man  had  been  carried  home,  and  died,  as  he  thought, 
from  the  injury ;  but  the  consuls  had  every  year  refused  to  listen  to  his  com- 
plaint, and  try  the  offender."  Outrages  of  this  sort  on  the  part  of  the  young 
aristocracy  were  common  even  at  Athens  ;19  in  aristocratical  states  they  must  have 
been  far  more  frequent ;  and  in  all  ordinary  cases  there  is  a  sympathy  with  youth 
and  birth,  even  amongst  the  people  themselves,  which  is  against  any  severe  deal- 
ing with  such  excesses.  But  Kaeso's  offence  was  gross,  and  seemed  to  belong  to 
his  general  character ;  the  commons  were  indignant  to  the  highest  degree  at  this 
new  crime,  and  could  scarcely  be  prevented  from  tearing  the  offender  to  pieces. 
Even  the  tribune  thought  that  no  money  security  was  sufficient  when  the  charge 
was  so  serious  ;  the  body  of  the  accused  must  be  kept  safe  in  prison,  that  he 
might  abide  the  sentence  of  the  law.  But  some  of  the  other  tribunes  were  pre- 
vailed on  by  the  powerful  friends  of  the  criminal  to  extend  to  him  their  protec- 
tion ;  they  forbade  the  attachment  of  his  person.  Being  thus  left  at  large,  he 
withdrew  from  justice,  and  fled  across  the  Tiber  into  Etruria  before  his  trial  came 
on.20  His  relations,  by  whose  influence  justice  had  been  thus  defrauded,  paid  the 
poor  compensation  of  their  forfeited  bail ;  and  even  here  the  punishment  would 
not  fall  on  the  guilty,  for  when  a  burgher  was  fined,  his  clients  were  bound  to 
contribute  to  discharge  it  for  him. 

Kseso's  flight  provoked  his  associates  to  dare  the  last  extremities.  From  mere 
conspiracy  to  effect  his  rioters  they  became  conspirators ;  and  they  played  their  game 
retura>  deeply.  Still  continuing  their  riots  whenever  the  assembly  of  the 

tribes  met,  but  taking  care  that  no  one  of  their  body  should  be  especially  conspicu- 
ous, they,  on  all  other  occasions,21  endeavored  to  make  themselves  popular :  they 
w  ould  speak  civilly  to  the  commons,  would  talk  with  them,  and  ask  them  to  their 

17  "A.  Virginius  Kaesoni  capitis  diem  dicit."    non.     See,  too,  the  stories  told  in  Plutarch  ol 
III.  11.  the  manifold  excesses  of  Alcibiades. 

18  Livy,  III.  13.  20  Livy,  III.  13. 
M  See  the  well-known  speech  of  Demosthenes        21  Livy,  III.  14. 

t£ainst  Midias,  and  also  the  speech  against  Co- 


CHAP.  XIII.]  K^ESO  QUINCTIUS.  89 

houses,  well  knowing  how  readily  the  poor  and  the  humble  are  won  by  a  little 
attention  and  liberality  on  the  part  of  the  rich  and  noble.  Meanwhile,  a  darker 
plot  was  in  agitation :  Kaeso  held  frequent  communication  with  them ;  he  had 
joined  himself  to  a  band  of  exiles  and  runaway  slaves  from  various  quarters,  such 
as  abounded  in  Italy  then  no  less  than  in  the  middle  ages  :  with  this  aid  he  would 
surprise  the  Capitol  by  night,  his  associates  would  rise  and  massacre  the  tribunes 
and  the  most  obnoxious  of  the  commons,  and  thus  the  old  ascendency  of  the 
burghers  would  be  restored,  such  as  it  had  been  before  the  fatal  concessions  made 
at  the  Sacred  Hill. 

Such  was  the  information  which  the  tribunes,  according  to  Dionysius,22  laid  be- 
fore the  senate,  soon  after  Koeso's  flight  from  Rome.     From  what 

....  -1-  1       ,    T  •  i         A  party  or  exiles  and 

annalist  he  copied  this  statement  does  not  appear;  but  Livy,  who  jaw.  surprise  the  cap- 
has  followed  some  author  far  more  partial  to  the  Quinctian  family,  recovered  the  next  day. 

i  j.-  f  •*.        tj.i  1      •/•  11  X-    1    j.       ^1  •     1i     and  the  party  who  had 

makes  no  mention  of  it,  although  it  is  really  essential  to  the  right  seized  it  are  cut  to 
understanding  of  his  own  subsequent  narrative.  For  in  the  next  pl 
year,  according  to  the  account  of  both  Livy  and  Dionysius,23  the  Capitol  was  sur- 
prised by  night  by  a  body  of  slaves  and  exiles,  and  the  leader  of  (he  party  made 
it  his  first  demand  that  all  Roman  exiles  should  be  restored  to  their  country. 
The  burghers  had  great  difficulty  in  persuading  the  commons  to  take  up  arms ; 
till  at  last  the  consul,  P.  Valerius,  prevailed  with  them,  and  relying  on  his  word 
that  he  would  not  only  allow  the  tribunes  to  hold  their  assembly  for  the  consider- 
ation of  the  Terentilian  law,  but  would  do  his  best  to  induce  the  senate  and  the 
curiae  to  give  their  consent  to  it,  the  commons  followed  him  to  the  assault  of  the 
Capitol.  He  himself  was  killed  in  the  onset ;  but  the  Capitol  was  carried,  and 
all  its  defenders  either  slain  on  the  spot,  or  afterwards  executed. 

The  leader  of  this  desperate  band  is  said  to  have  been  a  Sabine,  Appius  Her- 
donius ;  and  in  the  story  of  the  actual  attempt,  the  name  of  Kaeso 

,          ,~       J  ,  .  94       /•  -r>  Kaeso's  share  in  tlie  en- 

IS  not  mentioned.     But  we  hear,  m  general  terms, 4  of  Roman  ex-  terpme  not  oPcniy  ac- 

iles,  whom  it  was  the  especial  object  of  the  enterprise  to  restore  to 
their  country ;  and  we  may  be  sure  that  Kceso  was  one  of  them.  Appius  Her- 
donius  was,  probably,  a  Sabine  adventurer  in  circumstances  like  his  own,  whom 
he  persuaded  to  aid  him  in  his  attempt.  Had  we  the  real  history  of  these  times, 
we  should  find,  in  all  likelihood,  that  the  truth  in  the  stories  of  Kseso  and  Corio- 
lanus  has  been  exactly  inverted ;  that  the  share  of  the  Roman  exile  in  the  sur- 
prise of  the  Capitol  has  been  as  unduly  suppressed  as  that  of  the  Roman  exile  in 
the  great  Volscian  war  has  been  unduly  magnified  ;  that  Kteso's  treason  has  been 
transferred  to  Appius  Herdonius,  while  the  glory  of  the  Volscian  leader,  Attius 
Tullius,  has  been  bestowed  on  Coriolanus. 

The  burghers,  as  a  body,  would  certainly  be  opposed,  both  from  patriotic  and 
selfish  motives,  to  the  attempt  of  Kaeso  ;  an  exile  forcing  his  return  L.  QllincUllgi  the  fathel 
by  the  swords  of  other  exiles,  and  seizing  the  citadel,  was  likely  to  TeSua°SS^£! 
set  himself  up  as  a  tyrant  alike  over  the  burghers  and  the  com-  mently- 
mons ;  and  even  his  own  father,  L.  Quinctius,  would  have  been  the  first  to  resist 
him.  But  when  he  had  fallen,  and  this  danger  was  at  an  end,  other  feelings  re- 
turned ;  and  L.  Quinctius  would  then  hate  the  commons  with  a  deeper  hatred, 
as  he  would  ascribe  to  them  the  miserable  fate  of  his  son ;  Kaeso's  guilt,  no  less 
than  his  misfortune,  would  appear  the  consequence  of  their  persecution.  So  when 
he  was  elected  consul  in  the  room  of  P.  Valerius,  he  seemed  to  set  no  bounds  to 
his  thirst  for  vengeance.  The  promise  by  which  Valerius  had  prevailed  on  the 
commons  to  follow  him  to  the  recovery  of  the  Capitol  was  utterly  disregarded ; 
L.  Quinctius25  openly  set  the  tribunes  at  defiance,  told  them  that  they  should 
never  pass  their  law  while  he  was  consul,  and  declared  that  he  would  instantly 
lead  forth  the  legions  into  the  field  against  the  JEquians  and  Volscians. 

»  Dionysius,  X.  10, 11.  M  See  chap.  XL  note  11. 

M  Livy,  III.  15.    Dionysius,  X.  14-16.  *  Livy,  III.  19. 


90  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XIII 

The  tribunes26  represented  that  they  would  not  allow  him  to  enlist  any  as  sol- 
diers :  but  Quinctius  replied,  that  he  needed  no  enlistment :  "  the 

His  violent  measures.  «  .  i         T-»    TT    i  111 

men  who  took  up  arms  under  T.  Valerius  swore  to  assemble  at  the. 
consul's  bidding,  and  not  to  disband  without  his  orders.  The  consul  never  dis« 
banded  them  ;  and  I,  the  consul,"  he  said,  "  command  you  to  meet  me  in  arms 
A.  u.  c.  294.  A.  c.  to-morrow  at  the  lake  Regillus."  But  more  was  said  to  be  de- 
signed than  a  simple  postponement  of  the  Terentilian  law  :  the 
augurs  were  to  attend,27  in  order  to  inaugurate  the  ground  where  the  soldieis  were 
to  meet,  and  thus  convert  it  into  a  lawful  place  of  assembly  ;  then  the  army,  in  its 
centuries,  would  be  called  upon  to  repeal  all  the  laws  which  had  been  passed  at 
Rome  under  the  influence  of  the  tribunes ;  and  none  would  dare  to  oppose  the 
consul's  will,  for,  beyond  the  distance  of  one  mile  from  the  city,  the  tribunes' 
protection  would  be  of  no  avail,  nor  did  there  exist  any  right  of  appeal.  More 
than  all,  Quinctius  repeatedly  declared  that,  when  his  year  of  office  was  expired, 
he  would  name  a  dictator,  that  the  tribunes  might  be  awed  by  the  power  of  a 
magistrate  from  whom  there  lay  no  appeal,  even  within  the  walls  of  Rome. 

The  Roman  annalists  who  recorded  these  events28  loved  to  believe  that,  in  spUe 
He  is  prevailed  upon  to  of  all  their  provocations,  the  commons  so  respected  the  sacredness 
of  an  oath,  that  they  would  have  kept  the  letter  of  it  to  their  own 
hurt,  even  when  its  spirit  in  no  way  bound  them  to  obedience.  They  say  that  the 
tribunes  and  the  commons  felt  that  they  could  not  resist  as  a  matter  of  right ; 
that  they  appealed29  to  the  mercy  of  the  senate,  and  that  the  senate  only  prevailed 
with  the  consuls  to  abandon  their  purpose  of  taking  the  field,  on  condition  that 
the  tribunes  would  promise  not  to  bring  forward  the  question  of  the  law  again 
during  that  year.  It  may  be,  however,  that  the  senate  knew  how  far  they  could 
safely  tempt  the  patience  of  the  tribunes ;  threats  might  be  held  out,  in  order  to 
claim  a  merit  in  abandoning  them ;  but  an  actual  attempt  to  march  the  legions 
out  of  the  city,  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  making  them  the  helpless  instruments 
in  the  destruction  of  their  own  liberties,  would  be  too  bold  a  venture  ;  at  the  last 
excess  of  insolent  tyranny,  Nemesis  would  surely  awake  to  vengeance. 

At  any  rate,30  it  appeared  that  neither  the  tribunes  nor  the  commons  were  dis- 
posed to  let  the  Terentilian  law  be  forgotten ;  for  when  the  elec- 

A.  U.C.29S.  A.C.457.     ".  .    .,  bj      ,  ,      ,  .  ™         ,. 

The  law  is  delayed  by  tions  came  on,  the  same  tribunes  who  had  already  been  m  office  foi 
two  years  were  re-elected  for  a  third  year,  and  again  began  to 
bring  forward  the  disputed  question.  But  again  they  gave  way  to  the  pressure 
of  foreign  war ;  for  the  danger  from  the  ^quians  and  Volscians  was  imminent : 
the  former  had  surprised  the  citadel  of  Tusculum ;  the  latter  had  expelled  the 
Roman  colony  from  Antium,  and  recovered  that  important  city.  After  a  series 
of  operations,  which  lasted  for  several  months,  the  ^Equians  were  dislodged  from 
Tusculum,  but  Antium  still  remained  in  the  possession  of  the  Volscians. 

Thus  the  Terentilian  law  was  again  delayed  :sl  but,  in  the  mean  time,  the  burghers, 

who  retained  a  lively  resentment  for  the  fate  of  Kseso,  were  trying 

SKr^lte Vulew  to  establish  a  charge  of  false  witness  against  M.  Volscius,  by  whose 

testimony,  as  to  his  brother's  murder,  the  event  of  Kaeso's  trial  had 

been  chiefly  decided.     The  two  qusestores  parricidii,  or  chief  criminal  judges, 

proposed  to  impeach  Volscius  before  the  curias  ;  but  the  tribunes  refused  to  allow 

the  trial  to  come  on  till  the  question  of  the  law  had  been  first  decided.     Tims  the 

year  passed  away  :  but  the  tribunes  were  again,  for  the  fourth  time,  re-elected. 

In  the  following  year  is  placed  the  story  already  related  of  the  dictatorship  of 
A.  u.  c.  296.  A.  c.  L.  Quinctius  Cincinnatus,  and  his  deliverance  of  the  consul  and  his 
41  *•  army,  when  they  were  blockaded  by  the  JEquians.  The  continued 

28  Livy,  III.  20.  aptas  faciebat,  seel  suos  potius  mores  ad  ea  a*- 

21  Livy,  III.  20.  commodabat. 

28  Livy,  III.  20.  _   Nondum  lasef ,  quse  mine  to-  2a  Livy,  III.  21. 

net  saeculum,  negligentia  I)eum  venerat :  nee  in-  °  Livy,  III.  21-23. 

terpretando  sibi  quisque  jusjurandum  et  leges  81  Livy,  III.  24. 


CHAP.  XIII]  NUMBER  OF  TRIBUNES  INCREASED  TO  TEN.  91 

absence32  of  the  legions,  which  kept  the  field  nearly  the  whole  year,  afforded  the 
burghers  a  pretence  for  opposing  the  introduction  of  the  law  ;  but 

?     .          .     r  -i      i     i  •  i/>      c    -i  T  •    i  Tiii          Dictatorship      of      L. 

L.  Qumctius  availed  himselt  ot  his  dictatorial  power  to  hold  the  Quincthw.      voiscim 
comitia  for  the  trial  of  Volscius,  in  defiance  of  the  tribunes ;  and  g< 
the  accused,  feeling  his  condemnation  to  be  certain,  left  Rome,  and  availed  him- 
self of  the  interchange  of  citizenship  between  the  Romans  and  Latins,  to  become 
a  citizen  of  Lanuvium.     The  tribunes  were  again  re-elected  for  a  fifth  time. 

The  year  29733  was  marked  by  the  same  dangers  from  the  ^Equians ;  and  the 
Sabines  are  said,  in  this  and  in  the  former  year,  to  have  joined  A.  n.  c.  297.  A.  c. 
them,  and  to  have  carried  alarm  and  devastation  into  a  new  part  numbJno7Theiutrib! 
of  the  Roman  territory,  that  which  lay  between  the  Tiber  and  the  uues- 
Anio.  Thus  the  law  made  no  progress  :  but  the  tribunes  obtained  an  important 
point,  that  their  number  should  henceforth  be  doubled.  Ten  tribunes  were  from 
this  time  forward  annually  elected  ;  two  from  each  of  the  five  classes. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  annals  of  this  period,  as  we  now  have  them  in 
Livy  and  Dionysius,  present  a  very  incomplete  picture  of  these  Tha  annala  have  not 
dissensions.  The  original  source  of  the  details  must  have  been  the  fhrndisaordekCftirheS1 
memorials  of  the  several  great  families ;  each  successive  version  of  tUnM' 
these,  as  men's  notions  of  their  early  history  became  more  and  more  romantic, 
would  omit  whatever  seemed  inconsistent  with  the  supposed  purity  and  noble- 
ness of  the  times  of  their  forefathers ;  and  acts  of  bloody  vengeance,  which  the 
actors  themselves,  and  their  immediate  descendants,  regarded  with  pride  rather 
than  compunction,  as  Sulla  gloried  in  his  proscriptions  and  recorded  them  on  his 
monument,  were  carefully  suppressed  by  historians  of  a  later  age.  The  burghers 
of  the  third  and  fourth  centuries  thought  it  no  dishonor  that  their  own  daggers,84 
or  those  of  their  faithful  clients,  should  have  punished  with  death  the  insolence 
and  turbulence  of  the  most  obstinate  of  the  commons ;  they  would  glory  in 
breaking  up  the  assemblies  of  their  adversaries  by  main  force,  and  in  treating  them, 
on  other  occasions,  with  all  possible  scorn  and  contumely;  ejecting  them  from 
their  houses35  with  a  strong  hand,  insulting  them  and  their  families  in  their 
nightly  revels,  or  in  open  day  ;  abusing  them  in  the  streets,  or  besetting  their 
doorss6  with  armed  slaves,  and  carrying  off  their  wives  and  daughters.37  Their 
own  houses,  built  mostly  on  the  hills  of  Rome,  which  were  so  many  separate 
fortresses,  and  always,  by  their  style  of  building,  secure  at  once  from  public  no- 
tice and  from  attack,  favored  the  perpetration  of  all  acts  of  violence.  Others, 
besides  insolvent  debtors,  might  be  shut  up  in  their  dungeons ;  and  if  hatred  or 
fear  prompted  them  to  consign  their  victims  to  a  yet  surer  keeping,  the  dungeon 
might  readily  become  a  grave,38  and  who  would  dare  to  search  for  those  whom  it 
contained,  whether  alive  or  dead  ? 

One  act  in  particular,  in  which  its  authors  doubtless  gloried  as  in  a  signal  ex- 
ample of  public  justice,  has  been  so  concealed  by  the  later  annal- 
ists, that  from  the  faint  and  confused  notices  of  it  which  alone  re-  buying  o^uL*  men  a* 
main  to  us,  we  can  neither  discover  its  date,  nor  its  cause,  nor  any 

82  Livy,  III.  29.                    33  Livy,  III.  30.  wealth,  we  may  judge  of  that  shown  to  the 

34  Zonaras,  VII.  17,  who,  as  we  now  find,  commons  at  an  earlier  period. 

uoi  lowed  his  statement  from  Dion  Cassius.  **  The  famous  story  of  Virginia  cannot  have 

Dion's  words  are,  of  tv-narpibai  0/mpw?  nfv  oi>  been  a  solitary  instance.    Virginia  was    the 

raw,  Tt\fiv  Ppaxiw,  finOcid^ovTis  riva,  avriitpaT-  daughter  of  a  centurion,  and  betrothed  to  no 

TOV,  \d9pa  (5*  avx^ovs  rwv   OpaavTdrwv  tydvtvov.  less  a  man  than  L.  Icilius,  the  famous  proposer 

Fragm.  Vatic.  XXII.  of  the  law,   "de  Aventino  publicando."     If 

85  This  is  implied  in  the  "  forcible  occupa-  such  an  outrage  could  be  ventured  against  a 

tion'' noticed  in  the  law,  "  de  Aventino  publi-  woman  of  such  birth,  and  so  connected,  we 

cando."  may  conceive  what  those  of  humbler  condition 

36  Such  outrages  must  be  alluded  to  in  the  were  exposed  to. 

speech  ascribed  to  L.  Quinctius,  Livy,  III.  19.  w  The  body  of  a  murdered  man  was  disco v- 

"  Si  quis  ex  plebe  domum  suam  obsessam  a  fa-  ered  to  have  been  buried  in  the  house  of  P. 

milia  arnaata  nunciaret,  ferendum  auxilium  pu-  Sestius,  a  burgher,  in  the  first  year  of  the  de- 

taretis."    The  conduct  of  Verres  at  Lampsa-  cemvirate.     Livy,  III.  33.    The  discovery  of 

cas  illustrates  this ;  from  the  treatment  of  the  one  such  case  implies  that  there  were  many 

provincials  in  the  later  times  of  the  common-  others  which  were  not  discovered. 


92 


HISTORY  OF  ROME. 


[CHAP.  XI11 


of  its  particulars.  We  only  know,  that  at  some  time  or  other  during  the  latter 
half  of  the  third  century  of  Rome,  nine  eminent  men,39  who  advocated  the  cause 
of  the  commons,  were  burned  alive  in  the  Circus,  such  being  the  old  punishment 
of  the  worst  traitors.  It  appears,  however,  from  the  fragment  of  Festus,  which 
undoubtedly  relates  to  this  event,  that  some  of  the  victims  in  this  execution  were 
of  patrician  houses ;  and  there  is  an  obscure  and  corrupt  passage  of  Dion  Cas- 
sius in  the  Vatican  fragments,  which  seems  to  indicate  that  some  of  the  burghers 
did  take  part  with  the  commons,  whether  from  a  sense  of  justice  or  from  per- 
sonal ambition. 

The  year  298,  to  return  to  our  annals,  was  marked,  on  the  part  of  the  trib- 
A  u  c  298  AC  unes>  by  an  important  measure.  First  of  all,40  to  prevent  their  in- 
454.  LawofL.ici'iiHs',  creased  number  from  being  a  source  of  weakness,  by  making  dif- 

for    allotting    out    the    f  ,  -O  ...      ,  '       J  O 

Aventine  to  the  com-  lerences  amongst  themselves  more  likely,  they  bound  themselves 

to  each  other  by  solemn  oaths,  that  no  tribune  should  oppose  the 

decisions  of  the  majority  of  his  colleagues,  nor  act  without  their  consent.     Then 

Lucius  Icilius,  one  of  their  number,  brought  forward  his  famous  law  for  allotting 


*  'Ei/i/fa  rori  SrjpaPxot  irvpi  fab  TOV  tirjpov  tf)6- 
**>aav.  Dion  Cassius,  Frag.  Vatic.  XXII. ,  and. 
copied  by  Zonaras,  VII.  17.  A  confused  ves- 
tige of  the  same  story  may  be  found  in  Valerius 
Maximus  (VI.  3,  2) ;  and  the  mutilated  pas- 
sage in  Festus,  beginning,  in  the  common  edi- 
tions, with  "Nauti  consulatu,"  must  clearly 
refer  to  it.  Niebuhr's  restoration  and  explana- 
tion of  this  last  fragment  may  be  found  in  his 
note  265  to  the  2d  volume  of  his  History,  p. 
144,  2d  edition.  Both  are  highly  ingenious, 
and  that  the  fragment  began  with  the  wora 
"novem,"  and  not  with  "nauti,"  seems  cer- 
tain ;  inasmuch  as  the  article  before  it  begins 
with  the  word  "  novalis,"  and  that  which  fol- 
lows it  begins  with  "  novendiales."  All  the 
words  now  to  be  found  in  the  MS.  of  Festus, 
half  of  the  page  having  been  accidentally  de- 
stroyed by  fire,  are  the  following,  and  ranged 
in  the  following  order  as  to  lines  : 

<  T.  Sicini  Volsci 

inissent  adversus 

co  combusti  feruntur 
lie  o4uae  est  proximo  cir- 

pide  albo  constratus. 
Opiter  Verginius 
Larvinus,  Postumus,  Col- 
lius  Tolerinus,  P.  Ve- 
onius  Atratinus,  Ver- 
tius  Scacvola,  Sex.  Fu- 

Who  can  profess  to  fill  up  such  a  fragment  with 
certainty  ?  But  I  observe  that  Mutius  Sceevola 
belonged  to  a  house  which,  so  far  as  we  know, 
was  never  patrician ;  and  the  preceding  name, 
of  which  only  the  first  syllable  remains,  Ver-, 
may  also  have  denoted  a  plebeian,  as  we  meet 
with  a  Virginias  amongst  the  tribunes  as  early 
as  the  year  293.  (Livy,  III.  11.)  But  as  all  the 
others  are  patrician  names,  how  can  they  have 
been  tribunes ;  or  how  can  there  have  been 
nine  tribunes  earlier  than  the  year  297  ;  or  how 
can  we  find  a  place  for  such  an  event  between 
297  and  the  appointment  of  the  decemviri; 
after  which  time  it  becomes  wholly  inconceiva- 
ble? The  words  " ad versarii"  and  "adversus 
eum,"  seem  to  me  the  most  unlikely  parts  of 
Niebuhr's  conjectural  addition.  The  criminals 
would  hardly  have  been  described  simply_  as 
the  adversaries  of  T.  Sicinius,  nor  their  crime 
called  a  conspiracy  against  him.  The  story  in 
Valerius  Maximus  represents  one  tribune  as 
oeing  a  principal  agent  in  the  execution  of  his 


nine  colleagues.  "We  can  thus  explain  the  po- 
sition of  the  name  of  Sicinius,  if  we  read,  "no- 
yem  colleges  T.  Sicinii  Volsci,"  and  "  cum  ccn- 
jurationem"  (or  "  consilia")  "  inissent  adver- 
sus Kemp."  But  what  are  we  to  call  the  office 
in  which  these  ten  men  were  colleagues  to- 
gether ?  Can  it  really  have  been  the  tribune- 
ship  ?  and  are  we  to  take  Cicero's  statement, 
in  the  fragments  of  his  speech  for  Cornelius, 
that  the  number  of  tribunes  was  increased  from 
two  to  ten  in  the  very  year  after  the  first  insti- 
tution of  the  office  ?  and  is  it  possible  that  the 
patricians  named  in  Festus'  Fragments  were 
the  very  persons  whom  Dion  Cassius  had  in 
his  mind,  when  he  said  that  "many  of  the 
highest  patricians  renounced  their  nobility  from 
being  ambitious  of  the  great  power  of  the  office, 
and  became  tribunes?"  If  this  were  so,  T. 
Sicinius  Volscus  would  be  a  member  of  the 
house  of  the  plebeian  Sicinii,  and  not  the  pa- 
trician who  was  consul  in  the  year  267.  The 
time  of  the  execution  I  should,  place  about  the 
same  time  as  the  death  of  Cassius ;  and  it  is 
not  incredible  that  even  the  people  in  their 
centuries  may  have  believed  that  accusation  of 
a  conspiracy  'against  the  common  liberty  which 
was  brought  against  Cassius,  and  may  have 
sentenced  nine  of  the  tribunes  to  death  as  his 
accomplices,  especially  if  one  of  their  own  col- 
leagues, and  a  genuine  plebeian,  had  denounced 
them  as  being  really  enemies  to  liberty,  under 
the  mask  of  opposing  the  aristocracy.  And 
such  a  circumstance  as  the  alleged  treason  of 
nine  out  often  of  the  tribunes  would  have  af- 
forded a  good  pretence  for  again  reducing  their 
number  to  two  or  five,  from  which  it  was  again 
finally  raised  to  ten  in  the  year  297.  It  must 
be  remembered,  that  the  whole  period  between 
the  first  institution  of  the  tribuneship  and  the 
death  of  Cassius  is  one  of  the  greatest  obscu- 
rity, and  that  'Jie  remaining  accounts  are  full 
of  variations.  Sempronius  Atratinus  is  men- 
tioned by  Dyonisius  as  speaking  in  favor  of  the 
appointment  of  a  commission  of  ten  men  to 
carry  into  effect  the  proposed  agrarian  law  of 
Cassius,  at  least  in  a  modified  form ;  this  was 
in  the  year  268.  (Dionysius,  VIII,  74.)  I  have 
sometimes  thought  whether  the  nine  men  may 
not  have  been  members  of  this  commission, 
and  accused  by  their  tenth  colleague,  T.  Sicin- 
ius, the  patrician,  of  abusing  their  powers  tp 
favor  the  tyranny  of  Cassius. 
40  Dionysius,  X.  81. 


CHAP.  XIIL]  LAW  DE  A  VENTING  PUBLICANDO.  93 

the  whole  of  the  Aventine  Hill  to  the  commons  forever,  to  be  their  exclusive 
quarter  and  stronghold.  This  hill  was  not,  as  we  have  seen,  a  part  of  the  origi- 
nal city,  nor  was  it  even  yet  included  within  the  pomaerium,  or  religious  boun- 
dary, although  it  was  now  within  the  walls  ;  much  of  it  was  public  or  demesne 
land,  having  neither  been  divided  out  among  the  original  citizens,  the  burghers, 
nor  having  in  later  times  been  assigned  in  portions  to  any  of  the  commons.  The 
ground,  which  was  thus  still  public,  was  occupied,  according  to  custom,  by_ino!i- 
vidual  burghers ;  some  had  built  on  it,  but  parts  of  it  were  still  in  their  natural 
state,  and  overgrown  with  wood.  Yet  this  hill  was  the  principal  quarter  in 
which  the  commons  lived,  and  large  parts  of  it  had  doubtless  been  assigned  to 
them  in  the  time  of  the  kings,  as  the  freeholds  of  those  to  whom  they  were 
granted.  It  appears  that  encroachments  were  made  on  these  freeholds  by  the 
burghers  ;  that  the  landmarks,  which,  according  to  Roman  usage,  always  distin- 
guished private  property  from  common,  were  from  time  to  time  forcibly  or 
fraudulently  removed  ;  the  ground  was  then  claimed  as  public,  and,  as  such,  oc- 
cupied only  by  burghers ;  and  in  this  way  the  ejectment  of  the  commons,  from 
what  they  considered  as  their  own  hill,  seemed  likely  to  be  accomplished.  Again, 
the  Aventine  is  one  of  the  steepest  and  strongest  of  the  hills  of  Rome  ;  if  wholly 
in  the  hands  of  the  commons,  it  would  give  them  a  stronghold  of  their  own,  such 
as  the  burghers  enjoyed  in  the  other  hills  ;  and  this,  in  such  stormy  times,  when 
the  dissensions  between  the  orders  might  at  any  instant  break  out  into  open  war, 
was  a  consideration  of  the  highest  importance.  Such  were  the  reasons  which 
induced  the  tribunes  to  suspend  for  a  time  the  question  of  the  Terentilian  law, 
and  to  endeavor  to  obtain  at  once  for  their  order  the  secure  and  exclusive  prop- 
erty of  the  Aventine. 

A  new  course41  was  also  adopted  in  the  conduct  of  this  measure.     Instead  of 
bringing  it  forward  first  before  the  commons,  where  its  consider-  Newmodeof 
ation  might  be  indefinitely  delayed  by  the  violent  interruptions  of  bvtocn>«»  p 


the  paa»- 


the  burghers,  L.  Icilius  called  upon  the  consuls  to  bring  it  in  the 
first  instance  before  the  senate,  and  he  claimed  himself  to  sp^.ak  as  counsel  in  its 
behalf.  This  was  asserting  not  merely  the  right  of  petitioning,  but  the  still 
higher  right,  that  the  petition  should  not  be  laid  on  the  table,  but  that  counsel 
should  be  heard  in  defence  of  it,  and  its  prayer  immediately  taken  into  consider- 
ation. A  story  is  told  that  the  consuls'  lictor42  insolently  beat  away  the  tribunes' 
officer  who  was  going  to  carry  to  them  his  message ;  that  immediately  Icilius 
and  his  colleagues  seized  the  lictor,  and  dragged  him  off  with  their  own  hands, 
intending  to  throw  him  from  the  rock  for  his  treason  against  the  sacred  laws. 
They  spared  his  life  only  at  the  intercession  of  some  of  the  oldest  of  the  senators, 
but  they  insisted  that  the  consuls  should  comply  with  the  demands  of  Icilius  ; 
and  accordingly  the  senate  was  summoned,  Icilius  laid  before  them  what  may  be 
called  his  petition  of  right,  and  they  proceeded  to  vote  whether  they  should  ac- 
cept or  reject  it.43 

The  majority  voted  in  its  favor,  moved,  it  is  said,  by  the  hope  that  this  con- 
cession would  be  accepted  by  the  commons  instead  of  the  execu- 
tion of  the  agrarian  law.  Then  the  measure  thus  passed  by  the 
senate  was  submitted  by  the  consuls  to  the  comitia  of  centuries,  which,  as  rep- 
resenting the  whole  nation,  might  supersede  the  necessity  of  bringing  it  separ- 
ately before  the  curice  and  the  tribes.  Introduced  in  a  manner  by.  the  govern- 
ment, and  supported  by  the  influence  of  many  of  the  burghers,  as  well  as  by  the 
strong  feeling  of  the  commons,  the  bill  became  a  law :  its  importance,  moreover, 
led  to  its  being  confirmed  with  unusual  solemnities  ;  the  pontifices  and  augurs 
attended  ;  sacrifices  were  performed,  and  solemn  oaths  were  taken  to  observe  it ; 
and,  as  a  further  security,  it  was  engraved  on  a  pillar  of  brass,  and  then  set  up 
in  the  temple  of  Diana  on  the  Aventine,  where  it  remained  till  the  time  of  Dio- 
nysius. 

41  Dionysius,  X.  31.  «  Dionysius,  X.  81.  *"  Dionysius,  X.  32. 


94  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XIn- 

The  provisions  of  the  law  were,  "  that  so  much44  01  the  Aventine  Hill  as  was 
public  or  demesne  property,  should  be  allotted  out  to  the  com- 
mons, to  be  their  freehold  forever.  That  all  occupiers  of  this 
land  should  relinquish  their  occupation  of  it  ;  that  those  who  had  occupied  it, 
forcibly  or  fraud  ulentty,45  should  have  no  compensation,  but  that  other  occupiers 
should  be  repaid  for  the  money  which  they  might  have  laid  out  in  building  upon 
it,  at  a  fair  estimate,  to  be  fixed  by  arbitration."  Probably  also,  as  Niebuhr 
thinks,  there  was  a  clause  forbidding  any  burgher  to  purchase  or  inherit  property 
on  the  hill,  that  it  might  be  kept  exclusively  for  the  commons.  It  is  mentioned 
that  the  commons  began  instantly  to  take  possession  of  their  grant,  and  the  space 
not  sufficing  to  give  each  man  a  separate  plot  of  ground,  an  allotment  was  given 
to  two,  three,  or  more  persons  together,  who  then  built  upon  it  a  house,  with  as 
many  flats  or  stories46  as  their  number  required,  each  man  having  one  floor  for 
himself  and  family  as  his  freehold.  The  work  of  building  sufficiently  employed 
the  commons  for  the  rest  of  the  year  ;  the  Terentilian  law  was  allowed  to  rest  ; 
and  an  unusual  rainy  season,  which  was  very  fatal  to  the  crops,47  may  have  helped 
to  suspend  the  usual  hostilities  with  the  JEquians  and  Volscians. 

The  same  tribunes  were  re-elected  for  the  year  following,  and  the  Terentilian 
Fre.h  dupntet  about  la^  was  ™w  again  brought  forward,  but  still,  as  formerly,  before 
the  Teienuiian  law.  ^Q  assembly  of  the  tribes  ;  its  rejection  by  the  senate  being  sup- 
posed to  be  certain,  if  it  were  proposed  there  in  the  first  instance.  The  con- 
suls48 headed  the  burghers  in  their  opposition,  and  in  their  attempts  to  interrupt 
the  assembly  of  the  commons  by  violence  ;  the  tribunes,  in  return,  brought  some 
of  the  offenders  to  trial  for  a  breach  of  the  sacred  laws,  and,  not  wishing  to  press 
for  the  severest  punishment,  enforced,  according  to  Dionysius,  only  the  confisca- 
tion of  the  criminal's  property  to  Ceres,  whose  temple  was  under  the  special 
control  of  the  sediles  of  the  commons,  and  was  the  treasury  of  their  order.  But 
the  burghers,  it  is  said,  advanced  money  out  of  their  own  treasury  to  buy  the 
confiscated  estates  from  those  who  had  purchased  them,  and  then  gave  them 
back  to  their  original  owners. 

The  consuls  of  the  year  300,  Sp.  Tarpeius  and  A.  Aternius,  appear  to  have 
been  moderate  men  ;  and  not  only  were  the  two  consuls  of  the  preceding  year 

44  Dionysius,  X.  82.  «  Dionysius,  X.  33-42.     The  events  of  this 

45  In  Dionysius'  Greek  version,  fitQiaanivoi    year  are  given  by  Dionysius  at  great  length,  in 


(or  with  the  codex  Vaticanus  Piacdncvoi],    %  fifteen  chapters  ;  in  Li  vy  they  do  not  occupy  as 

K\oirfj  \afl6v7cs  :    in  the  original  language  "  vi  many  lines.     The  story  of  L.  Siccius,  under  a 

aut  clanij"  as  in  the  well-known  form  of  the  somewhat  different  form,  is  given  by  the  former 

praetor's  interdict,  "  cum  fundum  quern  nee  vi,  under  this  year  ;  although  in  its  common  ver- 

nec  clam,  nee  precario  alter  ab  altero  possidetis,  sion  it  occurs  again  in  his  history  in  its  usual 

ita  possiueatis."     See  Festus  in  "  Possessio."  place  under  the  decemviri.     Whoever  was  the 

46  Dionysius,  X.  32.    Houses  thus  divided  writer  from  whom  Dionysius  copied,  he  must 
amongst  several  proprietors,   each  being  the  have  been  one  who  had  no  wish  to  disguise  the 
owner  of  a  single  floor,  were  the  {woiiciai  of  the  injustice  of  the  burghers,  but  rather,  perhaps, 
Greeks;  and  these  were  the  "insulpe"  of  which  to  exaggerate  it;  for  they  never  appear  in  a 
we  hear  at  Koine,  and  which  are  distinguished  more  odious  light  than  in  the  transactions  of 
by  Tacitus  from  "  domus,"  the  houses  of  a  sin-  this  year.    One  statement,  however,  is  curious  ; 
gle  proprietor,  justasThucydidcs  speaks  of  the  that  the  houses  most  violent  against  the  corn- 
rich  Corcyrreans  setting  on  fire  T«5  oiicias  xal  r«?  mons,  and  most  formidable  from  the  strength  of 
frvoiKtas,  III.  74.    Compare  Tacitus,  Anna!.  XV.  their  brotherhoods  or  societies,  fVutp/ru,  were  the 
41,43.     The  original  sense  of  the  word  "  insu-  Postumii,  Sempronii,  and  Clcelii.    The  former 
la,"  as  given  by  Festus,  "  quse  npn  junguntur  of  these  was  an  unpopular  house,  as  may  be 
comruunibus  parietibus  cum  vicinis,  circuitu-  seen  from  the  story  of  the  severity  of  L.  Postu 
que  publico  aut  private  cinguntur,"  seems  to  mius  Tubertus  to  his  son  (Livy,  IV.  29),  and  of 
show  that  the  insula  was  ordinarily  built  like  the  murder  of  M.  Postumius  by  his  soldiers 
our  colleges,  or  like  the  inns  of  court  in  Lon-  (Livy,  IV.  49).     The  Sempronii  also  appear  as 
don,  a  complete  building  in  itself,  and  so  large  a  family  of  importance  during  the  next  fifty 
as  to  occupy  the  whole  space  from  one  street  to  years  :  but  the  Clrelii  are  very  little  distinguish- 
the  next  which  ran  parallel  to  it.  ed  either  in  the  early  or  in  the  later  Eoman  his- 

47  Livy,  III.  31.    Annona  propter  aquarum  tory,  only  four  members  of  this  house  occurring 
internperiem  laboratum  est.     Such  notices  of  in  the  Fasti,  and  none  of  them  being  personally 
the  weather  and  seasons  come  from  the  oldest  remarkable.      Their  coins,   however,  &re  nu- 
and  simplest  annals,  whether  of  the  pontifices  merous. 

or  of  private  families,  and  may  safely  be  looked 
npon  as  authentic. 


DHAP.  XI1I.J  APPOINTMENT  OF  TEN  COMMISSIONERS  95 

accused  before  the  commons  by  the  tribunes,  and  fined,  without  n,e  Merman  ]»«-,«*• 
any  opposition  on  the  part  of  the  burghers  ;  but  the  new  consuls  muinBiacrMwnto." 
themselves  brought  forward  a  law,  which  was  intended  probabl}  to  meet  some 
of  the  objects  of  the  Terentilian  law,  by  limiting  the  arbitrary  jurisdiction  of  the 
patrician  magistrates.  The  Aternian  law,49  de  multae  sacramento,  fixed  the  max- 
imum of  the  fines,  which  the  consuls  could  impose  for  a  contempt  of  their  au- 
thority, at  two  sheep  and  thirty  oxen ;  nor  could  this  whole  fine  be  imposed  at 
once,5"  but  the  magistrate  was  to  begin  with  one  sheep,  and  if  the  offender  con- 
tinued obstinate,  he  might  the  next  day  fine  him  a  second  sheep,  and  the  third 
day  he  might  raise  the  penalty  to  the  value  of  an  ox,  and  thus  go  on,  day  by 
day,  till  he  had  reached  the  utmost  extent  allowed  by  the  law.  It  would  ap- 
pear also  by  the  use  of  the  term  sacramentum,51  which  was  applied  to  money 
deposited  in  the  judge's  hands  by  two  contending  parties,  to  be  forfeited  or  re- 
covered, according  to  the  issue  of  the  suit,  that  this  fine  was  not  absolute,  but 
might  be  recovered  by  the  party  who  paid  it,  either  on  his  subsequent  submis- 
sion, or  on  his  appeal  to  the  judgment  of  his  peers,  whether  burghers  or  com- 
mons, and  on  their  deciding  in  his  favor. 

But  with  regard  to  the  Terentilian  law  itself,  the  tribunes  could  make  no 
progress.  The  burghers  absolutely  refused  to  allow  the  com-  Three  comm^i^n 
mons  any  share  in  the  proposed  revision  of  the  constitution;  but  are sent to Greoce< 
they  consented  to  send  three  persons  beyond  the  sea52  into  Greece,  to  collect 
such  notices  of  the  laws  and  constitutions  of  the  Greek  states  as  might  be  ser- 
viceable to  the  Romans.  These  commissioners  were  absent  for  a  whole  year ; 
and  in  this  year  the  pestilence53  again  broke  out  at  Rome,  and  car-  A.  n  a  301>  A<  c 
ried  off  so  many  of  the  citizens,  amongst  the  rest  four  out  of  the  451' 
ten  tribunes,  that  there  was  a  necessary  cessation  of  political  disputes.  And  as 
the  pestilence  spread  also  amongst  the  neighboring  nations,54  they  were  in  no 
condition  to  take  advantage  of  the  distressed  state  of  the  Romans. 

In  the  next  year  the  pestilence55  left  Rome  free  ;  and  on  the  return  of  the 
commissioners  from  Greece,  the  disputes  again  began.     After  a 
lono-  contention,  the  commons  conceded  the  great  point  at  issue ;  453.  it  is  resolved  to 

•P.  ,      ,  ,  .    .  -.      ,          ,°  •*•  j  .          .  appoint  ten  men  to  re- 

and  it  was  agreed  that  the  revision  of  the  laws  and  constitution  vfse  the  laws  and  «m- 
should  be  committed  to  a  body  of  ten  men,  all  of  the  order  of  the 
burghers,  who  should  supersede  all  other  patrician  magistrates,  and  each  admin- 
ister the  government  day  by  day  in  succession,  as  during  an  interregnum.     Two 
of  these  were  the  consuls  of  the  new  year,  who  had  been  just  A.  n.  c.  303.  A.  c. 
elected,  Appius  Claudius  and  T.  Genucius  ;    the  warden  of  the  449- 
city  and  the  two  qusestores  parricidii,  as  Niebuhr  thinks,  were  three  more  ;  and 
the  remaining  five  were  chosen  by  the  centuries.56 

Such  was  the  end  of  a  contest  which  had  lasted  for  ten  years ;  and  all-  its 
circumstances,  as  well  as  its  final  issue,  show  the  inherent  strength 
of  an  aristocracy  in  possession  of  the  government,  and  under  what  gK 
manifold  disadvantages  a  popular  party  ordinarily  contends  against 
it.  Nothing  less  than  some  extraordinary  excitement  can  ever  set  on  a  level  two 
parties  so  unequal ;  wealth,  power,  knowledge,  leisure,  organization,  the  influ- 
ence of  birth,  of  rank,  and  of  benefits,  the  love  of  quiet,  the  dread  of  exertion 
and  of  personal  sacrifices,  the  instinctive  clinging  to  what  is  old  and  familiar,  and 
the  indifference  to  abstract  principles  so  characteristic  of  common  minds  in  every 

49  Cicero  de  Eepublica,  II.  35.    The  reading  61  See  Varro,  Ling.  Lat.  V.  180,  and  Festui 

of  the  consul's  name,  as  given  in  this  passage  in  voce. 

of  Cicero,  Aternius,  enables  us  to  account  for  w  Livy,  III.  31. 

and  to  correct  the  corrupt  reading  in  Dionysius,  63  Livy,  III.  32. 

T£p/i;>toj.    We  find  it  also  correctly  given  in  one  M  Dionysius,  X.  53. 

of  the  recently  discovered  fragments  of  the  "  Dionysius,  X.  54.    Livy,  III.  82. 

Fasti  Capitolim.  M  Vol.  II.  p.  350,  2d  od. 

40  See  Varro,  de  Ling.  Latina,  V.  177,  and 
Niebuhr,  Vol.  II.  p.  341,  2d  ed. 


96  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XIV. 

rank  of  life ;  all  these  causes  render  the  triumph  of  a  dominant  aristocracy  sure, 
unless  some  intolerable  outrage,  or  some  rare  combination  of  favorable  circum- 
stances, exasperate  or  encourage  the  people  to  extraordinary  efforts,  and  so  give 
them  a  temporary  superiority.  Otherwise  the  aristocracy  may  yield  what  they 
will,  and  retain  what  they  will ;  if  they  are  really  good  and  wise,  and  give  freely 
all  that  justice  and  reason  require,  then  the  lasting  greatness  and  happiness  of  a 
country  are  best  secured ;  if  they  do  much  less  than  this,  yielding  something  to 
the  growing  light  of  truth,  but  not  frankly  and  fully  following  it,  great  good  is 
still  done,  and  great  improvements  effected ;  but  in  the  evil  which  is  retained, 
there  are  nursed  the  seeds  of  destruction,  which  falls  at  last  upon  them  and  on 
their  country.  The  irritation  of  having  reasonable  demands  refused,  provokes 
men  to  require  what  is  unreasonable  ;  suspicion  and  jealousy  are  fostered  beyond 
remedy  ;  and  these  passions,  outliving  the  causes  which  excited  them,  render  at 
last  even  the  most  complete  concessions  thankless ;  and  when  experience  has 
done  its  work  with  the  aristocracy,  and  they  are  disposed  to  deal  justly  with 
their  old  adversaries,  they  are  met,  in  their  turn,  with  a  spirit  of  insolence  and 
injustice,  and  a  fresh  train  of  evils  is  the  consequence.  So  true  is  it,  that  nations, 
like  individuals,  have  their  time  of  trial ;  and  if  this  be  wasted  or  misused,  their 
future  course  is  inevitably  evil ;  and  the  efforts  of  some  few  good  and  wise  citi- 
zens, like  the  occasional  struggles  of  conscience  in  the  mind  of  a  single  man  when 
he  has  sinned  beyond  repentance,  are  powerless  to  avert  their  judgment. 


CHAPTER  XIV, 

THE  FIEST  DECEMVIES,  AND  THE  LAWS  OF  THE  TWELVE  TABLES. 


'The  laws  of  a  nation  form  the  most  instructive  portion  of  its  history." — GIBBOX,  Chap.  XLIV. 


THE  appointment  of  a  commission  invested  with  such  extraordinary  powers  as 
those  committed  to  the  decemvirs,  implies  of  itself  a  suspension  of 

Appointment  of  the  de-        ,,  n  ,..  ,  ,    .  -.  L 

Rii^tkerma's't'a'r^  su  authorities  as  could  in  any  degree  impede  or  obstruct  its 
operations.  It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  the  tribunate1  should 
be  suspended  as  well  as  the  patrician  magistracies ;  besides,  the  appointment  ot 
the  decemvirs  was,  even  in  its  present  form,  a  triumph  for  the  commons,  and  they 
would  be  glad  to  show  their  full  confidence  in  the  magistrates  whom  they  had  so 
much  desired.  Again,  the  tribunes  had  been  needed  to  protect  the  commons 
against  the  tyranny  of  the  consuls ;  but  now  that  there  were  no  consuls,  why 
should  there  be  tribunes  ?  And  who  could  dread  oppression  from  men  specially 
appointed  to  promote  the  interests  of  freedom  and  justice  ?  Yet,  to  show  that 


1  This  is  Dionysius'  statement  in  the  most  ex-  a  question  whether  the  tribuneship  was  prop- 
press  terms  (X.  56),  ad  finem.  Livy's  language  eiiy  called  magistratus  or  no :  and,  at  any  rate, 
appears  to  me  to  admit  of  a  doubt;  for  he  says,  it  would  not  in  these  times  be  called  "magis- 
whcn  speaking  of  the  wish  of  the  commons  to  tratus  populi,"  but  only  "  plebis :"  further,  Livy 
have  decemvirs  elected  for  another  year,  "Jam.  expressly  adds,  that  the  "sacratse  leges"  were, 
plcbs  ne  tribunicium  quidem  auxilium,  ceden-  not  to  be  abolished.  Niebuhr  believes  that  the 
tibus  in  viccm  appellation!  [codd. '  appellatione']  tribuneship  was  not  given  up  till  the  second  tie- 
decemviris  quoerebat."  (III.  84.  ad  finem.)  And  cemvirate.  I  think,  on  the  whole,  that  Livy 
although,  when  mentioning  the  appointment  of  meant  to  agree  with  Dionysius  ;  and  the  state- 
the  first  decemvirs,  he  had  said,  "Placet  creari  ment  does  not  appear  to  me  to  possess  any  in- 
decemviros — et  ne  quis  eo  anno  alius  magistra-  ternal  improbability, 
tus  esset"  (III.  32),  yet  it  was  sometimes  made 


CHAP.  XIV.]  THE  LAWS  OF  THE  TWELVE  TABLES.  97 

the  tribuneship  was  not  to  be  permanently  surrendered,  the  sacred  laws  were 
specially  exempted  from  the  decemvirs'  power  of  revision,  as  was  also  that  other 
law,  scarcely  less  dear  to  the  commons,  or  less  important,  which  had  secured  to 
them  the  property  of  the  Aventine. 

With  the  ground  thus  clear  before  them,  and  possessing  that  full  confidence 
and  cheerful  expectation  of  the  people,  which  is  a  government's  ^  decemvirs  begin 
great  encouragement,  the  ten  proceeded  to  their  work.  They  had  their  legislaliou- 
before  them  the  unwritten  laws  and  customs  of  their  own  country,  and  the  infor- 
mation, partly,  we  may  suppose,  in  writing,  which  the  commissioners  had  brought 
back  from  Greece.  In  this  there  would  be  much  which,  to  a  Roman,  would  re- 
quire explanation :  but  the  ten  had  with  them  an  Ionian  sophist,2  Hermodorus  of 
p]phesus,  who  rendered  such  important  services  in  explaining  the  institutions  of 
his  countrymen,  above  all  of  the  Athenians,  the  great  glory  of  the  Ionian  race, 
that  a  statue  was  erected  to  his  honor  in  the  comitium. 

The  result  of  these  labors,  after  a  few  months,  was  submitted  ;o  the  examina- 
tion of  the  people.3  Ten  tables  were  published,  and  set  up  in  a  nt,  compiete  ten  tn 
conspicuous  place  for  all  to  read  them.  Every  man  was  then  in-  ble»«flaws- 
vited  to  make  known  to  the  ten  such  corrections  as  he  might  think  needed  ;  these 
were  considered,  and  adopted  as  far  as  the  ten  approved  of  them :  and  the  ten 
tables,  thus  amended,  were  then  laid  before  the  senate,  the  centuries,  and  the  curiae, 
and  received  the  sanction  of  both  orders  of  the  nation.  The  laws  were  then  en- 
graved on  tablets  of  brass,4  and  the  tablets  were  set  up  in  the  comitium,  that  all  men 
might  know  and  observe  them. 

It  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  ten  tables  were  a  complete  work,  and  intended 
to  be  so  by  their  authors.  All  the  circumstances  of  their  enact- 
ment show  this ;  it  seems  shown  also  by  their  number,  which  had 
reference  to  that  of  the  ten  commissioners,  as  if  each  commissioner 
had  contributed  an  equal  portion  of  their  joint  work.  It  is  clear,  also,  that  they 
satisfied  the  expectations  of  the  people,  and  were  drawn  up  in  a  spirit  of  fairness 
and  wisdom  ;  for  whatever  the  Romans  found  fault  with  in  the  laws  of  the  twelve 
tables,  was  contained  in  the  two  last  of  them ;  and  the  laws,  as  a  whole,  are 
spoken  of  with  high  admiration,  and  remained  for  centuries  as  the  foundation  of 
all  the  Roman  law.  Unhappily,  we  ourselves  know  little  of  them  beyond  this 
general  character.  Some  fragments5  of  them  have  been  preserved  by  ancient 
writers  ;  but  these  are  far  too  scanty  to  allow  us  to  judge  either  of  the  substance 
or  the  order  of  the  whole  code. 

Still6  we  may  fitly  avail  ourselves  of  the  occasion  offered  by  this  great  period 


a  Pomponius,  de  origine  juris,  §  4,  in  the  Di-  lae"  would  lead  one  to  suppose  that  they  were 

gest  or  Pandects,  1  Tit.  ii.  Strabp,  XIV.  1,  §  25,  written  on  wood. 

p.  642.     Hermodorus  was  the  friend  of  Heracli-  5  The  authentic  remains  of  the  twelve  tables 

tus,  the  philosopher,  who  reproached  the  Ephe-  are  given  by  Haubold  in  his  "  Institutionura 

sians  for  having  banished  him  from  mere  jeal-  Juris  Komani  privati  Lineamenta,"  as  repub- 

ousy  of  his  superior  merit.     See  the  story  in  lished  after  his  death  by  Dr.    Otto,   Leipzig, 

Strabo,  as  already  quoted,  and  in  Cicero,  Tus-  1826.    They  are  given  also  by  Dirksen,  with  an 

culan.  Disputat.  V.  36.     Diogenes  Laertius  says  elaborate  criticism  as  to  the  text  and  the  sources 

that  Heraclitus  nourished  in  the  sixty-ninth  of  each  fragment.     "Ubersicht  der  bisherigen 

Olympiad,  but  Syncellus  makes  him  contempo-  Versuche  zur  Kritik  uncl  Herstellung  des  Tex- 

rary  with  Anaxagoras,  the  elder  Zenon,  and  tesderZwolf-Tafel-Fragmente."    Leipzig,  1824. 

Parmenides,  which  would  render  it  very  pos-  The  earlier  collections  of  them  contain  clauses 

sible  for  his  friend  Hermodorus  to  have  vis-  ascribed  to  the  twelve  tables  on  insufficient  au- 

ited  Home  in  the  time  of  the  decemvirs.     Stra-  thority. 

bo  expressly  identifies  the  Hermodorus  of  whom  6  I  am  well  aware  of  the  difficulty  of  writing 

Heraclitus  spoke,  with  the  man  of  that  name  on  legal  details  without  a  professional  knowi- 

who  helped  the  decemvirs  in  drawing  up  their  edge  of  the  subject.    But  history  must  embrace 

la\vs.    And  the  fact  of  his  having  been  honored  the  subject-matter  of  every  profession ;  and  as 

nt  li  a  statue  in  the  comitium  (Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  no  man  can  be  properly  qualified  to  write  on  all, 

XXXIV.  11)  would  seem  to  prove  that  the  story  the  necessity  of  the  case  must  excuse  the  pre- 

of  his  having  helped  the  decemvirs  was  not  sumption.     It  will  bo  proper  here  to  mention 

without  foundation.  the  works  from  which  the  present  chapter  has 

3  Livy,  111.  34.  been  chiefly  compiled.     1st.  The  Institutes  of 

1  So  Dionysius,  aTf,\ats  ^aAicat?  fAxaf>«savT£j  Gains.    An  epitome  of  the  three  first  books  of 

•iiroos.  X.  57.    Livy's  simple  expression  "tabu-  this  great  work  had  been  long  known,  but  the 

7 


98  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XIV 

in  Roman  legislation,  to  give  something  of  a  view  of  the  Roman 

State  of  the  Roman  law    ,  .  ,  , ,      ,    ,        °,  ,  . ,  V  .  ... 

in  iu  earliest  knowr  law  as  it  was  settled  by  the  twelve  tables,  or  as  it  existed  in  the 
oldest  form  in  which  it  is  now  possible  to  trace  it.  And  I  shall 
adopt  that  division  of  constitutional  law  on  the  one  hand,  and  civil  law  on  the 
other,  which  Livy  had  in  his  mind  when  he  called  the  twelve  tables  "  fons  omnis 
publici,  privatique  juris." 

To  begin,  then,  with  "  Jus  privatum,"  or  the  civil  law  of  Rome.  This,  accord- 
ins  privatnm  divided  mg  to  the  Roman  lawyers,  related  either  to  persons,  or  to  things, 
JUiVii!  LawaoTxhin^  o*  to  actions,  in  the  legal  sense  of  the  term.  Let  us  first  examine 
*.a  in.  i^w  of  Actions.  some  Of  the  principal  points  in  the  law  as  it  regarded  persons. 

I.  In  later  times  the  lawyers  had  occasion  to  notice  three  descriptions  of  per- 

f  P      ».  per   Rons  '  those  k°rn  free>  those  who  had  been  made  free,  and  slaves. 

win  bom  iv™e0,nper8oens  The  distinctions  of  burghers  and  commons,  patricians  and  tlebe- 

mode  free,  and  slaves.       .  111  •  •   i     .  j  i        1 1     /•  i  -r>  •• 

lans,  had  long  since  vanished ;  and  all  free-born  Roman  citizens 
were  legally  regarded  as  equal.  On  the  other  hand,  the  condition  of  slaves  ad- 
mits of  little  variation  so  long  as  they  remain  slaves ;  and  thus,  with  regard  to 
these,  the  lapse  of  centuries  produced  little  change.  But  the  freed  men  of  a  later 
age  appear  to  represent  the  clients  of  the  period  of  the  twelve  tables. 

That  the  relation  of  the  freedman  to  his  former  master  very  nearly  resembled 
Thefreedmenofaiater  that  of  the  client  to  his  lord,  might  be  conjectured  from  this,  that 
£ofo^Mripd^£  when  a  slave  obtained  his  freedom,  his  former  master,  "dominus," 
twelve  ubies.  became  his  "patronus,"  the  very  same  name  which  expressed  his 

relation  to  his  clients.  Previously  to  the  decemvirate,  this  class  of  persons  voted 
indeed  in  the  comitia  of  centuries,  which  comprehended  the  whole  Roman  people, 
but  they  did  not  belong  to  any  tribe,  and  therefore  had  no  votes  in  the  separate 
comitia  of  the  commons.  The  decemvirs7  procured  their  enrolment  in  the  tribes, 
and  thus  added  greatly  to  the  influence  of  the  aistocracy  over  the  popular  assem- 
blies ;  for  the  tie  between  a  patron  and  his  clients  or  freedmen  seems  to  have  been 
a  very  kindly  one,  and  much  stronger,  as  yet,  than  any  sense  of  the  duty  of  ad- 
vancing the  cause  of  the  great  mass  of  the  nation.  Indeed,  the  freedman  was 
held  to  belong  so  much  to  his  patron,  that  if  he  died  intestate,  and  without  direct 

whole  work,  in  its  genuine  state,  was  first  dis-  works  which  I  have  consulted  will  be  noticed  in 

covered  by  Niebuhr  in  1816,  in  a  palimpsest,  or  their  several  places. 

rewritten  manuscript,  of  some  of  the  works  of  "  The  Fragments  of  Ulpian  discovered  and 
S.  Jerome,  in  the  Chapter  Library  at  Verona,  published  by  Mai"  are  not  correctly  described, 
I  have  used  the  second  edition,  published  by  as  I  had  not  seen  the  book  when  this  note  was 
Goschen,  at  Berlin,  in  1824;  and  I  have  derived  written.  I  have  only  been  able  to  procure  it 
great  assistance  from  Goscben's  continued  ref-  since  the  completion  of  the  present  volume,  and 
erenccs  to  parallel  passages  in  the  other  extant  I  find  that  it  contains  the  remains  of  several 
works  of  the  Roman  lawyers.  2d.  The  fragment  treatises  by  an  unknown  lawyer,  on.  various 
of  Ulpian  from  a  MS.  hi  the  Vatican,  published  legal  subjects ;  these  treatises  consisting,  for  the 
by  Hugo  in  his  "  Jus  Civile  Aritejustinianeum."  most  part,  of  quotations  from  the  works  of  the 
Berlin,  1815.  The  fragments  of  Ulpian  more  most  eminent  lawyers,  arranged  in  order,  as  in 
recently  discovered  and  published  by  Mai,  I  have  the  Pandects.  Amongst  the  rest  there  are,  nat- 
not  seen.  3d.  I  have  read  the  Institutes  of  Jus-  urally,  citations  from  Ulpian,  and  some  of  these 
tinian,  and  referred  continually  to  the  Digest  or  were  not  known  to  us  before  Mai's  discovery ; 
Pandects  ;  but  I  cannot  pretend  to  have  read  others  had  been  already  preserved  in  the  Pan- 
through  the  Digest,  or  to  DC  deeply  acquainted  elects.  The  manuscript  in  which  these  trea- 
with  'its  contents.  4th.  Hugo's  Geschichte  des  tises  were  found  was  a  palimpsest,  now  in  the 
Romischen  Rechts.  9th  edit.  Berlin,  1824.  5th.  Vatican  library,  and  marked  in  the  catalogue 
Haubold's  Institutionum  juris  Romani  linca-  VMDCCCLXVI.  It  was  brought  to  Borne  from 
menta,  and  Dirksen's  work  on  the  Twelve  Ta-  the  library  of  the  monastery  at  BobL  ^,  nearPla- 


illustranti urn  syntagma."  6th.  Savigny,  "  Recht  tendence  of  Bethmann  Hollweg;  and  I  know 

des  Besitzes,"  5th  edition ;  and  some  articles  by  them  only  in  this  German  edition.     They  do  not 

the  same  great  writer  in  the  "  Zeitschrift  fur  give  us  any  additional  information  as  to  the  laws 

gesciiichtliche  Rechts wissenschaft."     In  point  of  the  Twelve  Tables. 

of  excellence,  I  could  not,  I  suppose,  have  con-  7  On  this  point  see  Niebuhr,  Vol.  II.  p.  318. 

suited  higher  authorities  than  these  ;  but  I  am  Eng.  Transl.    It  is  admitted  also  by  Haubold,  in 

perfectly  conscious  of  the  insufficiency  of  a  few  his  Tabulae  Chronologies,  as  one  of  the  institu- 

months'  study,  even  of  the  best  writers,  on  a  tions  of  the  decemvirs, 
subject  so  vast  as  the  Roman  law.     The  other 


CHAP.  XIV.]  THE  LAWS  OF  THE  TWELVE  TABLES.  9<J 

heirs,8  his  patron  inherited  all  his  property ;  a  law  which  applied  also,  as  we  can- 
not doubt,  though  perhaps  with  some  qualification,  to  the  client. 

Looking  at  the  domestic  relations  of  free  citizens,  we  find  that  the  absolute 
power  of  a  father  over  his  children  was  in  some  slight  degree  ppwerofafather  ovet 
qualified  by  the  twelve  tables  ;  inasmuch  as  they  enacted,9  that  if  hu  children- 
a  father  had  sold  his  son  three  times,  he  should  have  no  further  control  over 
him.  Formerly,  it  appears,  the  independence  of  a  son  during  his  father's  life- 
time had  been  regarded  as  monstrous  and  impossible  ;  he  never  could  become 
sui  juris.  The  father  might  transfer  his  right  to  another  by  selling  his  son  ;  but 
if  his  new  master  set  him  free,  the  father's  right  revived,  and  the  son  became 
again  in  potestate.  But  by  the  new  law,  the  father's  right  became  terminable ; 
and  if,  after  he  had  thrice  sold  his  son,  the  last  purchaser  gave  him  his  freedom, 
then  the  son  no  longer  reverted  to  his  father's  power,  but  remained  his  own  mas- 
ter. Still,  as  if  to  show  the  peculiar  sacredness  of  the  father's  power,  he  could 
not,  by  any  one  act  of  his  own,  make  his  son  independent ;  he  could  not  give 
him  his  liberty  like  a  slave,  but  was  obliged,  if  he  wished  to  emancipate  him,  to 
go  through  the  form  of  thrice  selling  him  ;  and  it  was  only  when,  according  to 
the  common  practice,  the  son,  after  the  third  sale,  was  resold  to  his  father,  that 
then,  the  fatherly  power  being  extinct,  he  could  give  him  his  freedom  by  a  di- 
rect act  of  manumission.  It  should  be  remembered,  also,  that  an  emancipated 
son  lost  his  relationship  to  his  father,  and  could  no  longer  inherit  from  him ;  and 
further,  that  by  having  been  sold,  and  so  passed  into  the  state  of  slavery,  he  in- 
curred10 that  legal  degradation  which  the  Romans  called  diminutio  capitis, 
and  consequently,  remained  liable,  during  the  remainder  of  his  life,  to  certain  pe- 
culiar disqualifications. 

As  the  father  of  a  family  enjoyed  absolute  power  over  his  children  in  his  life- 
time, so  was  he  equally  absolute  in  his  choice  of  a  guardian  for  H;sPoWer  of  disposing 
them,  and  in  his  disposal  of  his  property  after  his  death.11  He  ofhi.propertybywui. 
might  bequeath  his  whole  fortune  to  any  one  child,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  rest, 
or  to  an  absolute  stranger,  to  the  exclusion  of  them  all.  In  this  respect  the 
twelve  tables  gave,  probably,  a  legal  sanction  to  a  power  which  was  become  com- 
mon in  practice,  but,  strictly  speaking,  was  as  yet  only  a  matter  of  indulgence, 
not  of  right.  Hitherto,  the  will  of  every  citizen  had  been  read  before  the  comi- 
tia,12  whether  of  the  curise  or  of  the  centuries  ;  that  the  former  in  the  case  of  a. 

8  Gaius,  Institut.  III.  §  40.     A  man's  direct  virilis  sexus  personas  ;"  such  as  his  father's 
heirs,  "  sui  heredes,"  were,  according  to  the  Bo-  "brother,  or  brother's  son,  or  the  son  of  an  un- 
man law,  his  children  "  in  potestate,"  whether  cle  by  the  father's  side.     These  inherited  in 
male  or  female,  by  birth,  or  by  adoption ;  his  preference  to  the  cognati,  or  relations  derived 
son's  children;   his  son's  son's  children;   his  "per  foeminei  sexus  personas;"  and  thus  an 
""'ife  in  manu ;  and  his  daughter-in-law.    See  emancipated  son  could  not  be  heir  or  guardian 

aius,  Institut.  III.  §  2.  For  the  application  of  to  his  nephew  on  his  brother's  side,  by  virtue 
this  law  to  clients,  see  Nieuport,  Ritt.  Romanor.  of  the  jus  agnationis,  as  he  had  lost  that  right 
Sect.  I.  ch.  IV.  §  3,  and  the  defence  of  his  state-  by  having  gone  through  the  state  of  mancipatio 
mcnt  in  Reiz's  preface  to  the  5th  edit,  of  Nieu-  during  the  process  of  his  release  from  his  fa- 
port's  work.  Niebuhr  also  is  of  the  same  opin-  ther's  authority. 

ion.     Hist.  Rom.  Vol.  I.  p.  320,  Eng.  Transl.  "  Uti  legassit  super  pecunia  tutelave  suse  rei. 

The  qualification  alluded  to  is  supposed  by  Reiz  ita  jus  esto.     Fragm.  duodec.  Tabb.  13,  upucl 

to  have  consisted  in  this,  that  a  client's  agnati  Ilaubold.     See  Gains,  Institut.  II.  §  224. 

would  have  inherited  before  his  patron,  whereas  13  Testamentorum  autem  genera  initio  duo 

a  frecdman  could  have  no  agnati,  his  natural  re-  fuerunt ;  nam  aut  calatis  comitiis  facicbant,  qua) 

lationships  in  his  state  of  slavery  being  reckoned  comitia  bis  in  anno  testamentis  faciendis  desti 

as  nothing.  nata  erant,  aut  in  procinctu,  id  est  cum  belli 

9  Si  pater  filiumter  venum  duit,  filius  a  patre  causa  ad  pxignain  ibant:  procinctus  est  enirri 
liber  esto.     Fragm.   duodec.  Tabb.   12,   apud  expeditus  et  an  latus  exercitus.     Gaius,  Insti- 
llaubokl,  Institut.  jur.  Rom.  lineamenta.  tut.  II.  §  101.     Ulpian,  Fragm.  XX.  2.     "Ca- 

10  Minima  capitis  diminutio  accidit  in  his  qui  lata  comitia"  are  defined  by  Labeo  to  be  those, 
mancipio  dantur,  quique  ex  mancipations  man-  "  quoe   pro  collegio  pontiticum   habentur  aui 
umitt.untur  ;  adeo  quidem  ut  quotiens  quisque  regis  aut  flaminum  inaugurandorurn  causa." 
mancipetur  aut  manumittatur,   totiens  capite  "lisdem  comitiis,"  says  Gellius,  by  whom  tho 
diminuatur.     Gaius,  Institut.  I.  §  162.     The  passage  from  Labeo  has  been  preserved,  "ct 
disqualifications  incurred  by  a  diminutio  capi-  sacrorum  detestatio  et  testamenta  fieri  sole- 
tis  included  a  forfeiture  of  the  jus  agnationis.  bant."     Noct.  Att.  XV.  27,  §  1,  3.    And  Labeo 
A  man's  agnati  are  his  relations  derived  "  per  tells  us  that  these  calata  comitia  were  either 


100  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XIV 

burgher,  the  latter  in  the  case  of  a  plebeian,  might  confirm  or  reject  it.  The 
confirmation  was  generally,  as  we  may  suppose,  become  almost  a  matter  o! 
course  ;  still  it  is  evident  that  it  might  have  been  refused.  But  from  this  time 
forward  it  became  a  mere  formality  ;  the  right  of  the  father  to  dispose  of  his 
property  as  he  chose  was  fully  acknowledged  ;  and  it  was  conferred  on  him  with 
such  full  sovereignty,  that  it  was  only  when  he  died  intestate  that  the  next  of 
kin  could  take  the  management  of  his  inheritance  out  of  the  hands  of  his  sons, 
if  they  were  squandering  it  extravagantly  ;  no  degree  of  waste  on  the  part  of  a 
son  could  justify  the  interference  of  his  relations,13  if  he  had  succeeded  by  virtue 
of  his  father's  will.  The  principle  of  this  distinction  is  plain  :  when  the  father 
of  a  family  had  waived  his  right  of  bequeathing  his  property,  it  seemed,  in  some 
measure,  to  revert  to  the  community,  as  a  member  of  which,  he  or  his  ancestor 
had  originally  received  it.  This  community  w^as  the  gens  in  the  last  resort,  and 
more  immediately  the  family  of  which  he  was  the  representative.  As  then  his 
property  would  go  to  the  male  representatives  of  his  family  in  default  of  his  own 
direct  heirs,  so  they  had  an  interest  in  preserving  it  unimpaired,  and  were  allowed 
to  enforce  it  when  the  son's  title  to  his  inheritance  rested,  like  theirs,  only  on  the 
general  award  of  the  law.  But  where  the  father  had  disposed  of  his  property 
by  will,  then  the  individual  right  of  ownership  passed  in  full  sovereignty  to  his 
children,  and  no  one  might  interfere  with  their  management  of  what  was  wholly 
their  own.  The  later  law  did  away  with  this  distinction  ;  and  the  praetor  was 
accustomed  to  deprive  an  extravagant  son  of  the  administration  of  his  inherit- 
ance, even  when  he  had  succeeded  to  it  by  his  father's  will.  And  this  is  natu- 
ral, for  as  society  advances  in  true  civilization,  its  supremacy  over  all  individual 
rights  of  property  becomes  more  fully  recognized  ;  and  it  is  understood  that  we 
are  but  stewards  of  our  possessions  with  regard  to  the  commonwealth  of  which 
we  are  members,  as  well  as  with  respect  to  God. 

We  shall  not  be  surprised  to  find  that  the  usages  of  a  rude  people  paid  but 
little  respect  to  women.     A  man  could  acquire  a  right  over  a  wo- 

LHW    with    respect  to  |  . 

%vomen:  i,  as  to  mar-  man  by  her  having  lived  with  him  lor  a  year  ;  exactly  as  a  years 
possession  gave  him  a  legal  title  to  a  slave,  or  any  other  article  of 
movable  property.  Here  again  the  twelve  tables  so  far  interfered,14  as  to  give 
the  power  to  the  woman  of  barring  this  prescription,  by  absenting  herself  from 
her  husband  during  three  nights  in  each  year.  By  so  doing,  she  avoided  passing 
under  her  husband's  power,  "  in  manum  viri  ;"  and  could  not,  therefore,  like  a 
wife  in  the  fullest  sense,  inherit  from  him  as  a  daughter.  Still  the  connection 
was  recognized  as  a  lawful  marriage,15  "  connubium  ;"  and  the  children  accord- 
ingly followed  their  father's  condition,  and  were  subject  to  his  power,  which  was 
the  case  only  with  such  children  as  were  born  in  "  connubium." 

Again,  the  old  Roman  law,  confirmed  in  this  instance  also  by  the  twelve  ta- 


to  their  bein  ai          >  obliged  all  women,  at  all  times  of  their  lives,  and  under  all 
way  ^derrguardiaan-  circumstances,16  to  be  under  guardianship.     If  a  father  died  in- 
testate, his  daughters  immediately  became  the  wards  of  their 

"curiata"  or  "  centuriata  ;"    so  that  we  may  scription,   "  usus,"   or  by   coemptio,   because 

safely  conclude  that  the  will  of  a  patrician  was  then  they  lost  their  control  over  her  property, 

read  at  the  former,  that  of  a  plebeian  at  the  and  their  right  of  inheriting  from  ner   (see 

latter.    See    Niebuhr,  Vol.   II.   p.   336,  Eng.  Cicero  pro  Flacco,  34)  ;  but  only  her  lather's 

Tirans.  refusal  of  consent  hindered  her  from  forming  a 

13  A  prsetore  constituitur  curator  —  ingenuis  connubium,  if  her  connection  was  with  a  Eo- 
qui  ex  testamento  parentis  hasredes  facti  male  man  citizen,  and  one  not  related  to  her  in  any 
dissipant  bona  :   his  enim  ex  lege  (scil.  XII.  prohibited  degree.     See  Ulpian,  Fragm.  V.  2-7. 
Tabularum)  curator  dari  non  poterat.    Ulpiau,  M  Gaius,  I.  §  144.    The  vestal  viigins  were 
Fragm.  XII.  3.  alone  excepted  by  the  twelve  tables,  "  in  hono- 

14  Gaius,  Institut.  I.  §  111.  rem  sacerdotii."    Afterwards,  by  the  later  law. 
16  The  formalities  of  a  marriage,  according  to  a  woman  obtained  the  same  privilege  by  ac- 

the  Roman  law,  seem  only  to  have  affected  the  quiring  the  "jus  trium  liberorum,"  which  did 

wife's  property,  and  her  power  of  inheriting  not,  however,  always  imply  that  she  had  r  sally 

from  her  husband,  not  the  legitimacy  of  the  borne  three  children,  but  that  by  the  emperor's 

children.    A  woman's  guardians  might  prevent  favor  she  had  acquired  the  right  granted  by  la\f 

aer  from  passing  in  manum  viri  either  by  pro-  to  one  who  had  actually  been  a  mother. 


CHAP.  XIV.]  THE  LAWS  OF  THE  TWELVE  TABLES.  101 

brothers,  or  of  their  nearest  male  relations  on  their  father's  side  ;17  nor  could 
they,  without  their  guardian's  sanction,  contract  any  obligation,18  or  alienate 
their  land,  or  make  a  will.  If  a  woman  married,  she  became,  in  law,  her  hus- 
band's daughter ;  he  could  appoint  her  guardians  by  his  will,  or,  if  he  died  in- 
testate, her  nearest  male  relations  succeeded  by  law  to  the  office  ;  so  that  it  was 
possible,  in  despite  of  the  laws  of  nature,  that  a  mother  might  be  under  the 
guardianship  of  her  own  son.  By  these  institutions,  the  apparent  liberality  of 
the  law,  which,  enabled  a  man's  daughters  to  inherit  on  an  equal  footing  \vith~his~ 
sons,  was  in  great  measure  rendered  ineffectual.19  A  daughter  might,  indeed, 
claim  an  equal  share  with  her  brother  of  her  father's  land  ;  but  as  she  could 
neither  alienate  it  during  her  lifetime,  nor  bequeath  it  by  will  without  his  con- 
sent, and  as  he  was  her  legal  heir,  there  was  little  probability  of  its  passing  out 
of  the  family.  All  this  was  greatly  modified  by  the  later  law ;  but  there  were 
always  found  persons  who  regretted  the  change,  and  upheld  the  old  system, 
with  all  its  selfishness  and  injustice,  as  favorable  to  a  wholesome  severity  of 
manners,  arid  a  proper  check  upon  the  weakness  or  caprice  of  a  woman's  judg- 
ment. 

II.  If  from  persons  we  now  turn  to  property,  or,  according  to  the  language 
of  the  law,  to  things,  our  curiosity  as  to  the  provisions  of  the  Ir.  I^wct Thi™  Im. 
twelve  tables,  and  the  state  of  things  which  they  recognized,  can  £dgfofeth°/iaaw rf«i 
be  but  imperfectly  gratified.  Yet  there  are  few  points  of  more  $JK't£v$£% 
importance  in  the  history  of  a  nation  :  the  law  of  property,  of  real  every  pool>le' 
property  especially,  and  a  knowledge  of  all  the  ci  cumstances  of  its  tenure  and 
divisions,  would  throw  light  upon  more  than  the  physical  condition  of  a  people  ; 
it  would  furnish  the  key  to  some  of  the  main  principles  prevalent  in  their  so- 
ciety. For  instance,  the  feudal  notion  that  property  in  land  confers  jurisdiction, 
and  the  derivation  of  property,  either  from  the  owner's  own  sword,  or  from  the 
gift  of  the  stronger  chief  whose  sword  he  had  aided,  not  from  the  regular  as- 
signment of  society,  has  most  deeply  affected  the  political  and  social  state  of  the 
nations  of  modern  Europe.  At  Rome,  as  elsewhere  among  the  free  common- 
wealths of  the  ancient  world,  property  was  derived  from  political  rights,  rather 
than  political  rights  from  property  ;  and  the  division  and  assignation  of  lands  to 
the  individual  members  of  the  state  by  the  deliberate  act  of  the  whole  commu- 
nity, was  familiarly  recognized20  as  the  manner  in  which  such  property  was  most 

17  Quibus  testamento  quidem  tutor  datus  non  to  have  been  rather  the  rule  in  theory,  and,  in 
sit,  iis  ex  lege  XII.  agnati  sunt  tutores.    Gaius,  the  earliest  recorded  settlement  of  a  people,  to 
I.  §  156.  have  been  often  actually  carried  into  practice. 

18  A  woman's  agnati,  by  the  old  law,  were  The  division  of  Canaan  amongst  the  Israelites 
her  tutores  legitinii.    And  it  was  a  well-known  is  a  well-known  example.    Let  any  one  corn- 
rule  of  law  that  she  could  make  no  valid  will  pare  this  with  the  utterly  capricious  manner  in 
without  their  consent.     Gaius,  II.  §  118.    The  which  the  Norman  chiefs,  from  duke  William 
whole  right  of  her  agnati  to  become  her  guar-  downwards,   appropriated    to    themselves,   or 
dians  was  done  away  by  the  emperor  Claudius,  granted  away  to  their  followers,  the  lands  of 
(Gaius,  I.  §  171.)    .But  her  father,  and,  if  she  England.    Again,  a  similar  equal  division  is 
were  a  freed  woman,  her  patronus,  still  retained  said  to  have  existed  at  one  time  in  Egypt  (He- 
the  same  power ;  and  even  in  the  time  of  the  rodotus,  II.  109) ;  and  even  after  the  period  of 
Antonines,  her  will  was  good  for  nothing  if  it  the  distress,  noticed  in  Genesis,  had  brought 
had  not  their  sanction.  most  of  the  property  into  the  hands  of  the 

19  See    Hugo,    Geschichte    des    Eomischen  kings,  yet  still  we  find  the  principle  of  regular 
Kechts,  p.  209.  division  recognized  ;  for  even  in  the  last  years 

<M  This   is   one  of  those  general  statements  of  the  Egyptian  monarchy,  the  class  of  landed 

which  I  think  the  reader  of  ancient  history  will  proprietors  who  received  their  land  as  an  he- 

reaclily  admit,  although  it  is  not  possible  to  reditary  fief,  on  the  tenure  of  military  service, 

bring  any  particular  passage  of  an  ancient  wri-  enjoyed  each  man  an  equal  portion.     (Herodo- 

ter  as  the  authority  for  it.    Nor  is  it  to  be  de-  tus,  ll.  164,  et  seqq.)  In  all  the  Greek  colonies 

nied,  that  conquest,  and  the  lapse  of  years,  in-  there  was  the  same  system ;  each  citizen  had 

troduced  the  greatest  inequalities  of  property,  his  K\rjpos  or  portion,  and  in  many  states  these 

quite  as  great  as  those  subsisting  in  modern  were  not  allowed  to  be  alienated.     (Aristotle, 

Europe.     But  the  notion  of  an  equal  division  Politic.  VI.  4.)    Thus  the  well-known  division 

of  the  land  of  a  country  amongst  its  citizens,  of  Laconia,  ascribed  to  Lycurgus,  was  nothing 

which  in  taodern  Europe  ip  so  without  example  unprecedented :   the  remarkable  feature  in  it 

that  it  is  looked  upon  as  one  of  the  wildest  of  was,  that  it  was  a  return  to  the  principle  of 

impossible  fancies,  seems,  in  the  ancient  world,  regular  assignation,  after  a  long  departure  from 


102  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CH 

regularly  acquired.  This  act  conveyed  the  property  of  the  land  so  granted  in 
complete  sovereignty  ;  no  seignorial  rights  were  reserved  on  it ;  all  on  the  soil, 
and  under  it,  was  alike  made  over  to  the  proprietor ;  and,  as  he  was  the  abso- 
lute owner  of  it  in  his  lifetime,  so  he  could  dispose  of  it  to  whom  he  would  after 
his  death.  But  he  must  leave  it  as  unfettered  as  he  had  himself  enjoyed  it : 
he  could  not  control  the  rights  of  his  successor  by  depriving  him  of  his  power 
of  disposing  of  it  in  his  turn  according  to  his  pleasure ;  for  this  seemed  an  un- 
just encroachment  on  the  power  of  posterity,  and  an  unnatural  usurpation  on 
the  part  of  any  single  generation.  And  a  man's  civil  rights  and  duties  were  de- 
rived, not  from  his  possession  of  property,  but  from  his  being  a  citizen  of  that 
society  from  whose  law  his  property  itself  had  come  to  him.  He  was  bound  to 
defend  his  country,  not  as  the  holder  of  lands,  but  as  a  member  of  the  common- 
wealth ;  as  a  master,  he  had  power  over  his  slaves  ;  as  a  father,  over  his  chil- 
dren ;  as  a  magistrate,  over  his  fellow-citizens  ;  as  a  free-born  citizen  he  had  a 
voice  in  public  affairs ;  but  as  a  proprietor  of  land  he  enjoyed  only  the  direct 
benefits  of  property,  and  no  power  or  privilege,  whether  social  or  political. 

Yet  the  sword  had  won  no  small  portion  of  the  actual  territory  of  Rome,  no 
AH  property  in  hmd  at  less  than  of  the  feudal  kingdoms  of  a  later  period.  The  sword 
SSyTometheedgrai  won  it  for  the  state,  but  not  for  individuals.  Slaves,  cattle,  money, 
clothing,  and  all  articles  of  movable  property,  might  be  won  by 
individuals  for  themselves ;  and  the  law21  acknowledged  this  as  a  natural  method 
of  acquiring  wealth ;  but  whatever  land22  was  conquered  belonged  immediately  to 
the  commonwealth.  It  could  be  converted  into  private  property  only  by  pur- 
chase or  by  assignation ;  and  assignation  always  proceeded  on  regular  principles, 
and  awarded  equal  portions  of  land  to  every  man.  But  the  mass  of  the  con- 
quered territory  was  left  as  the  demesne  of  the  state ;  and  it  was  out  of  land  sim- 
ilarly reserved  to  the  kings  in  the  conquests  of  the  German  barbarians  that  fiefs 
were  first  created.  This  system  was  prevented  among  the  Romans,  by  the  gen- 
eral law,  strengthened  apparently  by  the  sanctions  of  religion  :  the  law  which 
prescribed  to  all  grants  of  land  made  out  of  the  state  demesne  the  one  form  of 
common  and  equal  assignation.  The  land  then  was  not  granted  away,  its  prop- 
erty remained  in  the  state ;  it  was  sometimes  left  as  a  common  pasture,  sometimes 

it ;  it  was  the  bringing  back  of  an  old  state  to  tcrference,  if  a  citizen  having  had  land,  ncg- 

a  new  beginning,  as  it  were,  of  its  social  exist-  lected  it  and  followed  any  other  calling  ;    it 

ence.     I  think,  then,  it  may  be  stated,  as  one  certainly  did  not  follow  that  every  citizen  re- 

of  the  characteristic  points 'of  the  ancient  world,  ceived  a  grant  of  land,  much  less  that  his  pos- 

that  landed  property  was  not  merely  sanctioned  session   of  land  beforehand  qualified  him  to 

and  maintained  bylaw,  but  had  originally  been  become  a  citizen. 

derived  from  it ;  and  that  even  where  the  peo-  21  Gaius,  II.  §  69.  Quco  ex  hostibus  capiun- 
ple  as  a  body  had  gained  their  country  by  the  tur,  natural!  ratione  nostra  Hunt ;  and  in  Jus- 
sword,  yet  their  individual  citizens  received  tinian's  Institutes  this  is  expressly  extended  to 
their  separate  portion  neither  from  their  own  slaves;  "adeoquidem,  ut  et  liberi  homines  in 
sword,  nor  from  the  capricious  bounty  of  their  servitutem  nostram  deducantur."  II.  1,  §  17. 
chiefs,  but  from  the  deliberate  act  of  society,  De  rerum  divisiones,  &c. 

which  proceeded,  on  regular  principles,  to  allot  m  Gaius,  II.  §  7.     In  provincial!  solo  domini- 

a  portion  of  its  common  property  to  each  of  its  um  populi  Eomani  est,  vel  Caesaris ;  nos  autem 

members.    With  respect  to  the  statement  at  ppssessionem  tantum  et  usum  fructum  habere 

the  end  of  this  paragraph,  that  land  conferred  videmur.     Accordingly  no  land,  in  provincial! 

no  political  power,   it  may  be  objected  that  solo,  could  be  sold  by  mancipatio,  because  it 

power  was  connected  with  landed  property,  was  not  res  mancipii.     "Provincial  solum" 

inasmuch  as  the  commons,  it  is  said,  were  lia-  was  opposed  to  "Itaiicum  solum,"  andexpress- 

ble  to  be  removed  from  their  tribe  by  the  cen-  ed  the  condition  of  land  which  remained  still 

Bors,  if  they  followed  any  other  calling   but  in  the  state  of  a  conquest,  and  had  not  been  in- 

agriculture.    But  thi4  and  other  such  regula-  corporated  with  the  territory,  "ager,"  of  the 

tions  went  on  the  principle,  that  it  was  desira-  conquerors.    But,  as  is  well  known,  all  the  land 

ble  that  a  citizen  should  live  by  agriculture  in  the  provinces  in  the  imperial  times  was  not 

rather  than  by  trade  ;  a  principle  very  general-  "  provinciale  solum  •"  particular  spots  enjoyed 

ly  admitted  in  the  ancient  world,  but  founded  the  privileges  of  "  Itaiicum  solum,"  and  this 

on  considerations  of  what  was  supposed  to  be  was  the  famous  jus  Italiee  which  was  BO  com- 

for  the  moral  good  of  the  community;   and  pletely  misunderstood  by  all  writers  on  the  Ko- 

very  different  from  the  notion  that  he  who  had  man  law  and  constitution  before  Savignv.     Ho 

land  ought  to  have  jurisdiction  and  power,  first  showed  that  it  was  a  privilege  attached  to 

Besides,  it  was  only  a  ground  of  censonan  in-  land,  not,  as  had  been  supposed,  to  persons. 


CHAP.  XIV.]  THE  LAWS  OF  THE  TWELVE  TABLES.  103 

farmed,  sometimes  occupied *by  individuals,  in  the  same  manner  and  under  the 
same  circumstances  as  in  later  times  it  was  granted  in  fiefs,  but  with  this  essen- 
tial difference,  that  this  occupation  was  an  irregular,  and  as  far  as  regarded  the 
state,  a  wholly  precarious  tenure.  The  occupiers  possessed  large  tracts  of  land, 
and  derived  as  much  profit  from  them  as  if  they  had  been  their  property ;  but 
they  were  only  tenants  at  will,  and  there  was  nothing  to  give  to  these  permitted 
rather  than  authorized  possessions,  the  dignity  and  •  political  importance  which 
were  attached  to  the  great  fiefs  of  modern  Europe. 

This  occupation  of  the  public  land  could  by  no  length  of  prescription  be  con- 
verted into  private  property ;  lapse  of  time  could  never  bar  the  Property  acquired  ty 
rights  of  the  commonwealth ;  and  therefore  the  "  possessions"  of  Pre8crii'tion- 
the  Roman  patricians  in  early  times,  within  a  few  miles  of  Rome,  were  on  the 
same  footing  with  all  land  in  the  provinces  afterwards :  in  neither  case  could  pro- 
scription or  usucapio23  confer  a  legal  title  on  the  possessor,  because  in  both  in- 
stances the  property  of  the  soil  lay  in  the  state.  But  with  respect  to  the  lands 
of  private  persons,  the  early  P^oman  law24  allowed  possession  to  become  property 
after  a  lapse  of  only  two  years,  provided  that  the  possession  had  not  been  ob- 
tained in  the  first  instance25  either  by  force  or  fraud.  The  object  of  this  enact- 
ment was  supposed  to  have  been  the  speedy  settlement  of  all  questions  of  own- 
ership ;26  one  year's  possession  gave  a  right  of  property  in  a  slave,  or  any  other 
movable,  and  twice  that  time  was  thought  sufficient  for  the  owner  of  the  land  to 
establish  his  right  against  the  occupier  in  a  territory  so  small  as  that  of  Rome, 
unless  through  his  own  neglect.  Probably,  also,  it  was  judged  expedient  to  pre- 
vent the  risk  of  any  lands  lying  long  uncultivated,  by  regarding  land  thus  neg- 
lected as  returned,  in  a  manner,  to  a  state  of  nature,  and  open  to  the  first  occu- 
pant. Another  reason  would  sometimes  operate  strongly ;  the  duty  of  keeping 
up  the  religious  rites  attached  to  particular  places,  which  would  fall  into  disuse 
during  the  absence  of  an  owner.  This  feeling  was  so  powerful  in  the  case  of  the 
religious  rites  of  particular  families,27  that  if  the  heir  neglected  to  enter  upon  his 
inheritance,  another  person  might  step  in  and  take  possession,  and  after  the  lapse 
of  a  single  year,  he  acquired  a  legal  title  to  the  estate.  But  it  cannot  be  doubted 
that  the  effect  of  this  encouragement  given  to  possession  was  favorable  to  the 
burghers,  or  patricians  as  we  must  now  begin  to  call  them,  at  the  expense  of  the 
commons.  The  twelve  tables28  utterly  denied  the  right  of  possession  to  a  foreign- 
er ;  against  such  a  one  the  owner's  title  remained  good  forever.  And  although 
the  commons  were  no  longer  regarded  as  altogether  foreigners,  yet  they  were 
still  excluded  from  the  right  of  occupying  the  public  land ;  and  we  may  be  cer- 
tain that  they  could  neither  take  possession  of  the  inheritance  of  a  patrician,  nor 
of  any  portion  of  his  land  on  which  there  was  any  temple  or  altar ;  for  it  would 
~iave  been  a  direct  profanation,  had  a  stranger  ventured  to  perform  the  religious 
ites  peculiar  to  his  family  and  race.  Besides,  in  point  of  fact,  the  patricians* 
lands  were  far  less  likely  to  be  left  open  to  occupation.  A  plebeian,  whose  land 

23  Provincialia  pneclia  usucapionem  non  reel-  quired  the  possession  of  any  thing  bond  fide, 
paint.   Gaius,  II.  §  46.  It  need  not  "be  repeated  yet  he  could,  not  acquire  the  property  of  it  by 
that  the  provinciale  solum  of  Gains'  time,  of  prescription  or  usucapio,  if  it  had  been  prigin- 
which  the  property  -\vas  vested  only  in  the  Ko-  ally  obtained  by  force  or  fraud  ;  "si  quis  rem 
man  people  or  the  emperor,  while  individuals  furtivam  aut  vi'  possessam  possideat."     Gaius, 
oould  only  have  the  occupation  and  usufruct  of  II.  §  45. 

it,  was  exactly  in  the  condition  of  the  ager  pub-  26  Ne  rerum  dominia  diutius  in  incerto  es- 

licus  of  the  time  of  the  XII.  tables.    Afterwards  sent.     Gains,  II.  §  44. 

the  distinction  between  provinciale  and  Itali-  v  Gaius,  II.  §  53,  55.    Voluerunt  veteres  ma- 

^um  solum  was  done  away  by  Justinian,  and  turius  hcreditates  adiri  ut  essent  qui  sacra  fa- 

usucapio  was  admitted  alike  in  each ;  but  it  cerent,  quorum  illis  temporibus  sumina  obser- 

could  be  completed  not  in  two  years,  but,  ac-  vatio  fuit. 

cording  to  various  circumstances,  in  ten,  twenty,  M  "Adversus    hostem    aeterna    auctoritas." 

or  thirty.     See  Justinian's  Code,  VII.  Tit.  31.  Fragm.  XII.  Tabular.  19,  apud  Haubold.   "Auc- 

De  usucapione  transformanda.  toritas"  is  the  right  of  claiming  our  own  prop- 

24  Gaius,  II.  §  42.     Ulpian,  Fragm.  XIX.  §  8.  erty,  to  prevent  another  from  acquiring  it  by 
36  Si  inodo  eas  bonafide  acceperimus.    Gains,  prescription. 

II.  §  43.    But  even  if  the  actual  possessor  ac- 


(04  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CnAr  XIV 

had  been  laid  waste  by  the  enemy,  whose  house  had  been  burnt,  and  his  sons 
killed  or  swept  off  by  the  plague,  might  often  be  actually  unable  to  cultivate  his 
property  again,  and  might  leave  it  in  despair,  to  be  possessed  by  the  first  person 
who  chose  to  occupy  it.  Or  if  he  were  detained  prisoner  for  debt  in  some  patri- 
cian's prison,  the  same  result  might  happen ;  his  wife  and  children  might  seek 
protection  with  some  relation  or  friend,  and  their  home  might  thus  be  abandoned. 
And  supposing  justice  to  have  been  fairly  administered,  yet  the  delays  of  legal 
business,  or  the  want  of  friends  to  undertake  the  cause,  or  the  fear  of  provoking 
a  powerful  enemy,  might  often  hinder  the  owner  from  making  good  his  claim 
within  two  years,  and  so  the  property  might  be  lost  forever. 

As  the  Roman  law  attached  no  political  power  to  landed  property,  so  neither 
Di«t!nction»  as  to  v«ri-  did  it  make  a  distinction  between  it  and  all  other  kinds  of  property, 
^.kn>Datipiil'arudr,lee  as  to  the  formalities  required  in  conveying  it  to  another.  Yet 
manc'ii)ii-  there  was  a  distinction  recognized  ;  some  things  might  be  conveyed 

by  bare  delivery,  a  title  to  others  could  only  be  given  by  selling  them  with  cer- 
tain solemn  formalities,  known  by  the  names  of  mancipatio  and  in  jure  cessio. 
This  latter  class'29  included  not  only  land  and  houses,  but  also  slaves,  and  all  tame 
animals  of  draught  or  burden,  and  all  these  were  classed  under  one  common 
name,  as  res  mancipii  or  mancipi ;  every  other  article  of  property  was  nee  man- 
cipii.  The  formality  of  mancipatio  was  one  of  the  peculiar  rights  of  Roman  citi- 
zens ;30  no  magistrate's  presence  was  required,  nor  was  there  need  of  any  written 
instrument:  but  five  Roman  citizens  of  an  adult  age  were  to  be  present  as  wit- 
nesses, and  a  sixth,  called  the  weigher,  or  scalesman,  was  to  produce  a  pair  of 
scales  to  weigh  the  copper,  which  was,  at  this  time,  the  only  money  in  circula- 
tion. Then  the  purchaser  laid  his  hand  upon  the  thing  which  he  was  buying, 
and  said,  "  This  thing  I  declare  to  be  mine  according  to  the  law  of  the  Quirites ; 
and  I  have  bought  it  with  this  money  duly  weighed  in  these  scales."  In  later 
times,  when  this  form  was  still  preserved,  only  slaves  and  animals  were  required 
to  be  literally  seized  by  the  purchaser ;  land  might  be  disposed  of  at  a  distance.31 
But  in  the  days  of  the  decemviri,  we  cannot  doubt  that  every  sale  of  land  by 
mancipatio  was  transacted  on  the  spot,  and  that  the  purchaser  laid  his  hand  upon 
the  house  or  ground  which  he  was  buying,  no  less  than  on  the  slave  or  the  ox. 
The  form  called  "  in  jure  cessio"  took  place  before  a  magistrate  :32  the  purchaser 
claimed,  "  vindicavit,"  the  purchase  as  his  property ;  the  seller,  when  asked  by 
the  magistrate  if  he  disputed  the  claim,  answered  "  that  he  did  not ;"  and  then 
the  magistrate  awarded  the  article  in  question  to  the  purchaser  or  claimant. 
These  transactions,  by  word  of  mouth  only,  without  writing,  were  especially  sanc- 

Mancipi  res  stint  prsedia  in  Italico  solo —  conveyance,  and  thus  gratified  the  commons  by 

item  jura  prscdiorum  rusticonun,  velut  via,  iter,  recognizing  their  custom  as  law,  we  can  under- 

actus,  aquteductus ;  item  servi  et  quadrupedes  stand  why  there  should  have  been  afterwards 

quoe  dorso  collove  domantur,  velut  boves,  inuli,  a  sort  of  pride  felt  in  the  exercise  of  this  right 

equi,  asini.    Cceterae  res  nee  mancipi  sunt.    Ul-  of  mancipatio,  and  why  it  should  have  been 

pian,  Fragm.  XIX.  1.     It  has  been  doubted  kept  as  one  of  the  peculiar  rights  of  Roman 

whether  this    distinction  was  as  old  as  the  citizens.    And  if  it  were  originally  the  mode  of 

Twelve    Tables    (see    Hugo,    Geschichte    des  conveyance  practised  by  the  plebeian  landown- 

Rorn.  Rechts,  p.  425) ;  but  it  is,  at  any  rate,  rec-  ers,  we  can  account  for  its  being  restricted  to 

ognized  by  the  Cincian  law,  passed  in  the  year  land,  and  to  what  constituted  the  most  valua- 

550  (see  Hugo,  p.  321),  and  was,  in  all  proba-  ble  part  of  the  live  stock  of  land,  slaves,  horses, 

bility,  coeval  with  the  earliest  state  of  the  Ro-  mules,  asses,  and  oxen.     In  particular,  we  can 

man  law,  except  as  far  as  regards  the  jura  pros-  thus  understand  why  ships  were  res  nee  man- 

diorum ;  for  these,  being  res  incorporates,  could  cipii,  because  foreign  commerce  was  wholly  un- 

not  pass  by  actual  bodily  seizure,  and  mancipa-  known  to  the  agricultural  commons,  and  ships 

tio  no  doubt  always  in  its  original  meaning  im-  were  neither  bought  nor  sold  amongst  them, 

plied  this.     It  may  be  conjectured  that  manci-  I  may  observe  that  in  the  MS.  published  bv 

patio  was  at  first  a  matter  of  usage  amongst  the  Mai,  entitled  "  De  donation ibus,  ad  legem  Cinci- 

plebeian  landowners,  a  method  of  effecting  a  am,"  we  have  the  true  form  "  res  mancipii," 

purchase  in  the  country  before  a  man's  imrne-  instead  of  "  mancipi."     See  Hugo,  p.  321,  and 

diate  neighbors,  without  the  necessity  of  his  Niebuhr,  Vol.  I.  p.  447.     Note  1044. 

going  up  to  Rome  and  transacting  the  business  **  Gains,  I.  §  119. 

before  a  magistrate.     If  the  law  of  the  Twelve  31  Gaius,  I.  §  121. 

Tables  gave  a  legal  sanction  to  this  mode  of  ^  Gaius,  II.  §  24.    Ulpian,  Fragm.  XIX.  9. 


CHAP.  XIV.]  THE  LAWS  OF  THE  TWELVE  TABLES.  105 

tioned  by  the  twelve  tables,  which  declared,  that  in  buying  and  selling,  "  even 
as  the  tongue  had  spoken,  so  should  be  the  law."33 

The  principle  of  the  law  of  descent  was  that  of  qualified  male  succession  with- 
out primogeniture.34  All  children  who  had  not  been  emanci-  Lawof8UCfMSion 
pated35  inherited  their  father's  estate  in  equal  portions,  without 
distinction  of  sex  or  eldership.  A  man's  wife,  if  she  had  fully  come  under  his 
power  (in  manum  convenerat),  inherited  as  a  daughter ;  and  his  son's  children, 
if  the  son  were  dead,  or  had  been  emancipated,36  succeeded  to  that  son's  share, 
and  divided  it  equally  amongst  them  ;  even  the  children  of  his  son's  son  inher- 
ited on  the  same  condition,  if  their  father  had  ceased  to  be  in  his  grandfather's 
power,  either  by  death  or  by  emancipation  ;  but  daughters'  children,  as  belong- 
ing to  another  family,  had  no  right  of  succession.  All  these  were  called  a  man's 
own  heirs,  "sui  heredes  ;"  and  in  default  of  these,  his  agnati,37  or  relations  by 
the  father's  side,  succeeded ;  the  nearer  excluding  the  more  remote,  and  those  in 
the  same  degree  of  relationship  receiving  equal  shares.  In  default  of  agnati,39  a 
man's  inheritance  went  to  the  members  of  his  gens. 

III.  The  last  division  of  the  Roman  private  law  relates  to  actions.  "  Legis 
actio"  signifies,  "  the  course  of  proceeding  which  the  law  prescribes  m.  Lftw.  ,.  «c{ionfc 
to  a  man,  in  order  to  settle  a  dispute  with  his  neighbor,  or  to  ob-  V"**0^0**-*™*- 
tain  the  redress  of  an  injury."  It  stands  opposed  to  all  those  acts  of  supersti- 
tion or  violence,  by  which  the  ignorance  or  passion  of  man  has  sought  to  obtain 
the  same  end ;  to  the  lot  or  the  ordeal  on  the  one  hand,  to  the  dagger  of  the 
assassin  or  the  sword  of  the  duellist  on  the  other.  But  a  proceeding  at  law,  ac- 
cording to  the  notion  of  the  decemvirs,  was  bound  to  follow  the  law  to  the  very 
letter ;  nothing  was  understood  of  construction  or  of  deductions,  insomuch 
that  he  who  brought  an  action  against  another  for  cutting  down  his  vines® 
was  held  to  have  lost  his  cause,  because  the  twelve  tables  forbade  only 
the  cutting  down  of  fruit  trees  generally,  without  any  particular  m.ention  of 
vines.  The  modes  of  action  were  five:40  1.  Sacramento;  2.  Per  judicis  postu- 


33  Quum  nexum  faciet   mancipiumque,  uti  in  the  MS.    It  was  to  be  found  in  his  first  book, 
lingua  nuncupasait  ita  jus  esto.     Fragm.  XII.  between  the  164th  and  165th  sections  of  the 
Tabular.  17,  apud  Haubold.    See  Dirksen,  p.  present  division.    There  is  no  more  difficult 
897-406.  question  in  Eoman  law  than  to  ascertain  when 

34  I  call  it  "qualified  male  succession,"  be-  and  to  what  extent  the  plebeians  acquired  "jura 
cause   although  a  man's  daughters  inherited  gentilitatis."      The  whole  institution    of  the 
along  with  his  sons,  yet  his  daughters'  sons  gentes  scorns  to  have  been  essentially  putri- 
were  altogether  excluded,  and  his  daughters,  cian;  and  it  was  the  boast  of  the  patricians, 
being  under  their  brothers' guardianship,  could  "  se  solos  gentem  habere,"  Livy,  X.  8.     Who, 
not  dispose  of  or  devise  their  inheritance  with-  then,  in  the  succession  to  the  *pix>perty  of  an 
out  their  consent.     By  the  Athenian  law  the  intestate  plebeian,  stood  in  a  position  antilogous 
sons  alone  inherited,  but  they  were  obliged  to  to  that  of  the  members  of  his  gens  in  the  suc- 
portion  out  their  sisters,  and  public  opinion  cession  to  the  property  of  a  patrician  ?    For  the 
would  not  allow  this  to  be  done  niggardly.  noblest  of  the  plebeian  families,  the  Ca?cilii,  for 

36  Gaius,  III.  §  2.  instance,  or  the  Decii,  could  have  had  no  con- 

86  The  reason  of  this  restriction  was,  that  if  nection  with  any  patrician  gens  such  as  subsist- 

the  son  were  in  his  father's  power,  he  was  him-  ed  between  the  plebeian  and  patrician  Claudii, 

self  his  father's  heir,  and  his  children  were,  of  so  that  it  does  not  appear  who  would  have  suc- 

course,  excluded  ;  if  he  had  lost  his  succession,  ceeded  to  the  property  of  an  intestate  Ceecilius, 

either  by  death  or  by  emancipation,  then  his  in  default  of  sui  hsere'des  and  agnati.    Was  it, 

children  succeeded  to  his  share  as  his  repre-  as  in  the  Athenian  law,  that  cognati,  a  term 

wentatives.  which  included  relations  by  the  mother's  side 

81  Gaius,  III.  §  9,  10.  By  the  law  of  the  XII.  as  well  as  by  the  father's,  were  capable  of  in- 
tables,  all  relations  by  the  father's  side,  wheth-  heriting  ?  And  if  no  relations  at  all  were  to  be 
er  male  or  female,  were  alike  included  under  found,  had  the  tribe  any  claim  to  the  succession, 
the  title  of  agnati ;  but  afterwards  the  meaning  or  was  the  property  considered  to  be  wholly 
of  the  term  was  more  limited,  and  female  rela-  without  an  heir,  and  thus  capable  of  being  ac- 
tions were  excluded  beyond  the  degree  of  a  quired  by  a  stranger  by  occupation,  possessio, 
sister.  A  man's  mother,  if  she  had  passed  "in  and  two  years' prescription,  usucapio  ?  In  this 
rnanum  mariti,"  acquired  the  rights  of  a  daugh-  case  there  would  be  a  possibility  of  the  property 
ter,  as  regarded  her  husband,  and  thus  was  of  a  plebeian  being  acquired  by  a  patrician, 
considered  in  the  light  of  a  sister  to  her  son.  whereas,  so  long  as  there  existed  a  single  mem- 
See  Justinian,  Institutes,  III.  Tit.  2,  §3.  ber  of  his  gens,  the  property  of  a  patrician  coul,' 

88  Gaius,  III.  §  17.     It  is  provoking  that  the  never  be  without  a  patrician  heir, 

part  of  Gaius'  work,  in  which  he  had  defined  w  Gaius,  IV.  §  11. 

who  were  a  man's  "gentiles,"  is  wholly  illegible  *°  Gaius,  IV.  §  12. 


106  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XIV 

lationem  ;    3.  Per  condictionem ;    4.  Per  manus  injectionem ;    5.  Per  pignoris 
captionem. 

1.  The  first41  of  these  was  the  most  generally  adopted  where  no  other  specific 
ut  Action:  sacramen-  action  was  prescribed  bylaw.    The  contending  parties  each  staked 

a  certain  sum  of  money,  "  sacramentum,"  on  the  issue  of  their 
suit,  five  hundred  ases,  if  the  value  of  the  disputed  property  amounted  to  one 
thousand  ases  or  more  ;  and  fifty,  if  it  fell  below  that  sum.  Only  if  the  suit 
related  to  the  establishing  of  the  freedom  of  any  one  claimed  as  a  slave,42  the  sac- 
ramentum was  fixed  at  the  lower  sum  of  fifty  ases,  lest  his  friends  might  be 
deterred  from  asserting  his  liberty,  by  the  greatness  of  the  sum  they  would  have 
to  forfeit  if  they  failed  in  proving  it.  For  the  party  who  lost  his  cause  forfeited 
his  stake  besides,  and  it  went  not  to  the  other  party,  but  to  the  state.  Accord- 
ingly, the  magistrate  having  named  a  judge  to  try  the  cause,  the  parties  appeared 
before  him,  and  first  briefly  stated  to  him  the  nature  of  their  respective  claims. 
Then  the  object  in  dispute,  if  it  were  any  thing  capable  of  moving  or  being 
moved,  was  brought  into  court  also,  and  the  plaintiff,  holding  a  rod  or  wand  in 
one  hand,43  and  laying  hold  of  the  object  which  he  claimed  with  the  other,  as- 
serted that  it  belonged  to  him  according  to  the  law  of  the  Quirites,  and  then 
laid  his  rod  upon  it.  The  defendant  did  the  same,  and  asserted  his  own  right  to 
it  in  the  same  form  of  words.  Then  the  judge  bade  them  both  to  loose  their 
hold,  and  this  being  done,  the  plaintiff  turned  to  the  defendant,  and  said,  "  Wilt 
thou  tell  me  wherefore  thou  hast  claimed  this  thing  as  thine?"  The  other  an- 
swered, "  I  have  fulfilled  what  right  requires,  even  as  I  have  made  my  claim." 
Then  the  plaintiff  rejoined,  "  Since  thou  hast  made  thy  claim  wrongfully,  I  defy 
thee  at  law ;  and  I  stake  five  hundred  ases  on  the  issue."  To  which  the  de- 
fendant replied,  "  In  like  manner,  and  with  a  like  stake,  do  I  also  defy  thee." 
Then  the  judge  awarded  possession  of  the  object  in  dispute  to  one  or  other  of 
the  parties  till  the  cause  should  be  decided,  and  called  upon  him  to  give  security 
to  his  adversary,  "  litis  et  vindiciarum,"  that  is,  that  he  would  make  good  to  him 
both  the  thing  itself,  "  litem,"  and  the  benefit  arising  from  his  temporary  posses- 
sion of  it,  "  vindicias,"  if  the  cause  were  finally  decided  against  him.  Both  par- 
ties also  gave  security  to  the  judge  that  their  stake,  or  sacramentum,  should  be 
duly  paid.  But  if  the  dispute  related  to  the  personal  freedom  of  any  man,  wheth- 
er he  were  to  be  adjudged  to  be  a  slave  or  a  freeman,  the  twelve  tables  expressly 
ordered  that  the  vindiciae,  or  temporary  possession,44  should  be  awarded  in  favor 
of  freedom,  that  the  man  should  remain  at  liberty,  till  it  were  proved  that  he 
was  lawfully  a  slave.  I  have  given  all  these  details,  partly  from  their  affording 
so  curious  an  illustration  of  the  legal  proceedings  of  the  fourth  century  of  Rome, 
partly  from  the  light  which  they  throw  on  the  famous  story  of  Virginia,  presently 
to  be  related,  and  partly  also  from  their  novelty  ;  our  whole  knowledge  of  the  old 
actions  at  law  being  derived  from  the  Institutes  of  Gaius,  which  in  their  entire 
and  original  form  were  first  discovered  by  Niebuhr  at  Yerona,  in  the  year  1816. 

2.  3.  The  account  of  the  second  and  third  modes  of  action  has  been  lost  out 
«d  and  3d  Actions:  of  the  MS.  of  Gaius,  so  that  we  can  neither  fully  understand  their 
neemj^dperFco1ldictio-  nature,  nor  how  they  differed  from  one  another.     So  far  as  we 

can  judge,  the  latter,  actio  per  condictionem,  appears  to  have 
been  a  sort  of  serving  a  notice  on  the  adversary,  calling  on  him  to  appear  at  the 
end  of  thirty  days,  to  submit  his  cause  to  the  judge.  The  former,  per  postula- 

41  Gaius,  IV.  §  13-17.  "  "  Festucam  tenebat."    This  was  apparent- 

42  In  the  case  of  a  slave's  liberty,  it  was  not  ly  a  rod  or  wand,  as  Gaius  says  afterwards, 
necessary  that  the    person  who  brought  the  "Festuca  autern  utebantur  quasi  hastae  loco, 
question  to  issue  should  have  any  connection  signo  quodam  justi  dominii,"  §  16.    It  cannot, 
with  the  slave,  or  any  personal  interest  for  him :  therefore,  signify  the  wisp  of  straw  or  chaff, 
it  was  the  duty,  or  rather  the  privilege,  of  ev-  which  Plutarch  says  was  thrown  on  a  slavb 
ery  man  to  save  a  freeman  from  the  perpetual  when  he  received  his  liberty.    Scs  Fficciolati  in 
loss  of  his  liberty.     "  In  his  qnee  asserantur  in  Festuca. 

libertatem,  quivis  lege  agere  potest."    Livy,        M  Vinclicioe  secundum  libertatem.     See  lavy, 
UI.  45.  III.  44,  45. 


CiiAF.XIV.]  THE  LAWS  OF  THE  TWELVE  TABLES.  107 

tionem  judicis,  was  an  application  to  the  magistrate  that  he  would  name  a  judge 
to  try  the  matter  in  dispute. 

4.  The  summary  process,  per  rnanus  injectionem,  was  allowed  by  the  twelve 
tables45  as  a  method  of  enforcing  the  fulfilment  of  the  judge's  sen-  4th  ^ction .  Per  ^ 
tence.     If  the  defendant,  after  having  lost  his  cause,  and  having  nu"  inJectionem- 
been  sentenced  to  pay  a  certain  sum  to  the  plaintiff,  had  neglected  to  do  so,  the 
plaintiff  might  lay  actual  hands  on  him,  and  unless  he  could  find  a  vindex,  or  de- 
fender, to  plead  his  cause  for  him,  he  being  himself  not  allowed  to  do  it,  he  was 
dragged  to  the  plaintiff's  house,  and  there  kept  in  chains  till  he  had  paid  all  that 
was  due  from  him. 

5.  Lastly,  the  action  per  pignoris  cap  tionem46  was  a  rude  method  of  distress, 
in  which  a  man  was  allowed,  in  certain  cases,  to  compel  his  adver-  5th  Ac(J-on.  per  pig. 
sury  to  pay  him  what  he  owed  him  by  carrying  off  articles  of  his  norU  caPtu"-~- 
property  as  a  pledge.     In  some  instances  it  rested  solely  on  old  unwritten  cus- 
tom, such  as  that  which  allowed  the  soldier,47  if  his  pay  were  withheld,  to  dis- 
train in  this  manner  upon  the  goods  of  the  officer  whose  business  it  was  to  give 
it  him.     The  twelve  tables  allowed  it  in  cases  connected  with  religious  worship  ; 
as,  for  instance,  it  was  permitted  against  him  who  had  bought  a  sheep  or  an  ox 
for  sacrifice,  and  had  not  paid  for  it ;  or  against  him  who  had  not  paid  for  the 
hire  of  a  beast,  which  the  owner  had  let  for  the  very  purpose  of  getting  money 
to  enable  him  to  offer  a  sacrifice  himself.     In  the  first  case,  there  was  an  impiety 
in  a  man's  offering  to  the  gods  that  which  was  not  his  own ;  in  the  second,  the 
gods  themselves  were  defrauded  of  their  sacrifice,  inasmuch  as  their  worshipper 
was  deprived  of  the  means  to  offer  it. 

I  have  purposely  postponed  my  notice  of  one  part  of  the  law,  that  which  re- 
lates to  obligations,  because  it  affords  an  easy  transition  to  another  ^ 
branch  of  the  subject,  the  criminal  law  of  the  twelve  tables ;  in- 
asmuch as  several  offences,  which  we  regard  as  crimes,  or  public  wrongs,  were 
by  the  Romans  classed  under  the  head  of  private  wrongs,  and  the  compensation 
which  the  offender  was  bound  to  make  to  the  injured  party,  followed  from  one 
species  of  civil  obligation,  technically  called  obligationes  ex  delicto. 

Over  and  above  our  general  duties  to  our  fellow-citizens,  we  put  ourselves 
often,  by  our  own  voluntary  act,  under  certain  new  and  specific  oblations  ex  contra- 
obligations  towards  them,  either  from  some  particular  engage-  tuand<j*delict°- 
ment  contracted  with  them,  or  from  our  having  done  them  some  wrong.  In  the 
first  case,  there  arises  an  obligation  to  fulfil  our  agreement ;  in  the  second,  an 
obligation  to  repair  our  injustice.  Hence  the  Roman  law48  divided  all  legal  obli- 
gations into  those  arising  from  engagement,  ex  contractu,  and  those  arising  from 
a  wrong  committed,  ex  delicto. 

I.  It  will  not  be  necessary  to  go  minutely  into  the  subdivisions  of  the  former 
of  these  two  classes  of  obligations.     To  the  head  of  obligationes 
re  contractae  belonged  the  law  of  debtor  and  creditor :  the  mere  ta£f^b5,  Merest 
fact  of  having  borrowed  money49  constituted  the  obligation  to  pay 
it,  without  any  promise  to  that  effect,  verbal  or  written,50  on  the  part  of  the  bor- 
rower.    But  as  the  remarkable  provisions  of  the  law  of  the  twelve  tables,  with 
regard  to  debtors,  have  been  already  noticed,  it  will  not  be  needful  to  state  them 

4b  Gaius,  IV.  §  21-25.  tuum,"  when  the  thing,  whatever  it  be,  is  given 

48  Gaius.  IV.  §  26-29.    With  regard  to  the  to  another  for  his  use,  with  the  understanding 
Orthography  of  the  word,  the  text  of  Gaius  va-  that  he  shall  return  to  us  hereafter  not  that  very 
ries,  exhibiting  in  one  passage  the  form  "  cap-  same  thing,  but  one  of  the  same  nature  and 
tionem,"  §12,  and  in  another  that  of  "capio-  quality.  ""Comrnodatum"  expressed  that  which 
ncm,"  §  26.    If  the  expression  be  made  one  is  lent  to  another,  with  the  understanding  that 
single  word,  the  form  would  be  pignoriscapio.  the  very  same  thing  shall  be  restored  to  us  again. 
See  Cato,   as  quoted  by  Gellius,   Noct.   Att.        w  The  English  law  considers  an  obligatio  ra 
VII.  10.  contracta  as  an  implied  contract;  such  a  con- 

47  Gaius,  IV.  §  27.  tract  "  as  reason  and  justice  dictate,  and  which, 

9  Gaius,  III.  §  88.  therefore,  the  law  presumes  that  every  man  un- 

49  Or  any  thing  else  which  can  be  weighed,  dertakes  to  perform."    Blackstone,  Comment, 
sounted,  or  measured.    This  was  called  "  mu-  Book  II.  c.  30,  §  IX. 


108  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XIV 

again.  One  part,  however,  of  the  engagements  of  debtors,  theii  being  bound  ta 
pay  the  interest  as  well  as  the  principal  of  their  debt,  belonged  to  obligations  c! 
another  class,  those  contracted  by  direct  words  of  covenant;  for  whereas  the 
payment  of  the  principal  was  an  obligation  re  contracta,  the  payment  of  interest 
was  a  matter  of  distinct  stipulation  between  the  contracting  parties.51  Yet  al- 
though this  may  seem  to  be  as  much  a  matter  of  voluntary  bargain  as  any  deal- 
ing between  man  and  man,  still  the  contracting  parties  meet  often  on  so  unequal 
a  footing,  and  the  weaker  is  so  little  in  a  condition  either  to  gain  more  favorable 
terms,  or  to  do  without  the  aid  of  which  they  are  the  price,  that  legislators  have 
generally  interfered  either  to  prohibit  such  engagements  altogether,  or  at  any 
rate  to  prevent  the  stronger  party  from  making  an  exorbitant  use  of  his  advan- 
tages ;  they  have  either  made  all  interest  of  money  illegal,  or  have  fixed  a  maxi- 
mum to  its  amount.  Accordingly,  the  decemvirs,  while  they  enforced  the  pay- 
ment of  debts  with  such  fearful  severity,  thought  themselves  bound  to  save  the 
debtor,  if  possible,  from  the  burden  of  an  extravagant  interest ;  they  forbade  any 
thing  higher  than  unciarium  fcenus,52  an  expression  which  has  been  variously  in- 
terpreted as  meaning,  in  our  language,  either  one  per  cent.,  or  cent,  per  cent. ; 
but  which,  according  to  Niebuhr,63  signifies  a  yearly  interest  of  one-twelfth,  or 
eight  and  one-third  per  cent. ;  and  this,  being  calculated  for  the  old  cyclic  year 
of  ten  months,  would  give  ten  per  cent,  for  the  common  year  of  twelve  months, 
which  was  in  ordinary  use  in  the  time  of  the  decemvirs.  This,  according  to  our 
notions,  is  sufficiently  high  ;  yet  the  common  rate  of  interest  at  Athens,  at  this 
time,  was  twelve  per  cent.  ;54  and  Niebuhr  observes,  that  from  this  period  for- 
ward for  sixty  years,  till  the  distress  which  followed  the  Gaulish  invasion,  we 
hear  no  more  of  the  misery  of  insolvent  debtors. 

A  third  class  of  obligations,55  ex  contractu,  contained  all  promises  or  covenants 

expressed  in  a  certain  form  of  words ;  and  here  the  Roman  law 
p'"-  acknowledged  such  only  to  be  legally  binding  as  were  concluded 

in  the  form  of  question  and  answer.  The  party  with  whom  the 
covenant  was  made  asked  him  who  made  it,  "  Dost  thou  engage  to  do  so  and 
so  ?"  And  he  answered,  "  I  do  engage."  It  is  a  curious  circumstance,  that  as 
the  Romans  had  a  peculiar  form  of  sale,  mancipatio,  which  none  but  Roman  cit- 
izens might  use,  so  also  they  had  one  peculiar  word  to  express  an  engagement, 
which  was  binding  only  on  Roman  citizens,  and  lost  its  force  even  on  them  if 
translated  into  another  language.  This  favorite  word  was  spondeo.56  A  Roman 
might  make  a  binding  covenant  with  a  foreigner  in  any  language  which  both 
parties  understood ;  if  it  were  drawn  up  in  Latin,  the  words  promitto,  dabo,  fa- 
ciam,  or  any  others  to  the  like  effect,  retained  their  natural  and  reasonable  force, 
and  constituted  an  agreement  recognized  by  law ;  but  if  he  used  the  word 
spondeo,  or  its  supposed  equivalent,  in  any  other  language,  the  engagement  was 
null  and  void.  This,  undoubtedly,  is  to  be  referred  to  the  religious  origin  of 

61  Gibbon,  Vol.  VIII.  chap.  xliv.  p.  85,  8vo.  Athens  we  have  r<koj  fTr/rptroj,  T<5*oj  fy«roy,  &c., 

ed.  1807,  considers  the  payment  of  interest  to  to  express  respectively  "Interest  of  a  third  and 

follow  from  an  obligation  ex  consensu,  and  to  of  a  sixth  part  of  the  sum  borrowed."    And  as 

come  under  the  general  head  of  letting  and  hir-  the  Greek  expressions  denote  the  interest  for  a 

ing,  locatio  and  conductio,  inasmuch  as  interest  year,  although  interest  was,  in  fact,  paid  every 

may  be  considered  as  the  hire  paid  for  the  tern-  month,  so  the  unciarium  foenus,  in  like  man- 

porary  use  of  money.    The  view  given  in  the  ner,  may  mean  interest  of  a  twelfth  part,  or 

text  is  that  of  Heineccius,  III.  15,  §  6,  and  of  eight  and  one  third  per  cent,  per  annum,  al- 

Hugo,  Geschichte  des  Rom.  Rechts,  p.  230,  though  a  part  of  it  was  at  Rome  also  paid 

Ed.  9.  monthly. 

63  Tacitus,  Annal.  VI.  16.     "  Duodecim  tabu-  63  See  his  chapter  "  iiber  den  Unzialzinsfuss," 

Us  sanctum,  ne  quis  unciario  foenore  amplius  in  the  third  volume  of  his  history,  p.  61. 

excrceret."     Now,  the  uncia  being  the  well-  M  See  Bockh,  "  Staatshaushaltung  der  Athe- 

known  twelfth  part  of  the  Roman  as,  or  pound,  ner,"  Vol.  I.  p.  143.    In  Demosthenes'  time, 

and  the  heavy  copper  coinage  of  the  old  times  twelve  per  cent,  at  Athens  was  considered  low. 

being  still  the  standard  at  Rome,  unciarium  foe-  "  "  Obligationes  verbis  contractor"     Gaius, 

nus  would  be  a  very  natural  expression  for  "  in-  III.  92. 

terest  of  an  ounce 'in  the  pound,"  that  is,  of  a  M  Gaius,  III.  §  93. 
twelfth  part  of  the  sum  borrowed.    Thus,  at 


Obligations  arising  from 
the  force  of  certain  pc 
euliar  words  or  forms. 


CHAP.  XIV.J  THE  LAWS  OF  THE  TWELVE  TABLES.  109 

the  term  ;  it  is  clearly  connected  with  oVsv^w,  and  denoted,  probably,  an  oath 
taken  with  the  sanction  of  certain  peculiar  rites,  such  as  a  stranger  could  not 
witness  without  profanation.  We  may  be  sure  that  spondeo  was  a  word  as  pecu- 
liar to  the  patricians  originally  as  it  was  afterwards  to  the  united  Roman  people 
of  patricians  and  commoners  :  there  was  a  time  when  it  could  have  been  nc 
more  used  in  a  covenant  with  a  plebeian,  than  it  was  afterwards  allowed  to  b« 
addressed  to  a  Greek  or  an  Egyptian. 

II.  The  second  division  of  obligations  included  those  which  arise  from  mii_ 
aving  wronged  our  neighbor,  the  obligation  of  making  good,  or 

0      .  ,.  ,£       .     .  1-1  i  °  -&T  II.  Obligationes  ex  do 

aking  reparation  for,  the  injury  which  we  have  done.  We  may  iwto.  Law  of  theft  and 
injure  either  the  person,  or  the  property,  or,  thirdly,  the  feelings 
and  character  of  another.  1.  Injuries57  to  the  person  were  divided  by  the  twelve 
tables  into  three  classes,  a.  If  a  limb  or  any  member  were  irreparably  injured, 
the  law  ordered  retaliation,  "eye  for  eye,  tooth  for  tooth,"  unless  the  injured 
party  chose  to  accept  of  any  other  satisfaction.  (3.  If  a  bone  were  broken  or 
crushed,  the  offender  was  to  pay  three  hundred  ases.  y.  And  all  other  bodily 
injuries  were  compensated  by  the  payment  of  twenty-five  ases.  The  poverty  of 
the  times,  says  Gaius,  made  these  money  penalties  seem  sufficiently  heavy  ;  but 
twenty-five  ases  could  never  have  been  a  very  heavy  penalty  to  the  majority  of 
the  patricians  ;  and  such  a  law  was  well  calculated  to  encourage  the  outrages 
which  Kseso  and  his  associates  and  imitators  were  in  the  habit  of  committing 
against  the  poorer  citizens.  2.  Injuries58  against  property,  on  the  other  hand, 
ere  visited  severely.  A  thief  in  the  night59  might  be  lawfully  slain  ;  or  by  day,60 
he  defended  himself  with  a  weapon.  If  a  thief  was  caught  in  the  fact,  he  was 
be  scourged  and  given  over,61  addicebatur,  to  the  man  whom  he  had  robbed  ; 
,nd  the  lawyers  doubted  whether  he  was  only  to  be  kept  in  chains  by  the  injured 
party  till  he  had  made  restitution,  probably  fourfold,  or  whether  he  was  to  be 
his  slave  forever.  Theft  not  caught  in  the  fact  was  punished  with  twofold  resti- 
tution.62 If  a  man  wanted  to  search  a  neighbor's  house  for  stolen  goods,  he  was 
to  search  naked,63  with  only  a  girdle  round  his  loins,  and  holding  a  large  dish  or 
platter  upon  his  head  with  both  his  hands  ;  and  if  he  found  his  goods,  then  the 
thief  was  to  be  punished  as  one  caught  in  the  fact.  3.  But  in  no  provision  of 
the  twelve  tables  does  the  aristocratical  spirit  of  their  authors  appear  more  man- 
ifest than  in  the  extreme  severity  with  which  they  visited  attacks  upon  character, 
and  in  the  large  extent  of  their  definition  of  a  punishable  libel.  They  declared 
it  an  offence  for  which64  a  man  should  be  visited  with  one  of  their  heaviest 

67  Gains,  III.  §  223.  precise  penalty  awarded  to  libels  in  the  twelve 

68  Gaius,  HI.  §  189.  tables.     The  foundation  of  our  knowledge  on 
'  "Sei  nox  fiirtum  factum  esit,  sei  im  occisit    this  subject,  is  the  passage  quoted  by  Augus- 

ure  caisus  esto."     Fragm.  XII.  Tabular.  §  10,  tine  (cle  Civit.  Dei,  II.  9),  from  the  fourth  book 

>ud  Haubold.  of  Cicero's  treatise,  Do  Republica.    "Duodeum 

60  Gains,  ad  cdictum  provinciale,  quoted  in  tabulae  cum  perpaucas  res  capite  sanxissent,  in 
.e  Digest,  XLVII.  De  furtis,  1.  54,  §  2.  his  hanc    quoque  sanciendam  putaverunt,   si 

61  Gaius,  III,  §  189.  quis  pccentavisset,   sive    carmen    condidisset, 
02  Gaius,  III,  §  190.  quod  inlamiam  faceret  flagitiumve  alteri."  And 
63  Gaius,  III.  192,  193.    The  notion  of  this  Augustine  in  another  place,  II.  12,  referring  to 

strange  law  was,  that  the  man  who  searched,  this  passage,  expresses  what  he  supposed  to  bo 

by  being  naked,  and  having  his  hands  occu-  its  meaning  in  nis  own  words  thus  :  "  Capite 

pied,  could  not  conceal  any  thing  about  him,  plectendum  sancientes  tale  carmen  condere  si 

which  he  might  leave  secretly  in  his  neighbor's  quis  auderet."     Augustine,  living  in  an  age 

house,  and  then  charge  him  with  theft.    It  is  when  capital  punishments,  in  our  sense  of  the 

curious  that  this  extraordinary  custom  seems  to  term,  were  common,  understands  Cicero's  words 

have  existed  also  at  Athens.    See  the  following  as  signifying  the  "  punishment  of  death."    But 

passage  from  the  Clouds  of  Aristophanes,  v.  in  Cicero's  time,  when  the  punishment  of  death 

107,  ccl.  Dindorf.  was,  so  far  as  Roman  citizens  were  concerned, 

•unknown  to  the  law,  the  expressions,  capite 

XSiKPATES.  —  "I6i  vw,  xardOov  QoljuaTiov.  sancire,  and  res  capitalis,  generally,  as  is  well 

STPEtlAAHS.  itfiK7)Kd  ri;  known,  have  a  milder  meaning,  and  caput  re- 

XliKP.  OVK.  a\\u  yvpvovs  tiaiivat  vopi^tTai.  fers  to  the  civil  rather  than  to  the  natural  life  of 

aXX1  oii%t  <j>ti)pdcrwv  eywy'  dfftpxopat.  a  citizen.    Thus  Gaius  says  expressly,  "  Poena 


manifest!  furti  ex  lego  XII.  tabularum  capitalis 
"  There  hr.vc  been  various  opinions  as  to  the    erat,"  III.  §  189.    And  then  he  goes  on,  "  Nam 


110  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XFV 

punishments,  involving  a  diminutio  capitis,  if  lie  publicly  uttered  in  word  or 
writing  any  thing  that  tended  to  bring  disgrace  upon  his  neighbor.  Cicero  re- 
fers to  this  law,  as  proving  the  existence  of  something  of  a  literature  in  the  times 
of  the  decemvirs ;  and  he  contrasts  it  with  the  license  enjoyed  by  the  comic 
poets  at  Athens.  No  doubt  satirical  songs  are  sufficiently  ancient,  and  these 
were  the  literature  which  the  decemvirs  dreaded ;  the  coarse  jests  which  were 
uttered  in  the  Fescennine  verses,  and  which  were  allowed,  as  at  a  kind  of  Satur- 
nalia, to  the  soldiers  who  followed  their  general  in  his  triumph.  But  the  effect 
of  this  law  was  to  make  the  ancient  poetry  of  Rome  merely  laudatory ;  and  af- 
terwards, when  prose  compositions  began,  they  caught  the  same  infection.  If 
the  poet  Naevius  could  be  persecuted  by  the  powerful  family  of  the  Metelli,  and 
obliged  to  leave  Rome  for  no  severer  satire  than  his  famous  line,  "Fato  Romae 
fiunt  Metelli  consules,"  we  may  readily  understand  how  little  an  humble  writer,  in 
recording  the  actions  of  a  great  patrician  house,  would  dare  to  speak  of  them 
truly.  And  hence  it  has  happened  that  the  falsehood  of  the  Roman  annals  is 
so  deeply  rooted,  and  that  there  is  scarcely  an  eminent  person  in  the  Roman 
history  who  is  spoken  of  otherwise  than  in  terms  of  respect.  It  may  be  said 
that  the  license  of  Athenian  comedy  spared  neither  the  innocence  of  Nicias,  nor 
the  pure  and  heroic  virtue  of  Pericles.  But  has  history,  therefore,  done  justice 
to  their  merit?  And  how  different  is  the  value  of  praise  when  given,  on  the 
one  hand,  by  the  free  pens  of  the  great  historians  of  Greece,  and  on  the  other, 
by  that  uniform  adulation  which  saw,  even  in  Marius  and  Sulla,  more  matter  for 
admiration  than  for  abhorrence  ! 

All  the  offences  hitherto  enumerated  were  considered  as  private  rather  than 

public  wrongs  ;  and  if  they  were  in  any  case  punished  capitally, 

it  was  rather  that  the  law  allowed  the  injured  party  to  take  into 

his  own  hands  the  extremcst  measure  of  vengeance,  than  that  the  criminal  suffered 

death  in  consequence  of  the  deliberate  sentence  of  the  judge.     But  some  offences 

were  regarded  as  crimes,  or  public  wrongs  in  the  strictest  sense  ;  they  were  tried, 

either  by  the  people  in  the  comitia  of  centuries,  or  by  judges,  like  the  quses- 

tores  parricidii,  specially  appointed  by  the  people.     Of  this  sort  were  parricide,61 

liber  vcrbcratus  addicebatur  ei  cui  furtum  fecc-  ment  of  a  libeller  involved  in  it  a  diminutio  ca- 
rat." On  the  other  hand,  not  to  insist  on  Hor-  pitis,  and  was  thus,  in  the  lloraan  sense  of  the 
ace's  line,  "  Vertere  modum  formidine  fastis,"  term,  capital.  It  may  be,  also,  that  the  sen- 
Cornutus,  the  scholiast  on  Persius,  says  ex-  tence  "ut  fuste  ferietur,"  not  being  limited  with 
pressly,  "  Lege  XII.  tabularum  cautum  est,  ut  the  careful  humanity  of  the  Jewish  law,  was, 
fustlbus  feriretur,  qui  publice  invehebatur,"  when  executed  with  severity,  fatal ;  and  that  a 
&c.  Yet  still  there  is  another  question,  for  the  man  who  had  thus  died  under  his  punishment 
military  punishment  of  the  fustuarium  was  no-  was  considered  as  jure  cassus.  It  might  thus 
toriously  often  fatal ;  and  it  may  be,  that  the  be  truly  said,  that  libels  were  punished  capital- 
expression  "  fusti  ferire,"  included  even  a  beat-  ly,  in  the  later  sense  of  the  term,  if  the  punish- 
ing to  death.  Thus  we  read  of  Egnatius  Metel-  ment  might,  in  fact,  be  made  to  amount  to  a 
lus,  "  qui  uxorem  fuste  percussam  interemit,"  sentence  of  death,  at  the  discretion  of  those 
Valer.  Max.  VI.  3,  §  9,  where  the  words  fuste  who  inflicted  it.  But  the  law  meant  only,  that 
percussam  are,  I  think,  meant  to  describe  the  the  libeller  should  be  beaten,  and  incur' also  a 
manner  of  the  death,  rather  than  a  punishment  diminutio  capitis ;  and  this  was  sufficiently  se- 
inflicted  previously  to  the  capital  one.  And  vere,  when  we  find  that  the  most  grievous  bod- 
yet  fuhtigatio,  in  the  estimate  of  the  later  law,  ily  injuries,  although  visited  by  punishment  in 
was  a  milder  punishment  than  flagellatio ;  and  kind,  yet  did  not  involve  any  forfeiture  of  civil 
the  Digest  calls  it  "  fustigationis  admonitio." —  rights. 
See  Ilcineccius,  IV.  18,  §7.  ~w  Every  one  knows  the  famous  punishment 

If  we  look  to  the  later  law,  in  order  to  learn  of  the  parricide,  that  he  should  be  scourged, 
what  was  then  the  punishment  of  libel,  we  then  sewn  up  in  a  sack,  in  company  with  a  dog, 
Khali  find  that,  according  to  Ulpian  (Digest.  Do  a  viper,  and  a  monkey,  and  thrown  into  the 
vt;jnr.  et  famosis  libellis,  1.  5,  §  9),  the  libeller  sea.  But  it  is  not  certain  that  this  was  a  law 
was  to  be  intcstabilis,  that  is,  he  could  neither  of  the  twelve  tables.  Cicero  mentions  only  the 
give  evidence  in  a  court  of  justice,  nor  make  a  sewing  up  of  the  parricide  in  a  sack,  and  throw- 
will.  And  in  the  somewhat  vague  language  of  ing  him  into  the  river.  And  he  merely  says, 
the  Theodosian  Code,  IX.  34,  f  10,  libellers  are  "  Majores  nostri  supplicium  in  parricidas  sin- 
to  dread  "  ultorem  suis  cervicibus  gladium."  gulare  excogitaverunt,"  pro  Rpscio  Amerino, 
But  "famosi  libelli,"  in  the  Theodosian  Code,  25.  It  may  have  been  a  traditional  punisn- 
rueans,  perhaps,  something  different  from  the  ment,  older  than  even  the  twelve  tables.  So, 
libellous  cannina  of  the  XII.  tables.  again,  nothing  is  known  of  the  law  of  the 

On  the  whole,  it  is  certain  that  the  punish-  twelve  tables  respecting  murder.    Pliny  onlv 


CHAP.  XIV.]  THE  LAWS  OF  THE  TWELVE  TABLES.  HI 

and  probably  all  murder,  arson,66  false  witness,67  injuring  a  neighbor's  corn 
by  night,63  witchcraft,69  and  treason."0  The  punishment  for  these  crimes  was 
death,  either  by  beheading,  hanging,  throwing  the  criminal  from  the  Tarpeian 
rock,  or  in  some  cases  by  burning  alive.  This  last  mode  of  execution  was 
adjudged  by  the  twelve  tables  to  the  crime  of  arson :  but  a  memorial  has  been 
preserved  by  the  lawyers,  confirmatory  of  the  story  already  mentioned  of  the 
execution  of  the  nine  adversaries  of  the  consul  T.  Sicinius,  that  there  was  a  time 
when  burning  alive  was  the  punishment  of  enemies  and  deserters.71  The  "  ene- 
mies" here  meant  could  not  have  been  merely  foreigners  taken  in  war,  for  their 
punishment  could  have  found  no  place  in  the  civil  or  domestic  law  of  Rome  ; 
they  must  rather  have  been  those  Roman  traitors  who,  according  to  a  form  pre- 
served till  the  latest  period  of  the  commonwealth,  were  solemnly  declared  to  be 
enemies  of  their  country. 

When  we  read  of  capital  punishments  denounced  by  the  Roman  law,  and  yet 
hear  of  the  worst  criminals  remaining;  at  liberty  till  the  very  end 

c     i      •      i    •    i  11-  n  i^  *      •  i  •  La"'  of  bail- 

oi  their  trial,  and  being  allowed  to  escape  their  sentence  by  going 
into  voluntary  banishment,  we  are  inclined  to  ask  whether  the  law  meant  to 
threaten  merely,  and  never  to  strike  an  offender.  Niebuhr  has  explained  this 
seeming  contradiction  with  his  usual  sagacity ;  it  will  be  enough  to  say  here, 
that  although  the  Roman  law,  like  the  old  law  of  England,  did  not  refuse  bail 
for  a  man  accused  of  treason  or  felony,72  yet  it  was  by  no  means  a  matter  of 
course  that  it  should  be  granted  ;  and  ordinary  criminals,  at  least  in  these  early 
times,  were,  in  the  regular  course  of  things,  committed  to  prison  to  abide  their 
trial,  nearly  with  as  much  certainty  as  in  England. 

And  now  we  come  to  the  constitutional  law  of  the  twelve  tables,  a  subject 
almost  of  greater  interest  than  the  common  law,  but  one  involved 

,  Constitutional  law. 

in  much  greater  obscurity,  tour  or  five  enactments  alone  have 
been  preserved  to  us  :  1.  That  there  should  be  an  appeal  to  the  people73  from 
the  sentence  of  every  magistrate.  2.  That  all  capital  trials74  should  be  conduct- 
ed before  the  comitia  of  the  centuries.  3.  That  privilegia,75  or  acts  of  pain  and 
penalties  against  an  individual,  should  be  unlawful.  4.  That  the  last  decision76 
of  the  people  should  supersede  all  former  decisions  on  the  same  subject.  5.  That 
the  debtor  whose  person  and  property  were  pledged  to  his  creditor,  nexus,77  and 

Bays  that  the  turning  cattle  into  a  neighbor's  were  bailable."  Blackstone,  Vol.  IV.  p.  298. 
corn  by  n'ght  was  punished  by  the  twelve  ta-  The  statute  law  has  greatly  restricted  this  pow- 
bles  more  severely  than  murder;  insomuch  as  er,  so  far,  at  least,  as  justices  of  the  peace  are 
the  offender  was  'hanged  up  as  devoted  to  Ce-  concerned;  for  "the  court  of  King's  bench 
res,  and  so  put  to  death.  Histor.  Natur.  XVIII.  may  bail  for  any  crime  whatsoever,  "bo  it  trea- 
3.  Of  course  murder  was  punished,  and  prob-  son,  murder,  or  any  other  offence."  Black- 
ably  with  death  ;  but  the  criminal  was  be-  stone,  IV.  p.  299.  This  last  doctrine,  however, 
headed,  we  may  suppose,  and  this  would  be  was  contested  by  Junius,  in  his  famous  letter 
considered  as  a  less -punishment  than  hanging,  to  Lord  Mansfield,  in  which  he  contends, 

66  Gaius,  IV.  ad  Leg.  XII.  tabularum  apud  agreeably  to  the  notion  of  the  Greek  and  Ko- 

Digest.  XLVII.  Tit.  IX.  §  9.  De  incendio,  man  law,  that  no  power  could  bail  a  thief  taken 

ruina,  naufragio.  with  the  manner,  that  is,  with  the  thing  stolen 

07  Aulus  Gellius,  XX.  1.  upon  him.     In  cases  of  crimes  committed  by 

Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.  XVIII.  3.  persons  of  high  birth,  like  Kseso  Quinctius,  the 

1  Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.  XXVIII.  2.  being  allowed  to  offer  bail  was  a  means  of 

70  Digest.  XLVIII.     Tit.  VI.  §  2.     Ad  Le-  evading  justice ;  and  so  it  was  found  to  be  in 
gem  Juliam  Majestatis.  England,  before  parliament  interfered  to  amend 

71  Digest.   XLVIII.     Tit.  XIX.    De  poenis,  the  common  law.     But  humble  and  ordinary 
1.  8,  §  2._    Ilostes  autem  item  transfugro  ea  poe-  criminals  would  not  equally  be  allowed  to  profit 
na  alh'eiuntur,  ut  vivi  exurantur.     Godefroy  by  it. 

remarks  that  we  never  read  of  enemies  so  pun-        73  Cicero,  de  Republica,  II.  31. 


ished,  and  some  have  proposed  to  read  "  hos-  74  Cicero,  de  Legibus,  III.  19. 

tes,  i.  e.  transfugJE,"  as  if  deserters  alone  were  75  Cicero,  de  Legibus,  III.  19. 

intended.     I  believe  that  the  common  reading  76  Livy,  VII.  17  ;  IX.  84. 

is  light,  but  that  it  relates,  as  I  have  observed,  77  See  Festus  in  "  Sanates." — B  it  it  is  right 

to  the  Romans,  who  were  declared  enemies  of  to  say  that  the  sentence  has  been  conjecturally 


their  country.  That  a  foreign  enemy,  how-  restored  by  Scaliger,  all  the  words  actually  i 
ever,  might  be  sometimes  so  treated.,  is  not  im-  maining  in  the  MS.  being  these,  which  I  ha 
possible,  as  is  shown  by  the  story  of  Cyrus'  printed  in  the  Eoman  character : 


treatment  of  Croesus.  in  xii  nexo  sol u toque 

n  "  By  the  ancient  common  law  all  felonies  forti  sanative  idem  jus  esto. 


112 


HISTORY  OF  ROME. 


[CHAP.  XIV 


he  who  remained  the  free  master  of  both,  solutus,  should  be  equal  in  the  sight 
of  the  law  ;  that  is,  that  the  nexus  should  not  be  considered  to  be  infamis.  And 
the  same  legal  equality  is  given,  also,  to  the  fortis  and  the  sanas  ;78  terms  which 
were  merely  guessed  at  in  the  Augustan  age,  and  which  it  is  hopeless  to  attempt 
to  understand  now.  A  sixth  enactment  is  expressly  ascribed  to  the  last  two 
tables,  which  Cicero  described  as  full  of  unequal  laws,79  namely,  that  between 
the  burghers  and  the  commons  there  should  be  no  legal  marriages  ;  if  a  burgher 
married  the  daughter  of  a  plebeian,  his  children  followed  their  mother's  condi- 
tion, and  were  not  subject  to  their  father,  nor  could  inherit  from  him  if  he  died 
intestate. 

With  no  further  knowledge  than  of  these  mere  fragments,  we  can  judge  but 

The  ramtitntioiiBi  ^^e  °^  ^e  tenor  °^  ^e  w^°^e  ^aw  >  but  jet,  if  we  had  the  entire 
changes  effected  by  the  text  of  the  twelve  tables  before  us,  we  should  probably  find  in 

decemvirs  were   proha-       T  on  T  •  «     i  •          •  i       i  i   • 

bb^t^ntmnedmtiie  them*0  no  direct  mention  of  the  great  constitutional  changes  which 
the  decemvirs  are,  with  reason,  supposed  to  have  effected.  Their 
code  of  laws  was  the  expression  of  their  legislative,  rather  than  of  their  constit- 
uent power ;  it  contained  the  rules  hereafter  to  be  observed  by  the  Roman  peo- 
ple, but  would  not  notice  those  previous  organic  changes  by  which  the  very 
composition,  so  to  speak,  of  the  people  itself,  was  so  greatly  altered. 

These  changes  were  wrought  by  virtue  of  that  particular  branch  of  their  sov- 
ereign power,  which  was  afterwards  perpetuated  in  the  censorship.     When  we 


The  words  in  Italics,  which  complete  the  lines, 
were  supplied  by  Sealiger.  It  has  already  been 
mentioned,  Chap.  XIII.  note  39,  that  the  only 
existing  MS.  of  Festus  has  suffered  from  a  fire, 
by  which  half  of  many  of  the  pages  has  been 
burnt  away  vertically  from  top  to  bottom,  so 
that  every  line  is  left  mutilated. 

78  Our  whole  knowledge  of  this  enactment  is 
derived  from  the  mutilated  article  in  Festus, 
on  the  word  "  Sanates."    The  epitome  of  Pau- 
lus  gives  a  foolish  etymology,  and  says  that  the 
Sanates  were  people  dwelling  above  and  below 
Rome,  who  first  revolted,  but  soon  afterwards 
returned  to  their  duty,  and  were  called  "Sa- 
nates :"    "  quasi    sanata    mente."      And    the 
"  Fortes,"  according  to  Paulus,   were  "  boni 
qui  nunquam  defecerant  a  populo  Romano." 
This  is  all  improbable  enough ;  but  Niebuhr 
says  that  the  terms  sanas  and  fortis  must  prob- 
ably be  understood  either  of  bondmen  and  free- 
men, or  of  those  who  had  hitherto  been  vassals 
in  the  ancient  colonial  towns,  and  the  colonists. 
It  is  impossible,  in  the  present  state  of  our 
knowledge,  to  give  any  thing  more  certain  on 
the  subject. 

79  Cicero,  de  Republica,  II.  37. 

80  The  twelve  tables  were  extant  down  to  the 
latest  age  of  Roman  literature,  and  their  con- 
tents were  familiarly  known.     Had  they  con- 
tained, therefore,  many  regulations  of  a  con- 
stituent cast,  such,  for  instance,  as  related  to 
the  powers  of  the  several  orders  in  the  state, 
to  the  enrolment  of  the  burghers  and  their 
clients  in  the  tribes,  the  Roman  writers  could 
not  possibly  have  showed  such  great  ignorance 
of  the  early  state  of  their  constitution,  as  they 
have  done  actually.     On  one  point,  however, 
on  which  the  twelve  tables   appear  to  have 
spoken  expressly,  the  practice  and  the  law  in 
after  times  may  seem  to  have  been  at  variance. 
I  allude  to  the  famous  provision,  "  De  capite 
eivis  nisi  per  maximum  comitiatum  ne  ferun- 
to,"  a  provision  which  appears  to  make  the 
Centuries  the  sole  criminal  court,  and  to  require 
that  every  ordinary  felon  should  be  tried  before 
their. :  which  we  know  was  not  the  case,  and 
woa'd  have  been,  in  fact,  absurd  and  impossi- 


ble. But,  in  the  first  place,  the  institution  of 
the  judices  select!,  in  later  times,  was  intended 
to  be  a  sort  of  representation  of  the  whole  peo- 
ple for  judicial  purposes  ;  so  that  a  condemna- 
tion by  these  judges  was  final,  and  could  not 
be  appealed  against,  like  the  sentence  of  a 
magistrate  (Cicero,  Philipp.  I.  c.  9).  And, 
again,  there  was  taken  out  of  the  jurisdictior. 
of  the  centuries  all  those  cases  of  flagrant  and 
evident  guilt,  which,  according  to  the  Roman 
notions,  needed  no  trial  at  all.  The  difference 
in  the  penalty  affixed  to  the  crimes  of  furtum 
manifestum  and  nee  manifestum,  is  very  re- 
markable :  in  the  former  case,  the  thief  was 
scourged  and  given  over,  addictus,  to  the  party 
whom  he  had  injured  ;  in  the  latter  case  he 
had  only  to  restore  twofold.  So  the  man  who 
attacked  his  neighbor  in  satirical  songs,  the 
murderer  caught  "  red  hand,"  the  incendiary 
detected  in  setting  fire  to  his  neighbor's  house 
or  corn,  would,  like  the  fur  manifestus,  be  hur- 
ried off  at  once  to  condign  punishment,  and  all 
trial  would  be  held  unnecessary.  And  the 
same  summary  justice  would  be  dealt  to  the 
false  witness  and  to  the  rioter.  It  is  probable, 
also,  that  the  magistrates,  using  that  large  dis- 
cretion which  the  practice  of  Rome  gave  them, 
would  punish  summarily  crimes  as  to  which 
the  guilt  of  the  accused  was  perfectly  clear, 
even  though  he  might  not  have  been  caught  in 
the  fact.  When  it  is  further  remembered,  that 
slaves  and  strangers  were  wholly  subject  to  the 
magistrates'  jurisdiction,  and  that  there  are 
states  of  society  in  which  crimes  of  a  serious 
description  are  extremely  rare,  it  may  be  con- 
ceived that  the  criminal  business  of  the  centu- 
ries would  not  be  very  engrossing. 

However,  if  M.  Manlius  was,  as  Niebuhr 
thinks,  tried  and  condemned  by  the  comitia  of 
curise,  and  not  by  the  centuries',  it  would  have 
been  a  direct  violation  of  the  law  of  the  twelve 
tables.  But  the  story  of  Manlius,  as  we  shall 
see  hereafter,  is  too  uncertain  to  be  argued 
upon ;  and  it  will  not,  perhaps,  be  found  ne- 
'cessary  to  suppose  that  he  was  really  sentenced 
by  the  curise. 


find 


p.  XIV.]  POWERS  OF  THE  DECEMVIRATE.  113 

the  censor  Q.  Maximus81  annihilating  at  once  the  political  influ- 

,,  .  /.   .  i  11  /•     •  ii^i  They  were  effected  by 

ence  ot  a  great  portion  ot  the  people,  by  contmmg  all  ireedmen  to  virtue  of  their  ceusormu 
four  tribes  only  ;  when  we  read  of  another  censor,  M.  Livius,82  dis-  ** 
franchising  the  whole  Roman  people,  with  the  exception  of  one  single  tribe,  an 
xercise  of  power  so  extravagant  indeed  as  to  destroy  itself,  yet  still,  so  far  as 
ipears,  perfectly  legal,  we  can  scarcely  understand  how  any  liberty  could  be  con- 
tent with  such  an  extraordinary  prerogative  vested  in  the  magistrate.     But  if 
mmon  censors  in  ordinary  times  possessed  such  authority,  much  more  would  it- 
enjoyed  by  the  decemviri.   They  therefore  altered  the  organization  of  the  Roman 
ople  at  their  discretion  ;  the  clients  of  the  burghers,  and  even  the  burghers  them- 
Ives,  were  enrolled  in  the  tribes  ;  and  the  list  of  citizens  was  probably  increased 
by  the  addition  of  a  great  number  of  freedmen,  and  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
oldest  Roman  colonies,  mostly  the  remains  of  the  times  of  the  monarchy.     But 
whether  it  was  at  this  time  that  the  comitia  of  centuries  assumed  that  form  in  which 
alone  they  existed  in  the  historical  period  of  Rome,  whether  the  tribes  were  now 
introduced  to  vote  on  the  Field  of  Mars  as  well  as  in  the  Forum,  is  a  question  not 
to  be  answered.     We  may  be  more  sure  that  whilst  the  patricians  were  admitted 
into  the  tribes  of  the  commons,  they  still  retained  their  own  comitia  of  curise,  and 
eir  power  of  confirming  the  election  of  every  magistrate  by  conferring  on  him 
e  imperium,  and  of  voting  upon  every  law  which  had  been  passed  by  the  tribes 
or  centuries. 

But  Niebuhr  has  further  conjectured  that  the  decemvirs  were  intended  to  be  a 
perpetual  magistracy,  like  the  archons  at  Athens  in  their  original 
~  "nstitution  ;  that  the  powers  afterwards  divided  amongst  the  mili-  BsTthe1  permanency  oi 
7  tribunes,  the  censors,  and  the  quaestores  parricidii,  were  to  be 
ited  in  a  college  of  ten  officers,  chosen  half  from  the  patricians,  and  half  from 
e  plebeians,  and  to  remain  in  office  for  five  years.     And  as  the  plebeians  were 
us  admitted  to  an  equal  share  in  the  government,  the  tribunitian  power,  intended 
cially  to  protect  them  from  the  oppression  of  the  government,  was  no  longer 
ded,  and  therefore,  as  Niebuhr  supposes,  the  tribuneship  was  not  to  exist  in 
e  future  constitution. 

Niebuhr 's  conjectures  in  Roman  history  are  almost  like  a  divination,  and  must 
never  be  passed  over  without  notice.  But  as  the  decemvirate,  whether  intended 
to  be  temporary  or  perpetual,  was  soon  overthrown,  it  does  not  seem  necessary  to 
enter  further  into  the  question ;  and  the  common  story  appears  to  me  to  contain 
in  it  nothing  improbable.  Its  details,  doubtless,  are  traditional,  and  are  full  of 
the  variations  of  traditional  accounts  ;  still  they  are  not  like  the  mere  poetical  sto- 
ries of  Cincinnatus  or  Coriolanus,  and  therefore  I  shall  proceed  to  give  the  account 
of  the  second  decemvirate,  of  the  tyranny  of  Appius  and  the  death  of  Virginia, 
not  as  giving  full  credit  to  every  circumstance,  but  as  considering  it,  to  use  the 
^nguage  of  Thucydides,  as  being  in  the  main  sufficiently  deserving  of  belief. 

M  Livy,  IX.  46.  »  Livy,  XXIX.  37. 


CHAPTER  XV, 

THE  SECOND  DECEMVIR  ATE— STORY  OF  VIRGINIA-REVOLUTION  OF  305. 


Ma'Xiora  tiXa/toaSat  <kt  TOIT?  i/?p/$£crSat  vopi^ovras,  %  avrov;,  »}  «»/  Kri56fic 
ft  tavruv  cxovciv  ol  Sid  Svpov  Ixixetpovvres. — ARISTOTLE,  Politica,  V.  11. 


THE  first  decemvirs,  according  to  the  general  tradition1  of  the  Roman  annalists, 
governed  uprightly  and  well,  and  their  laws  of  the  ten  tables 

Decemvirs  are  elected    °  i    &          ,  .  ,,  -,-,       •,-,-,• 

for^econd  year.  AP-  were  just  and  good.  All  parties  were  so  well  pleased,  that  it  was 
resolved  to  continue  the  same  government  at  least  for  another 
year  ;  the  more  so  as  some  of  the  decemvirs  declared  that  their  work  was  not  yet 
corrplete,  and  that  two  tables  still  required  to  be  added.  And  now  the  most 
eminent  of  the  patricians,2  L.  Quinctius  Cincinnatus,  T.  Quinctius  Capitolim  «,  and 
C.  Claudius,  became  candidates  for  the  decemvirate ;  but  the  commons  had  little 
reason  to  place  confidence  in  any  of  them,  and  might  well  be  afraid  to  trust  un- 
limited power  in  their  hands.  Appius  Claudius,  on  the  contrary,  had  been  tried, 
and  had  been  found  seemingly  trustworthy :  he  and  his  colleagues  had  used  their 
power  moderately,  and  had  done  their  duty  as  lawgivers  impartially  ;  and  such 
men  were  more  to  be  trusted  than  the  well-known  supporters  of  the  old  ascend- 
ency of  the  burghers.  Appius  availed  himself  of  this  feeling,  and  exerted  him- 
self strenuously  to  procure  his  re-election.  But  his  colleagues,  now  becoming 
jealous  of  him,  contrived3  that  he  should  himself  preside  at  the  comitia  for  the 
election  of  the  new  decemvirs  ;  it  being  considered  one  of  the  duties  of  the  offi- 
cer who  presided  at,  or,  in  Roman  language,  who  held  the  comitia,  to  prevent 
the  re-election  of  the  same  man  to  the  same  office  two  successive  years,  by  re- 
fusing to  receive  votes  in  his  favor  if  offered :  and  most  of  all  would  he  be  ex- 
pected to  prevent  it,  when  the  man  to  be  re-elected  was  himself.  But  the  peo- 
ple might  remember,  that  within  the  last  few  years  they  had  owed  to  the  repeated 
re-election  of  the  same  tribunes  some  of  their  greatest  privileges  ;  and  that  then, 
as  now,  the  patricians  had  earnestly  endeavored  to  prevent  it.  They  therefore 
elected  Appius  Claudius  to  the  decemvirate  for  the  second  time,  and,  passing 
over  all  his  former  colleagues,  and  all  the  high  aristocratical  candidates,  they 
elected  with  him  four  patricians,  and,  as  Niebuhr  thinks,  five  plebeians.  The  pa- 
tricians4 were  M.  Cornelius  Maluginensis,  whose  brother  had  been  consul  nine 
years  before  ;  M.  Sergius,  of  whom  nothing  is  known  ;  L.  Minucius,  who  had  been 
consul  in  the  year  296,  and  Q.  Fabius  Vibulanus,  who  had  been  already  thrice 
consul,  in  28*7,  289,  and  295.  Kaeso  Duilius,  Sp.  Oppius  Cornicen,  and  Q.  Poe- 
telius,  are  expressly  said  by  Dionysius  to  have  been  plebeians ;  and  we  know  of 
none  but  plebeian  families  of  the  first  and  last  of  these  names,  nor,  with  one  sin- 
gle exception,5  of  the  second.  The  remaining  two  decemvirs  were  T.  Antonius 
Merenda,  and  M.  Rabuleius,  and  these  we  should  judge  from  their  names  to  have 

1  Livy,  III.  33,  34.  the  Poetelii,  Antonii,  and  Rabuleii ;  and  the  pa- 

*  Livy,  III.  35.  trician  brandies  of  these  families  may  have  be- 

Livy,  III.  35.  come  extinct  long  before  the  time  when  their 

4  Livy,  III.  35.    Dionysius,  X.  58.  names  became  famous  in  history.    Livy  seems 

6  A  vestal  virgin  of  the  name  of  Oppia  is  men-  to  have  regarded  the  decemviri  as  all  patricians  ; 

tioned  in  the  annals  of  the  year  271  (Livy,  II.  and  if  their  names  had  presented  a  manifest 

42),  and  she  must  have  been  a  patrician.     Nor  proof  of  the  contrary,  he  surely  must  have  been 

is  it  improbable  that  there  was,  in  the  times  of  aware  of  it,  the  more  so  as  the  plebeian  Duilius 

the  decemviri,  a  patrician  as  well  as  a  plebeian  acts  an  important  part  in  his  narrative  of  thia 

family  of  Duilii,  just  as  there  were  patrician  and  very  period. 

plebeian  Sicinii.    And  the  same  may  be  said  of 


CHAP.  XV.]  THE  SECOND  DECEMVIRATE.  115 

been  plebeians  also ;  but  Dionysius  distinguishes  them  from  the  three  preceding 
them,  and  classes  them  with  three  of  the  patrician  decemvirs,  merely  as  men  of 
no  great  personal  distinction. 

Experience  has  shown  that  even  popular  leaders,  when  intrusted  with  absolute 
power,  have  often  abused  it  to  the  purposes  of  their  own  tyranny, 

:yet  these  have  commonly  remained  so  far  true  to  their  old  principles 
as  zealously  to  abate  the  mischiefs  of  aristocracy  ;  and  thus  they  have  done  scarcely 
less  good  in  destroying  what  was  evil,  than  evil  in  withholding  what  was  good.  But" 
to  give  absolute  power  to  an  aristocratical  leader  is  an  evil  altogether  unmixed. 
An  aristocracy  is  so  essentially  the  strongest  part  of  society,  that  a  despot  is 
always  tempted  to  court  its  favor ;  and  if  he  is  bound  to  it  by  old  connections, 
and  has  always  fought  in  its  cause,  this  tendency  becomes  irresistible.  So  it  was 
with  Appius  :  the  instant  that  he  had  secured  his  election,  he  reconciled  himself 
with  his  old  party,6  and  labored  to  convince  the  patricians  that  not  their  own 
favorite  candidates,  the  Quinctii,  or  his  own  kinsman,  C.  Claudius,  could  have 
served  their  cause  more  effectually  than  himself.  Accordingly  the  decemvirate 
rested  entirely  on  the  support  of  the  patricians.  The  associations  or  clubs,7  Kse- 
so's  old  accomplices,  were  the  tools  and  sharers  of  the  tyranny  ;  even  the  better 
patricians  forgave  the  excesses8  of  their  party  for  joy  at  its  restored  ascendency  ; 
the  consulship,  instead  of  being  controlled,  as  the  commons  had  fondly  hoped, 
by  fresh  restraints,  was  released  even  from  those  which  had  formerly  held  it ; 
instead  of  two  consuls,  there  were  now  ten,  and  these  no  longer  shackled  by  the 
~  alerian  law,  nor  kept  in  check  by  the  tribuneship,  but  absolute,  with  more  than 

he  old  kingly  sovereignty.     Now,  indeed,  said  the  patricians,  the  expulsion  of 

,he  Tarquins  was  a  real  gain ;  hitherto  it  had  been  purchased  by  some  painful 
condescensions  to  the  plebeians,  and  the  growing  importance  of  those  half  aliens 
had  impaired  the  majesty  of  what  was  truly  Rome.  But  this  was  at  an  end ; 
and  by  a  just  judgment  upon  their  insolence,  the  very  revolution  which  they  had 
desired  was  become  their  chastisement ;  and  the  decemvirate,  which  had  been 
designed  to  level  all  the  rights  of  the  patricians,  was  become  the  instrument  of 
restoring  to  them  their  lawful  ascendency. 

The  decemvirate  seems,  indeed,  to  have  exhibited  the  perfect  model  of  an  aris- 
tocratical royalty,9  vested  not  in  one  person,  but  in  several,  held 
not  for  life,  but  for  a  single  year,  and  therefore  not  confined  to  one 
single  family  of  the  aristocracy,  but  fairly  shared  by  the  whole 
order.  Towards  the  commons,  however,  the  decemvirs  were,  in  all  respects,  ten 
kings.  Each  was  attended  by  his  twelve  lictors,  who  carried  not  the  rods  only, 
but  the  axe,10  the  well-known  symbol  of  sovereignty.  The  colleges  of  ordinary 
magistrates  were  restrained  by  the  general  maxim  of  Roman  law,  "  melior  est 
nditio  prohibentis,"  which  gave  to  each  member  of  the  college  a  negative  upon 

he  act  of  his  colleagues.     But  the  decemvirs  bound  themselves  by  oath11  each 
respect  his  colleagues'  majesty  ;  what  one  decemvir  did,  none  of  the  rest  might 

o.  Then  followed  all  the  ordinary  outrages  of  the  ancient  aristocracies  and  tyr- 
annies ;  insult,  oppression,  plunder,  and  blood ;  and,  worst  of  all,  the  license  of 
the  patrician  youth  was  let  loose  without  restraint  upon  the  wives  and  daughters 
of  the  plebeians.12  Meanwhile  the  legislation  of  the  decemvirs  was  to  complete 

8  Livy  III.  36.   Aliquandiu  sequatus  inter  om-        9  Decem  regum  species  erat.    Livy,  III.  36. 
nes  terror  fu.it :  paullatim  totus  vertere  in  pie-        10  Cum  fascibus  secures  illigatas  praeferebant. 

bem  coepit.     Abstinebatur  a  patribus,  in  hu-  Livy,  III.  36. 
miliores  libidinose  crudeliterque  consulebatur.        u  Intercessionem    consensu    sustulerant,    is 

7  Patriciis  juvenibus  sepserant  latera,  eorum  Livy's  expression,   III.   36.     Dionysius   adds, 

catervaa  tribunalia  obsederant.     Livy,  III.  37.  opuia  rc^dvrtg  a-rrdfiptjra  TW  TrAijfot,  X,  59.     These 

'E-ratptiav  cxaaroi  awrjyov,  ti:i\ty6iitvoi  rov$  Opaov-  oaths  resembled  those  which  were  sometimes 

rarovj  rd>v  vitav  Kal  o^pioiv  aurojj  kitirri^tioTdrov^.  taken  by  the  ruling  members  of  the  Greek  oli- 

Dionysius,  X.  60.  garchics  :  KOI  r<3  tripy  Kaxdvovs  eaoftai,  Kat  /JovA 

6  Primores  Patrum — nee  probare  quae  fierent,  S  ri  &v  ?XW  xaxdv.    Aristotle,  Politica,  V.  9. 
ct  credere  baud  indignis  accidere ;  avide  ruen-        w  Dionysius,  XI.  2. 
do  ad  libertatem  in  seivitutem  elapsos  iuvare 
nolle.    Livy,  III.  37. 


116  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP  XV 

the  triumph  of  their  party.  The  two  tables  which  they  added  to  the  former  ten 
are  described  by  Cicero  as  containing  "  unequal  laws ;"  the  prohibition  of  mar- 
riages between  the  patricians  and  plebeians  is  expressly  said  to  have  been  amongst 
the  number.  Not  that  we  can  suppose  that  such  marriages  had  been  hitherto 
legal,  that  is  to  say,  they  were  not  connubia :  and  therefore  if  a  patrician,  as  I 
have  said,  married  the  daughter  of  a  plebeian,  his  children  became  plebeians.  Still 
they  were  common  in  fact ;  and  as  the  object  of  the  first  appointment  of  the  de- 
cemvirs was,  in  part,  to  unite  the  two  orders  into  one  people,  so  it  was  expected 
that  they  would  henceforth  be  made  legal.  It  was  therefore  like  the  loss  of  an 
actual  right,  when  the  decemvirs,  instead  of  legalizing  these  marriages,  enacted 
a  positive  law  to  denounce  them,  as  if  they  intended  for  the  future  actually  to 
prohibit  them  altogether. 

So  passed  the  second  year  of  the  decemvirate.     But  as  it  drew  near  to  its 
.    close,  the  decemvirs  showed  no  purpose  of  resiornin^  their  offices, 

They  resolve  to  retain  -.  .       .  -ft-ri        i  •  11 

their^power^after  the  or  ot  appointing  successors.  Whether  it  was  really  a  usurpa- 
tion, or  whether  they  had  been  elected  for  more  than  a  single 
year,13  may  be  doubtful ;  but  it  is  conceivable  that  even  in  the  former  case  the 
great  body  of  the  patricians,  however  personally  disappointed,  should  have  sup- 
ported the  decemvirs  as  upholding  the  ascendency  of  their  order,  rather  than  in- 
cur the  danger  of  reviving  the  power  of  the  plebeians.  At  any  rate,  the  govern- 
ment of  the  decemvirs  seemed  firmly  established ;  and  the  outrages  of  themselves 
and  their  party  became  continually  more  and  more  intolerable,  so  that  numbers 
of  the  people  are  said  to  have  fled  from  Rome,14  and  sought  a  refuge  amongst 
their  allies,  the  Latins  and  Hernicans. 

In  this  state  of  things,  the  foreign  enemies  of  Rome  proved  again  her  best 
^en^s-  Since  the  year  297  external  wars  seem  to  have  been  sus- 
pended,  partly,  perhaps,  from  the  wasting  effects  of  the  great 
plague  on  the  neighboring  nations,  partly  because  the  Romans 
themselves  were  engrossed  with  their  own  affairs  at  home.  But  now  we  hear  of 
an  invasion  both  from  the  Sabines  and  the  ^Equians  ;  the  former  assembled  their 
forces  at  Eretum,15  and  from  thence  ravaged  the  lands  along  the  left  bank  of 
the  Tiber :  the  latter  encamped  as  usual  on  Algidus,  and  plundered  the  terri- 
tory of  Tusculum  which  lay  immediately  below  them.  Then  the  decemvirs  called 
together  the  senate,  which,  hitherto,  it  is  said,  they  had  on  no  occasion  thought 
proper  to  consult.  The  high  aristocratical  party,  headed  by  the  Quinctii16  and 
C.  Claudius,  showed  symptoms  of  discontent  with  the  decemvirs  for  still  retain- 
ing their  power ;  L.  Valerius  Potitus  and  M.  Horatius  Barbatus17  were  celebrated 
by  posterity  for  following  a  more  decided  course,  and  upholding  the  general  lib- 
erty of  the  Roman  people.  But  the  majority  of  the  senate  supported  the  de- 
cemvirs, and  the  citizens  were  called  upon  to  enlist  against  the  common  enemy.18 
One  army,  commanded  by  three  of  the  decemvirs,  was  led  out  to  oppose  the  Sa- 
bines at  Eretum ;  another  marched  towards  Algidus  to  protect  the  Tusculans ; 
Appius  Claudius,  with  one  of  his  colleagues,  Sp.  Oppius,  remained  in  Rome  to 
provide  for  the  safety  of  the  city. 

13  Nioouhr  considers  it  as  certain  that  the  de-  a  magistrate  of  his  office,  "abrogare  magistra- 
cemvirs  were  appointed  for  a  longer  period  than  turn,"  was  accounted  a  most  violent  measure ; 
a  year.    Vol.  II.  p.  328.    Eng.  Transl.    Other-  it  was  to  be  resigned,  and  not  wrested  from  him 
wise,  he  says,  they  would  not  have  been  re-  by  any  other  power.     The  senate  ejected  Cinna 
quired  to  resign  their  power,  but  interreges  from  the  consulship ;  but  Faterculus  remarks 
would,  immediately  on  the  expiration  of  their  on  the  act  that  "  hasc  injuria  homine  quam  ex- 
office,  have  stepped  into  their  place.      This,  emplo  dignior  fuit."    They  were  not  disposed 
however,  does  not  seem  to  follow.    In  peace-  to  proceed  to  such  an  extremity  against  the  de- 
able  times,  Appius  Claudius  the  Blind  held  his  cemvirs. 
censorship  beyond  the  legal  term  of  eighteen  l  Dionysius,  XI.  2. 
months,  in  defiance  of  the  JEmilian  law,"and  it  '  Dionysius,  XT.  8.     Livy,  III.  38. 
does  not  appear  that  the  tribunes,  or  any  other  18  Dionysius,  XI.  15. 
power,  could  actually  turn  him  out  of  his  office ;  7  Livy,  III.  89. 
lie  was  only  threatened  with  imprisonment  if  K  Livy,  III.  41. 
he  did  not  resign.    Livy,  IX.  34.    To  deprive 


ii 


CHAP.  XV.]  STORY  OF  VIRGINIA.  u«j 

Both  armies,  however,  were  unsuccessful ;  and  both,  after  having  been  beaten 
by  the  enemy,  fled,  the  one  to  Tusculum,  the  other  to  the  neigh-  The  Roman  armic§  ^ 
borhood  of  Fidense,19  within  the  Roman  territory.  Here  they  re-  beaten> 
mained,  or  here,  at  least,  the  story  leaves  them,  till  the  tidings  of  the  last  outrage 
of  the  decemvirs'  tyranny  aroused  them,  and  showed  them  plainly  that  the  worst 
enemies  of  their  country  were  within  the  walls  of  Rome. 

Appius  Claudius20  had  stayed  behind  from  the  war  to  take  care  of  the  city. 
He  saw  a  beautiful  maiden  named  Virginia,  the  daughter  of  L.  story  of  vir(,illiu. 
Virginius,81  who  was  now  serving  as  a  centurion  in  the  army  sent  SU^ci^dSSf^^S 
against  the  JEquians  ;  and  her  father  had  betrothed  her  to  L.  Icil-  Virginia as'iliseiavV."1 
ius,  who  had  been  tribune  some  time  since,  and  had  carried  the  famous  law 
for  assigning  out  the  Aventine  to  the  commons.  One  day  as  the  maiden, 
attended  by  her  nurse,  was  going  to  the  Forum  to  school  (for  the  schools 
were  then  kept  in  booths  or  stalls  round  the  market-place),  Marcus  Claudius,  a 
client  of  Appius,  laid  hands  on  her,  and  claimed  her  as  his  slave.  Her  nurse 
cried  out  for  help,  and  a  crowd  gathered  round  her,  and  when  they  heard  who 
was  her  father,  and  to  whom  she  was  betrothed,  they  were  the  more  earnest  tj 
defend  her  from  wrong.  But  M.  Claudius  said  that  he  meant  no  violence,  he 
would  try  his  right  at  law,  and  he  summoned  the  maiden  before  the  judgment- 
seat  of  Appius.  So  they  went  before  the  decemvir,  and  then  Claudius  said  that 
the  maiden's  real  mother  had  been  his  slave  ;  and  that  the  wife  of  Viro-inius,  hav- 
ing no  children,  had  gotten  this  child  from  its  mother,  and  had  presented  it  to 
Virginius  as  her  own.  This  he  would  prove  to  Virginius  himself  as  soon  as  he 
should  return  to  Rome ;  meanwhile  it  was  just  and  reasonable  that  the  master 
hould,  in  the  interval,  keep  possession  of  his  slave.  The  friends  of  the  maiden 
answered,  that  her  father  was  now  absent  in  the  commonwealth's  service ;  they 
would  send  him  word,  and  within  two  days  he  would  be  in  Rome.  "  Let  the 
cause,"  they  said,  "  wait  only  so  long.  The  law  declares  expressly,  that  in  all 
cases  like  this,  every  one  shall  be  considered  free  till  he  be  proved  a  slave. 
Therefore  the  maiden  ought  to  be  left  with  her  friends  till  the  day  of  trial.  Put 
not  her  fair  fame  in  peril  by  giving  up  a  free-born  maiden  into  the  hands  of  a 
man  whom  she  knows  not."  But  Appius  said,  "  Truly,  I  know  the  law  of  which 
you  speak,  and  I  hold  it  just  and  good,  for  it  was  I  myself  who  enacted  it.  But 
this  maiden22  cannot  in  any  case  be  free ;  she  belongs  either  to  her  father  or  to 
her  master.  Now  as  her  father  is  not  here,  who  but  her  master  can  have  any 
title  to  her  ?  Wherefore  let  M.  Claudius  keep  her  till  L.  Virginius  come,  and  le*t 
him  give  sureties  that  he  will  bring  her  forth  before  my  judgment-seat  when  the 
cause  shall  be  tried  between  them."  But  then  there  came  forward  the  maiden's 
uncle,  P.  Numitorius,  and  Icilius,  to  whom  she  was  betrothed ;  and  they  spoke 
so  loudly  against  the  sentence,  that  the  multitude  began  to  be  roused,  and  Ap- 
pius feared  a  tumult.  So  he  said,  that  for  the  sake  of  L.  Virginius,  and  of  the 
rights  of  fathers  over  their  children,  he  would  let  the  cause  wait  till  the  next 
day ;  "  but  then,"  he  said,  "  if  Virginius  does  not  appear,  I  tell  Icilius  and  his 
fellows,  that  I  will  support  the  laws  which  I  have  made,  and  their  violence  shall 
not  prevail  over  justice."  Thus  the  maiden  was  saved  for  the  time,  and  her 
friends  sent  off  in  haste  to  her  father,  to  bid  him  come  with  all  speed  to  Rome  : 
and  they  gave  security  to  Claudius  that  she  should  appear  before  Appius  the 
next  da)-,  and  then  they  took  her  home  in  safety. 

The  messenger23  reached  the  camp  that  same  evening,  and  Virginius  obtained 
leave  of  absence  on  the  instant,  and  set  out  for  Rome  at  the  first  virgin™   comes    t« 
watch  of  the  night.     Appius  had  sent  off  also  to  his  colleagues,  Rome  from  the  army- 
praying  them  not  to  let  Virginius  go :  but  his  message  came  too  late. 


III.  42.  *  **  In  ca  quoe  in  patris  manu  sit,  neminem  esse 

Livy,  III.  44,  et  seqq.  alium  cui  dominus  possessione  cedat.    Livy, 

31  Cicero  calls  him  Decimus  Virginius.  De    III.  45. 

Republic*,  II.  37.  '•»  Livy,  III.  46. 


US  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAT.  XV 

Early  in  the  morning  Virginius,24  in  mean  attire,  like  a  suppliant,  led  his  daugfh- 
jud  me  •  g   *er  down  to  the  Forum  ;  and  some  Roman  matrons,  and  a  great 

awarding:  poMMum  rf  company  of  friends,  went  with  him.     He  appealed  to  all  the  peo- 

Virginla    to    her    pre-         ,        i         -f.      .          .  j  ~  ,   .      ,,          .  ,    -  *•  \  i         i 

tended  master,  virgin-  pie  for  their  aid  ;  "  lor  this,  said  he,  "  is  sot  my  cause  only,  but 
the  cause  of  all."  So  also  spoke  Icilius ;  and  the  mothers  who 
followed  Virginius  stood  and  wept,  and  their  tears  moved  the  people  even  more 
than  his  words.  But  Appius  heeded  nothing  but  his  own  wicked  passion ;  and 
before  Claudius  had  done  speaking,  without  suffering  Virginius  to  reply,  he  hast- 
ened to  give  the  sentence.  That  sentence  adjuiged  the  maiden  to  be  considered 
as  a  slave  till  she  should  be  proved  to  be  free-born ;  and  awarded  the  possession 
of  her  in  the  mean  while  to  her  master  Claudius.  Men  could  scarcely  believe 
that  they  heard  aright,  when  this  monstrous  defiance  of  all  law,  natural  and  civil, 
was  uttered  by  the  very  man  who  had  himself  enacted  the  contrary.  But  when 
Claudius  went  to  lay  hold  on  the  maiden,  then  the  women  who  stood  around  her 
wept  aloud,  and  her  friends  gathered  round  her,  and  kept  him  off;  and  Virgin- 
ius threatened  the  decemvir,  that  he  would  not  tamely  endure  so  great  a  wrong. 
Appius,  however,  had  brought  down  a  band  of  armed  patricians  with  him ;  and, 
strong  in  their  support,  he  ordered  his  lictors  to  make  the  crowd  give  way. 
Then  the  maiden  was  left  alone  before  his  judgment-seat,  till  her  father,  seeing 
there  was  no  other  remedy,  prayed  to  Appius  that  he  might  speak  but  one  word 
with  her  nurse  in  the  maiden's  hearing,  and  might  learn  whether  she  were  really 
his  child  or  no.  "  If  I  am  indeed  not  her  father,  I  shall  bear  her  loss  the  lighter." 
Leave  was  given  him,  and  he  drew  them  both  aside  with  him  to  a  spot  called 
afterwards  the  "new  booths,"  for  tradition  kept  the  place  in  memory,  and  there 
he  snatched  a  knife  from  a  butcher,  and  said,  "  This  is  the  only  way,  my  child, 
to  keep  thee  free,"  and  plunged  it  in  his  daughter's  heart.  Then  turning  to  Ap- 
pius, "  On  thee,  and  on  thy  head,"  he  cried,  "  be  the  curse  of  this  blood  !"  In 
vain  did  Appius  call  out  to  seize  him :  he  forced  his  way  through  the  multitude, 
and  still  holding  the  bloody  knife  in  his  hand,  he  made  for  the  gates,  and  hastened 
out  of  the  city,  and  rode  to  the  camp  by  Tusculum. 

•  The  rest  may  be  told  more  briefly.     Icilius25  and  Numitorius  held  up  the  maid- 
en's body  to  the  people,  and  bade  them  see  the  bloody  work  of 

Turnnltinthecity;  the     t1          ,          J       .    ,  ".     " 

d«eemvitB  ««  driven  the  decemvir  s  passion.  A  tumult  arose,  and  the  people  gathered 
in  such  strength,  that  the  patrician  friends  of  their  cause,  L.  Va- 
lerius and  M.  Horatius,  thought  that  the  time  for  action  was  come,  and  put  them- 
selves at  the  head  of  the  multitude.  Appius  and  his  lictors,  and  his  patrician 
satellites,  were  overborne  by  force,  and  Appius,  fearing  for  his  life,  covered  his 
face  with  his  robe,  and  fled  into  a  house  that  was  hard  by.  In  vain  did  his  col- 
league, Oppius,  hasten  to  the  Forum  to  support  him ;  he  found  the  people  al- 
ready triumphant,  and  had  nothing  else  to  do  but  to  call  together  the  senate. 
The  senators  met,  with  little  feeling  for  the  decemvirs,  but  with  an  extreme  dread 
of  a  new  secession  of  the  commons,  and  a  restoration  of  the  sacred  laws,  and  of 
the  hated  tribuneship. 

The  secession,  however,  could  not  be  prevented.  Virginius26  had  arrived  at 
The  a™  of  Ai  idus  ^  camP>  followed  by  a  multitude  of  citizens  in  their  ordinary 
marcifeTto  Roland  dress.  His  bloody  knife,  the  blood  on  his  own  face  and  body, 
and  the  strange  sight  of  so  many  unarmed  citizens  in  the  midst  of 
the  camp,  instantly  drew  a  crowd  about  him  :  he  told  his  story,  and  called  on 
his  fellow-soldiers  to  avenge  him.  One  common  feeling  possessed  them  all: 
they  called  to  arms,  pulled  up  their  standards,  and  began  to  march  to  Rome. 
The  authority  of  the  decemvirs  was  wholly  at  an  end  ;  the  army  entered  the 
city ;  as  they  passed  along  the  streets,  they  called  upon  the  commons  to  assert 
their  liberties  and  create  their  tribunes  ;  they  then  ascended  the  Aventine,  and 
there,  in  their  own  proper  home  and  city,  they  established  themselves  in  arms. 

M  Livy,  III.  47,  et  seqq.  »  Lhy,  III.  48, 49.  2(S  Livy,  III.  50. 


1 

", 


or 

• 

ve 

I 


CHAP.  XV.]  RESTORATION  OF  THE  TRIBUNESHIP.  H9 

When  deputies  from  the  senate  were  sent  to  ask  them  what  they  wanted,  the 
soldiers  shouted  that  they  would  give  no  answer  to  any  one  but  to  L.  Valerius 
and  M.  Horatius.  Meanwhile,  Virginius  persuaded  them  to  elect  ten  tribunes  to 
act  as  their  leaders  ;  and  accordingly  ten  were  created,  who  took  the  name  of 
tribunes  of  the  soldiers,  but  designed  to  change  it,  ere  long,  for  that  of  tribunes 
of  the  commons. 

The  army  near  Fidenee  was  also  in  motion.27  Icilius  and  Numitorius  had  ex- 
cited it  by  going  to  the  camp,  and  spreading  the  story  of  the  mis-  The  army  from  Fw«n» 
erable  fate  of  Virginia.  The  soldiers  rose,  put  aside  the  decemvirs  joins  u- 
who  commanded  them,  and  were  ready  to  follow  Icilius.  He  advised  them  to 
create  ten  tribunes,  as  had  been  done  by  the  other  army  ;  and  this  having  been 
effected,  they  marched  to  Rome,  and  joined  their  brethren  on  the  Aventine. 
The  twenty  tribunes  then  deputed  two  of  their  number  to  act  for  the  rest,  and 
waited  a  while  for  the  message  of  the  senate. 

Delays,  however,  were  interposed  by  the  jealousy  of  the  patricians.  Had  the 
senate  chosen,  it  might,  no  doubt,  in  the  fulness  of  its  power,  have  Both  armi  fol]owed 
deposed  the  decemvirs,  whether  their  term  of  office  was  expired  X^eS*  theps«- 
or  no;  as,  long  afterwards,  it  declared  all  the  laws  of  M.  Drusus  cre>dHm- 
to  be  null  and  void,  and  by  its  mere  decree  took  away  from  L.  Cinna  his  consul- 
ship, and  caused  another  to  be  appointed  in  his  room.  But  the  patricians  were 
unwilling  to  violate  the  majesty  of  the  imperium  merely  to  give  a  triumph  to  the 
plebeians  ;  and  the  decemvirs,  encouraged  by  this  feeling,  refused  themselves  to 
resign.  The  commons,  however,  were  thoroughly  in  earnest  ;  and  finding  that 
nothing  was  done  to  satisfy  them,  they  quitted  the  Aventine,28  on  the  suggestion 
f  M.  Duilius,  not,  however,  we  may  presume,  without  leaving  it  guarded  by  a 
ufficient  garrison,  marched  in  military  array  through  the  city,  passed  out  of  it 
by  the  Colline  gate,  and  established  themselves  once  more  on  the  Sacred  Hill. 
Men,  women,  and  children,  all  of  the  plebeians  who  could  find  any  means  to  fol- 
w  them,  left  Rome  also  and  joined  their  countrymen.  Again  the  dissolution 
f  the  Roman  nation  was  threatened  ;  again  the  patricians,  their  clients,  and 
their  slaves,  were  on  the  point  of  becoming  the  whole  Roman  people. 

Then  the  patricians  yielded,  and  the  decemvirs  agreed  to  resign.29  Valerius 
and  Horatius  went  to  the  Sacred  Hill,  and  listened  to  the  demands 
of  the  commons.  These  were,  the  restoration  of  the  tribuneship  an 
and  of  the  right  of  appeal,  together  with  a  full  indemnity  for  the 
authors  and  instigators  of  the  secession.  All  this  the  deputies  acknowledged 
should  have  been  granted  even  without  the  asking  ;  but  there  was  one  demand 
of  a  fiercer  sort.  "These  decemvirs,"  said  Icilius  in  the  name  of  the  commons, 
"  are  public  enemies,  and  we  will  have  them  die  the  death  of  such.  Give  them 
p  to  us,  that  they  may  be  burnt  with  fire."  The  friends  of  the  commons  had 
et  this  fate  within  the  memory  of  men  still  living,  and  certainly  not  for  greater 
crimes  ;  but  a  people,  if  violent,  is  seldom  unrelenting  ;  twenty-four  hours 
brought  the  Athenians  to  repent  of  their  cruel  decree  against  the  Mytilenseans  ; 
d  a  few  words  from  Valerius  and  Horatius,  men  whom  they  could  fully  trust, 
ade  the  Roman  commons  forego  their  thirst  for  sudden  and  extraordinary 
jngeance.  The  demand  for  the  blood  of  the  decemvirs  was  withdrawn  :  so 
the  senate  acceded  to  all  that  was  required  :  the  decemvirs  solemnly  resigned 
'lieir  power,  and  the  commons  returned  to  Rome.  They  occupied  the  Aventine 
before,30  and  thither  the  pontifex  maximus  was  sent  by  the  senate  to  hold  the 
comitia  for  the  election  of  the  tribunes  ;  but  they  occupied  more  than  the  Aven- 
tine ;  they  required  some  security  that  the  terms  of  the  peace  should  be  duly 
kept  with  them  ;  and  accordingly  now,  as  in  the  disputes  about  the  Publilian  law, 
they  were  allowed  also  to  take  possession  of  the  Capitol.31 

17  Livy,  III.  51.  *  Livy,  III.  54. 

8  Livy,  III.  52.  3l  Cicero  pro  Cornelio,  I.  Fragment. 

28  Livy,  III.  52,  53. 


and6  QW  eom 


120  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XV 

In  the  comitia  on  the  Aventine  ten  tribunes  of  the  commons  were  elected, 
Election  of  tribunes  and  amongst  whom  were  Virginius,  Icilius,  Numitorius,  C.  Sicinius,  a 
ofconsuig.  descendant  of  one  of  the  original  tribunes  created  on  the  Sacred 

Hill,  and  M.  Duilius.  Then  the  commons  were  assembled  on  the  spot  afterwards 
called  the  Flaminian  Meadows,32  outside  of  the  Porta  Carmentalis,  and  just  be- 
low the  Capitol ;  and  there  L.  Icilius  proposed  to  them  the  solemn  ratification 
of  the  indemnity  for  the  secession  already  agreed  to  by  the  senate.  The  consent 
of  the  commons  was  necessary  to  give  it  the  force  of  a  law ;  and  so,  in  like  man- 
ner, Duilius  proposed  to  the  commons  that  they  should  accept  another  measure, 
already  sanctioned  by  the  patricians,  the  election  of  two  supreme  magistrates  in 
the  place  of  the  decemvirs,  with  the  right  of  appeal  from  their  sentence.  It  is 
remarkable  that  now,  for  the  first  time,  these  magistrates  were  called  consuls,33 
their  old  title,  up  to  this  period,  having  been  praetors  or  captains-general.  Con- 
sul signifies  merely  "colleague,"  one  who  acts  with  others;  it  does  not  necessa- 
rily imply  that  he  should  be  one  of  two  only,  and,  therefore,  the  name  is  not 
equivalent  to  duumvir.  And  its  indefiniteness  seems  to  confirm  Niebuhr's  opin- 
ion, that  the  exact  number  of  these  supreme  magistrates  was  not  yet  fully  agreed 
upon,  and  that  the  appointment  of  two  only,  in  the  present  instance,  was  merely 
a  provisional  imitation  of  the  old  prsetorship,  till  the  future  form  of  the  constitu- 
tion should  be  finally  settled.  Thus,  as  the  commons  had  recovered  their  trib- 
unes, so  the  patricians  had  again  their  two  magistrates  with  the  imperium  of  the 
former  preetors,  limited,  as  that  of  the  praetors  had  been,  by  the  right  of  appeal ; 
but  the  final  adjustment  of  the  relations  of  the  two  orders  to  each  other  was 
reserved  for  after  discussion.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the  form  of  the  old  govern- 
ment was  once  again  restored,  and  two  patrician  magistrates  were  elected  with 
supreme  power ;  but  an  important  change  was  established,  that  these  two  were 
both  freely  chosen  by  the  centuries,  whereas  one  had  hitherto  been  appointed 
by  the  burghers  in  their  curioe,  and  had  only  been  appointed  by  the  centuries 
afterwards 

The  rer  *it  of  the  election  sufficiently  showed  that  it  was  a  free  one.  The 
new  magistrates,  the  first  two  consuls,  properly  speaking,  of  Roman  history,  were 
L.  Valerius  and  M.  'Horatius ;  and  the  executive  government,  for  the  first  time 
since  the  days  of  Brutus  and  Poplicola,  was  wholly  in  the  hands  of  men  devoted 
to  the  rights  of  their  country  rather  than  to  the  ascendency  of  their  order. 

82  Livy,  III.  64.  and  colonies  of  a  later  period,  whose  office  was 

83  Zonaras,  VII.  19.    It  may  be  observed  that    analogous  to  that  of  the  consuls  at  Rcme,  were 
the  two  supreme  magistrates  in  the  municipia    called  duumviri. 


CHAPTER  XVI, 

INTERNAL  HISTORY— CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  YEAR  306— VALERIAN  LAWS,  AND 
TRIALS  OF  THE  DECEMVIRS— REACTION  IN  FAVOR  OF  THE  PATRICIANS 
CANULEIAN  LAW— CONSTITUTION  OF  312— COUNTER-REVOLUTION. 


"  The  seven  years  that  followed  are  a  revolutionary  period,  the  events  of  which  we  do  not  finr* 
tisfactorily  explained  by  the  historians  of  the  time." — HALLAM,  Middle  Ages,  Vol.  II.  p.  458. 


• 


WE  read  in  Livy  and  Dionysius  an  account  of  the  affairs  of  Rome  from  the 
beginning  of  the  commonwealth,  drawn  up  in  the  form  of  annals  j  Comity  .-/the  history 
political  questions,  military  operations,  what  was  said  in  the  sen-  -tfthi»Peri°d. 
ate  and  the  Forum,  what  was  done  in  battle  against  the  ^Equians  and  Volscians, 
all  is  related  with  the  full  details  of  contemporary  history.  It  is  not  wonderful 
that  appearances  so  imposing  should  have  deceived  many  ;  that  the  Roman  his- 
tory should  have  been  regarded  as  a  subject  which  might  be  easily  and  com- 
pletely mastered.  But  if  we  press  on  any  part  this  show  of  knowledge,  it  yields 
before  us,  and  comes  to  nothing.  Nowhere  is  this  more  manifest  than  in  the 
tory  of  the  period  immediately  subsequent  to  the  decemvirate.  What  is  related 
of  these  times  is  indistinct,  meagre,  and  scarcely  intelligible ;  but  scattered  frag- 
ments of  information  have  been  preserved  along  with  it,  which,  when  carefully 
studied,  enable  us  to  restore  the  outline  of  very  important  events ;  and  these, 
when  thus  brought  forward  to  the  light,  afford  us  the  means  of  correcting  or 
completing  what  may  be  called  the  mere  surface-view  contained  in  the  common 
narrative.  The  lines,  hitherto  invisible,  being  so  made  conspicuous,  a  totally  dif- 
ferent figure  is  presented  to  us ;  its  proportions  and  character  are  all  altered,  and 
we  find  that,  without  this  discovery,  while  we  fancied  ourselves  in  possession  of 
the  true  resemblance,  we  should,  in  fact,  have  been  mistaking  the  unequal  pillars 
of  the  ruin  for  the  original  form  of  the  perfect  building. 

The  common  narrative  of  the  overthrow  of  the  decemvirs  omitted,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  important  fact  that  the  commons  in  that  revolution  occu-  constitution  of  the  year 
pied  the  Capitol.  It  mentions,1  however,  that  the  two  popular  306> 
leaders,  Valerius  and  Horatius,  were  appointed  the  two  chief  magistrates  of  the 
commonwealth,  and  that  they  passed  several  laws  for  the  better  confirmation  of 
the  public  liberty,  without  experiencing  any  open  opposition  on  the  part  of  the 
patricians.  In  fact,  the  popular  cause  was  so  triumphant  that  all,  and  more 
than  all,  of  the  objects  of  the  Terentilian  law  were  now  effected;  and  a  new 
constitution  was  formed,  by  which  it  was  attempted  at  once  to  unite  the  two 
orders  of  the  state  more  closely  together,  and  to  set  them  on  a  footing  of  entire 
equality. 

In  the  first  place,  the  old  laws  for  the  security  of  personal  liberty  were  con- 
firmed afresh,  and  received  a  stronger  sanction.     Whoever,  while 
presiding  at  the  comitia,2  should  allow  the  election  of  any  magis- 
trate, with  no  right  of  appeal  from  his  sentences,  should  be  outlawed,  and  might 
be  killed  by  any  one  with  impunity.     This  was  the  law  proposed  and  passed'by 
Valerius ;  but  even  this,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  did  not  content  the  commons  : 
they  required  and  carried  a  still  stronger  measure.     A  second  Valerian  law3  for- 


1  Livy,  III.  55.    Dionysius,  XL  45.  ncret.    Livy  III.  55.    Dionysius  describes  this 

8  Livy,  III.  55.  law  correctly.    He  calls  it  v6^nv  Kc\e£<.vTa  rod( 

"  Qucd  tributim  plebes  jussisset  populum  te-     vnb  TOU  <5>?//ou  rcdivras  iv  rals  QvXcriKals  f* 


122  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP  XVI 

mally  acknowledged  the  commons  of  Rome  to  be  the  Roman  people  ;  a  Plebisci- 
tum,  or  decree  of  the  commons,  was  to  be  binding  on  the  whole  people  :  so  it  is 
expressed  in  the  annalists  ;  but  Niebuhr  supposes  that  there  was  a  restriction  on 
this  power  of  which  the  annalists  were  ignorant  ;  namely,  that  the  plebiscitum 
should  have  first  received  the  sanction  of  the  senate,  and  of  the  assembly  of  the 
curiae.  It  is,  indeed,  certain  that  the  assembly  of  the  tribes  was  not  made  the 
sole  legislative  authority  in  the  commonwealth  ;  what  was  intended  seems  to  have 
been  nothing  more  than  to  recognize  its  national  character  ;  its  resolutions  or 
decrees,4  where  not  directly  interfered  with  by  another  power  equally  sovereign, 
were  to  embrace  not  the  commons  only,  but  the  whole  nation.  In  the  same 
way,  in  the  later  constitution,  the  senate  was  not  all-powerful  ;  it  could  not  legis- 
late alone,  and  its  decrees  were  liable  to  be  stopped  by  the  negative  of  the  trib- 
unes ;  but  no  one  doubted  that  its  authority  extended  over  the  whole  people, 
and  not  over  the  members  of  its  own  order  only.  And  this  appears  to  have 
been  the  position  in  which  the  Valerian  law  placed  the  assembly  of  the  tribes. 

Thus  far  we  follow  the  express  testimony  of  the  annals  from  which  Livy  and 
Division  of  an  the  ma-  Dionysius  compiled  their  narratives.  But  we  are  warranted  in 
nwnweaiVb^tweenTe  saying  that  the  revolution  did  not  stop  here.  Other  and  deeper 
patriciansaud—ons.  ciianges  were  effected  ;  but  they  lasted  so  short  a  time,  that  their 
memory  has  almost  vanished  out  of  the  records  of.  history.  The  assembly  of 
the  tribes  had  been  put  on  a  level  with  that  of  the  centuries,  and  the  same  prin- 
ciple. was  followed  out  in  the  equal  division  of  all  the  magistracies  of  the  state 
between  the  patricians  and  the  commons.  Two  supreme  magistrates,5  invested 
with  the  highest  judicial  power,  and  discharging  also  those  important  duties 
which  were  afterwards  performed  by  the  censors,  were  to  be  chosen  every  year, 
one  from  the  patricians,  and  the  other  from  the  commons.  Ten  tribunes  of  the 
soldiers,6  or  decemviri,  chosen  five  from  the  patricians  and  five  from  the  com- 
mons, were  to  command  the  armies  in  war,  and  to  watch  over  the  rights  of  the 
patricians  ;  while  ten  tribunes'  of  the  commons,  also  chosen  in  equal  proportions 
from  both  orders,  were  to  watch  over  the  liberties  of  the  commons.  And  as  pa- 
tricians were  thus  admitted  to  the  old  tribuneship,  so  the  assemblies  of  the  tribes7 
were  henceforth,  like  those  of  the  centuries,  to  be  held  under  the  sanctions  of 
augury,  and  nothing  could  be  determined  in  them  if  the  auspices  were  unfavora- 
ble. Thus  the  two  orders  were  to  be  made  fully  equal  to  one  another  ;  but  at 
the  same  time  they  were  to  be  kept  perpetually  distinct  ;  for  at  this  very  mo- 
ment8 the  whole  twelve  tables  of  the  laws  of  the  decemvirs  received  the  solemn 
sanction  of  the  people,  although,  as  we  have  seen,  there  was  a  law  in  one  of  the 
last  tables  which  declared  the  marriage  of  a  patrician  with  a  plebeian  to  be  un- 
lawful. 

There  being  thus  an  end  of  all  exclusive  magistracies,  whether  patrician  or 

Horatian  and  Duiiian  plebeian  ',  and  all  magistrates  being  now  recognized  as  acting  in 

the  name  of  the  whole  people,  the  persons  of  all  were  to  be  re- 


iraci  KtiaQat  Pwpatots  t!;  "crou,  ri)v  alrfiv  represent  the  whole  nation,  and  not  only  one 

s%avTas   tivva/jitv   Tols   tv   rats   Xox""t<nv    iKK^rjoiaig  single  order  of  men. 

TtQwoufvois,  XL  45.      Now  we  know  that  at  5  Diodorus,  XII.  25. 

this  time  laws  passed  by  the  comitia  of  centu-  6  Diodorus,  XII.  25.    Atxa  alptlaBai  ttjpdpxovs 

ries  were  not  valid  without  the  sanction  of  the  peytoTas  cxoiraj  f£or><n'aj    TMV    Kara    w6\it>   apxtv 

senate,  and,  therefore,  laws  passed  by  the  tribes  rwi/,  xal  rovrovs  vxdpxw  oiovti  QvXaKas  rrts  T&V 

must  equally  have  required  it.  TTO\IT&V  {\ev6spias.    This  description  does  not 

4  Compare  the  difference  between  a  resolution  suit  the  tribunes  of  the  commons,  and  the  ex- 

or  an  order  of  the  house  of  commons  (although  pression,  rfc  r&v  TTO\IT&V  tXcvOepia;,  instead  oi 

that  body  cannot  legislate  without  the  consent  ri-i?  rou  Sr/pov  fXevOepias,  seems  to  show  that  the 

of  the  house  of  lords  and  the  king)  and  the  patricians  or  burghers  were  intended  rather 

canons  of  a  synod  of  the  clergy.     A  law  which  than  the  commons. 

should  enact  that  "  quod  cleru's  jussisset  popu-  7  Zonaras,  VII.   19.    lie  mentions  the  fact 

lum  tencret"  need  not  give  to  a  synod  the  ex-  without  its  connection  ;  but  it  seems  to  me  ex- 

clusive right  of  making  laws  ;  it  would  doserve  tremely  valuable,  towards  confirming  the  view 

its  name  if  it  merely  placed  it  on  a  level  with  of  all  these  arrangements  which  is  given  in  this 

the  house  of  commons  ;  if  it  empowered  it  to  history. 

8  Diodorus,  XII.  26.     Livy,  III.  57. 


CHAP.  XVI] 


IMPEACHMENT  OF  APPIUS  CLAUDIUS. 


123 


garded  as  equally  sacred.  Thus  the  consul  Horatius  proposed  and  carried  a  law 
which  declared,  that  whoever  harmed  any  tribune  of  the  commons,  any  sedile, 
any  judge,  or  any  decemvir,  should  be  outlawed  and  accursed  ;9  that  any  man 
light  slay  him,  and  that  all  his  property  should  be  confiscated  to  the  temple  of 
/eres.  Another  law  was  passed  by  M.  Duilius,  one  of  the  tribunes,  carrying 
le  penalties  of  the  Valerian  law  to  a  greater  height  against  any  magistrate  who 
lould  either  neglect  to  have  new  magistrates  appointed  at  the  end  of  the  year,10 
>r  who  should  create  them  without  giving  the  right  of  appeal  from  their  sen-, 
ence.  Whosoever  violated  either  of  these  provisions  was  to  be  burned  alive,  as  a 
mblic  enemy. 

Finally,  in  order  to  prevent  the  decrees  of  the  senate  from  being  tampered 
with  by  the  patricians,  Horatius  and  Valerius  began  the  practice11 
of  having  them  carried  to  the  temple  of  Ceres  on  the  Aventine,  j™?*^  *•  templet 
and  there  laid  up  under  the  care  of  the  sediles  of  the  commons. 

This  complete  revolution  was  conducted  chiefly,  as  far  as  appears,  by  the  two 
consuls,  and  by  M.  Duilius.     Of  the  latter  we  should  wish  to  have  ^  ^    of  aff 
some  further  knowledge  ;  it  is  an  unsatisfactory  history,  in  which  not  ripe  for  tM»  consti- 
we  can  only  judge  of  the  man  from  his  public  measures,  instead 
>f  being  enabled  to  form  some  estimate  of  the  merit  of  his  measures  from  our 
iquairitance  with  the  character  of  the  man.     But  there  is  no  doubt  that  the 
jw  constitution  attempted  to  obtain  objects  for  which  the  time  was  not  yet 
>me,  which  were  regarded  rather  as  a  triumph  of  a  party,  than  as  called  for  by 
le  wants  and  feelings  of  the  nation  ;  and,  therefore,  the  Roman  constitution  of 
$06  was  as  short-lived  as  Simon  de  Montfort's  provisions  of  Oxford,  or  as  some 
"  the  strongest  measures  of  the  long  parliament.     An  advantage  pursued  too 
ir  in  politics,  as  well  as  in  war,  is  apt  to  end  in  a  repulse. 
As  yet,  however,  at  Rome,  the  tide  of  the  popular  cause  was  at  full  flood,  for 
ic  decemvirs  were  still  unpunished,  and  the  fresh  memory  of 

i.  .  -i  'ii./.  T-f        •     •  Impeachment  of  Appiua 

their  crimes  excited  a  universal  desire  for  vengeance.     Virgmius  ciouditw.   He  u  <** 
singled  out  Appius  and  impeached  him  ;12  but  Appius,  with  the 
inherent  pride  of  his  family,  scorned  the  thought  of  submission,  and  appeared  in 
the  Forum  with  such  a  band  of  the  young  patricians  around  him,  that  he  seemed 

lore  likely  to  repeat  the  crimes  of  his  decemvirate  than  to  solicit  mercy  for  them. 

>ut  the  tide  was  not  yet  to  be  turned,  and  Appius  only  hastened  his  own  ruin. 


; 


9  See  this  memorable  law  in  Livy,  III.  55. 
"  Qui  tribunis  plebis,  cedilibus,  judicibus,  de- 
cemviris nocuisset,  ejus  caput  Jovi  sacrum  es- 
set,  familia  ad  sedem  Cereris  liberi  libeneque 
venum  iret."  The  different  interpretations 
riven  to  the  words  "judicibus,  decemviris,"  in 

risage,  are  well  known.  Niebuhr  under- 
the  latter  nearly  as  I  do,  but  the  "ju- 
ces"  he  considers  to  have  been  the  centum- 
ri.  >  But  the  order  of  the  words  is,  I  think, 
sisive. against  this  last  notion;  the  centum- 
1  never  could  have  been  mentioned  between 
e  sediles  and  decemviri.  Whereas,  according 
my  interpretation,  the  two  old  plebeian  of- 
fices are  mentioned  first,  and  then  the  two  new 
offices  which  they  were  thenceforward  to  share, 
those  of  judge  or  consul,  and  of  decemvir,  or 
tribune  of  the  soldiers.  Livy  himself  informs 
us  that  there  were  some  who  had  extended  this 
law  to  the  patrician  magistrates,  and  who  ex- 
plained the  "judiees"  as  I  have  done;  but  he 
objects  that  juclex,  as  applied  to  the  consul,  was 
the  later  title,  and  that  the  consul  at  this  time 
illed  praetor.  To  which  the  reply  is  easy : 
that  according  to  Zonaras,  who  derived  his  ma- 
terials from  Dion  Cassias,  the  consuls  ceased  to 
be  called  praetors  at  this  very  time,  and  were 
"  ow  first  called  consuls  or  colleagues  ;  and  it  is 
-*  likely  that  their  military"  power,  being 


transferred  to  the  tribunes  of  the  soldiers,  their 
name  of  judiees,  which  they  are  allowed  by 
Livy  himself  to  have  borne  afterwards  (see  also 
Cicero,  de  Legibus,  III.  4),  took  its  origin  from 
this  period. 

I  may  acid,  also,  that  the  supposition  that 
there  were  to  be  ten  tribunes  ot  the  soldiers 
and  as  many  tribunes  of  the  commons,  would 
agree  with  the  otherwise  puzzling  statement  of 
Pomponius,  do  Origine  Juris,  §  25,  "that  there 
were  sometimes  twenty  tribunes  of  the  sol- 
diers," for  the  two  tribuneships  must,  under 
the  constitution  of  306,  have  so  resembled  each 
other  in  many  important  points,  that  they  may 
easily  have  been  represented  as  one  magistracy. 

10  Livy,  III.  55.  Diodorus,  XII.  25.  Livy 
says,  "Tergo  et  capite  puniretur ;"  Diodorus, 
more  correctly,  $wira?  KaraicavOtivai.  The  con- 
nection of  this  law  with  that  mysterious  story 
of  the  burning  alive  of  nine  tribunes,  for  not 
providing  successors  for  themselves  in  their 
office  (see  Valerius  Maximus,  VI.  3,  §  2,  and  note 
39  to  chap.  XIII.  of  this  history),  cannot  but 
strike  every  one ;  the  clue,  however,  only  goes 
far  enough  to  excite  curiosity,  but  will  not  en 
able  u  .  to  satisfy  it. 

II  Livy,  III.  55. 
*  Livy,  111.  56. 


124 


HISTORY  OF  ROME. 


[CHAP.  XVI 


Virginius  refused  to  admit  the  accused  to  bail,  unless  he  could  prove13  before  a 
judge  duly  appointed  to  try  this  previous  issue,  "  that  he  had  not,  in  a  question 
of  personal  freedom,  assumed  that  the  presumption  was  in  favor  cf  slavery ;  in 
having  adjudged  Virginia  to  be  regarded  as  a  slave  till  she  was  proved  free,  in- 
stead of  regarding  her  as  entitled  to  her  freedom,  till  she  was  proved  a  slave." 
Appius  dared  not  have  this  issue  tried ;  he  only  appealed  to  the  tribunes,  the 
colleagues  of  Virginius,  to  save  him  from  being  cast  into  prison  ;  and  when  they 
refused  to  interpose,14  he  appealed  to  the  people.  The  meaning  of  this  appeal 
was,  that  he  refused  to  go  before  the  judge  as  Virginius  had  proposed,  and  sub- 
mitted his  whole  case  to  the  judgment  of  the  people  in  the  assembly  of  centu- 
ries. This  he  might  legally  do ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  his  refusal  to  have  the 
question  of  fact,  as  to  his  conduct  in  the  affair  of  Virginia,  tried  before  a  judge, 
enabled  Virginius  to  assume  his  guilt  as  certain.  But  bail  was  not  to  be  given 
to  notorious  criminals :  it  was  thus  that  Kasso  had  defrauded  justice,  and  Appius 
would  certainly  fly  from  Rome  before  his  trial,  unless  he  were  secured  within  the 
walls  of  a  prison.  Accordingly,  Virginius  ordered  him  to  be  thrown  into  prison, 
there  to  await  the  judgment  of  the  people. 

But  that  judgment  he  never  lived  to  undergo.  Livy  chose  to  believe  that  he 
Hm  death  before  hi.  killed  himself,15  despairing  of  the  event  of  the  trial.  Another  ac- 
count implies,  that  it  was  the  accusers,  and  not  the  accused,  who 
feared  to  trust  to  the  decision  of  the  centuries ;  the  tribunes,  it  was  said,  ordered 
him  to  be  put  to  death  in  prison.10  It  would  be  painful  to  believe  that  so  great 
a  criminal,  like  the  dictator  Caesar,  was  not  executed,  but  murdered ;  yet  the 
utter  uncertainty  of  a  trial  before  the  centuries,  where  so  many  other  points  were 
sure  to  be  considered  besides  the  fact  of  the  criminal's  guilt,  and  the  strange  lat- 
itude allowed  by  the  Romans  to  their  magistrates  on  the  plea  of  the  public  safety, 
render  it  not  improbable  that  the  tribunes  dealt  with  Appius  as  Cicero  treated 
the  accomplices  of  Catilina  in  the  very  same  prison.  Cicero's  conduct  on  that 


13  "  Ni  judicem  dices  te  ab  libertate  in  servi- 
tutcm  contra  leges  vindicias  non  dedissc,  in  vin- 
cula  te  duci  jubco."  Livy,  III.  56.  Niebuhr 
rejects  the  reading  "judicem  dices"  as  nonsense, 
and  corrects  "  judicem  doces."  I  should  lay  lit- 
tle stress  on  the  authority  of  our  MSS.  of  Livy, 
which  are  all  extremely  corrupt ;  but  in  this  in- 
stance the  common  reading  is  supported  by  the 
similar  expression  "  diem  cliccre"  and  the  term 
"  condictio,"  qua  "  actor  adversario  denuntiabat 
ut  ad  judicem  capiendum  die  XXX  adesset." 
Gains,  IV.  §  18.  "  Ni  judicem  dices"  signifies, 
"  Unless  thou  wilt  give  me  notice  to  come  be- 
fore a  judge  with  thee,  to  have  this  issue  tried." 

For  the  matter  of  the  transaction  itself  it  may 
be  observed,  that  the  judge  would  have  had  to 
try  simply  the  question  of  fact,  whether  Appius 
had  given  vindicise,  or  possession,  in  favor  of 
slavery  or  not.  And  it  \vas  manifest  that  if  the 
judge  found  against  Appius  on  this  issue,  such 
a  verdict  would  have  weighed  strongly  against 
him  at  his  trial  before  the  centuries.  On  the 
other  hand,  Appius  wished  to  reserve  his  whole 
case  for  the  judgment  of  the  centuries ;  for 
there,  as  he  well  knew,  the  issue  tried  was  far 
less  narrow,  and  the  sentence  would  depend, 
not  on  the  evidence  as  to  a  particular  fact,  but 
on  the  general  impression  produced  on  the 
minds  of  "the  audience  by  the  speakers  on  cither 
side ;  and  to  produce  this  impression  the  feel- 
ings and  interests  of  the  judges  were  freely  ap- 
pealed to,  so  that  the  greatest  criminal  might 
hope  to  be  acquitted,  if  his  eloquence  and  the 
influence  of  his  friends  were  sufficiently  pow- 
erful. 

J*  An  obscure  and  corrupt  passage  of  Diodo- 
rus  would  appear  to  intimate,  that,  by  the  new 


constitution,  the  act  of  one  tribune  could  not 
be  stopped  by  another:  in  other  words,  that 
the  ordinary  rule  of  Roman  law,  "  melior  est 
conditio  prohibentis,"  was,  in  the  case  of  the 
tribunes,  at  this  time  reversed.  The  words  are 
lav  <5f  o't  di/fiapx01  A*'/  avutywv&ai  jrpoj  aXA>jAous,  KV- 
pioi  ilvai  TOV  dvu  picov  Ktifievov  /u>)  /cwXrcuOai,  XII. 
25.  Wesseling  and  the  other  interpreters  under- 
stand run  dvd  niaov  x?6vov->  "in  tue  interval," 
which  seems  to  me  to  be  neither  good  Greek 
nor  sense.  I  am  inclined  to  read  TO  dvu  pfaov 
Kdfitvav,  "  the  matter  that  was  between  them  :" 
"  If  the  tribunes  should  disagree,  they  had  au- 
thority in  the  matter  that  was  disputed  between 
them,  so  as  not  to  be  restrained  by  the  veto  of 
their  colleagues."  But  I  am  not  yet  satisfied 
that  this  is  the  complete  restoration  of  the  pas- 
sage. 

>15  Livy,  III.  58. 

19  Dio'nysius,  XI.  46.  "  This,"  he  says,  "  was 
the  general  opinion."  wj  pfv  »/  ruv  no\\<av  tur<5- 
Xtfi/'iff  %v.  lie  must  have  copied  this  from  some 
annalist,  although  the  oldest  annalist  could 
know  as  little  as^Dionysius  of  the  public  opin- 
ion of  the  times  of  the  decemvirs.  Perhaps  the 
statement  came  from  the  memorials  of  the  Clau- 
dian  family,  which  would  naturally  be  glad  to 
impute  such  a  crime  to  the  hated  tribunes. 
But  that  Appius  was  put  to  death  in  prison,  is 
also  the  account  given  by  the  author  of  the  lit- 
tle work,  "De  Vi'ris  Illustrious;"  and  it  is  sta- 
ted positively  as  a  point  which  was  not  doubted. 
And  if  this  work  was  compiled,  as  Borghesi  and 
Niebuhr  believe,  from  the  inscriptions  at  tlio 
base  of  the  statues  in  the  forum  of  Augustus,  it 
may  be  supposed  to  express  the  prevailing  opin- 
ion in  the  Augustan  age. 


.  XVI.J  THE  PROSECUTIONS  STOPPED.  125 

occasion  was  sanctioned  by  Cato,  and  by  the  majority  of  the  senate ;  and  cer- 
tainly the  crimes  of  Appius  were  neither  less  flagrant,  nor  less  notorious,  than 
those  of  Cethegus  and  Lentulus. 

Another  of  the  decemvirs,  Spurius  Oppius,17  underwent  a  similar  fate.  He 
was  particularly  odious,  because  he  had  been  left  with  Appius  in  Fate  of  tlie  othar  (l9. 
the  government  of  the  city,  while  the  other  decemvirs  were  abroad  cemvlrs- 
with  the  legions ;  and  because  he  had  been  a  faithful  imitator  of  his  colleague's 
tyranny.  His  most  obnoxious  crime  was  his  having  cruelly  and  wanto~nly~ 
scourged  an  old  and  distinguished  soldier,  for  no  offence,  as  it  was  said,  whatso- 
ever. Bail,  therefore,  was  refused  to  him  also ;  he  was  committed  to  prison,  and 
there  died  before  his  trial  came  on,  either  by  the  hands  of  the  executioner  or  his 
own.  The  other  decemvirs,18  and  M.  Claudius,  who  had  claimed  Virginia  as  his 
slave,  were  all  allowed  to  give  bail,  or  to  escape  before  sentence  was  executed ; 
and  accordingly  they  all  fled  from  Rome,  and  went  into  exile.  Their  property, 
as  well  as  that  of  Appius  and  Oppius,  was  confiscated  and  sold  at  the  temple  of 
Ceres. 

From  this  point  the  reaction  may  be  said  to  have  begun.  Vengeance  having 
been  satisfied,  compassion  arose  in  its  place ;  the  patricians  seemed 

*  '  r    .  Reaction    and    division 

the  weaker  party,  and  any  further  proceedings  against  them  were  among  the  popular 
received  with  aversion,  as  a  generous  spirit  cannot  bear  to  strike 
an  enemy  on  the  ground.  Accordingly,  there  seems  from  this  moment  to  have 
been  a  division  amongst  the  popular  leaders  ;  some  thinking  that  they  had  done 
enough,  and  that  in  order  to  carry  into  effect  the  new  constitution,  nothing  was 
so  much  needed  as  conciliation ;  while  others  believed  that  the  patricians  would 
lever  endure  an  equal  government,  and  that  it  was  the  truest  wisdom,  as  they 

id  once  fallen,  to  keep  them  down  forever.    As  far  as  we  can  discern  any  thing 

"  individual  character  amid  the  darkness  of  these  times,  the  two  consuls  and  M. 

>uilius  were  of  the  former  of  these  two  opinions ;  L.  Icilius  and  L.  Trebonius 
rere  of  the  latter. 

The  state  required,  as  Duilius  thought,  a  general  amnesty ;  and  accordingly  he 
leclared19  that  he  would  stop  any  further  political  prosecutions;  Dmiius8top.au  further 
that  he  would  allow  no  man  to  be  impeached,  nor  to  be  thrown  Pr08ecutio"3- 

ito  prison  as  unworthy  of  bail,  during  the  remainder  of  the  year.  With  the 
lext  year,  as  he  hoped,  the  neAv  constitution  would  come  into  force,  and  then  the 
liberty  of  the  commons,  and  the  peace  of  the  nation,  would  be  secured  forever. 

But,  as  far  as  appears,  the  patricians  observed  that  there  were  symptoms  of  a 
turn  of  the  tide ;  and  they  hoped  for  better  things  than  to  be  Th8  conau]s  t?ke  tho 
obliged  to  submit  to  the  constitution  of  Duilius.  The  two  consuls20  J*],*1  t\ned enemy0.101™' 
went  out  to  battle  against  the  ^Equians  and  the  Sabines,  and  re-  SraiijttL1?^ 
turned,  asserting  that  they  had  won  great  victories,  and  claiming  *»•»»  »»**!»•"'»• 
the  honor  of  a  triumph.  No  doubt  the  boast  of  victories  in  that  plundering  war- 
fare was  often  very  unsubstantial ;  but  in  this  case  the  defeat  of  the  Sabines,  at 
any  rate,  seems  to  have  been  real  and  signal,  for  we  hear  no  more  of  wars  with 
them  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  afterwards.  The  patricians,  however,  would 
grant  no  honor  to  consuls  whom  they  regarded  as  traitors  to  their  order,  and  the 
triumphs  were  refused.  But  on  this  occasion  the  consuls  threw  themselves  into 
the  hands  of  the  more  decided  popular  party ;  they  summoned  the  people  to 
meet  in  their  centuries,21  and  there  L.  Icilius,  the  tribune,  with  the  consuls'  sanc- 

7  Livy,  III.  58.  of  a  tribune,  and  it  is  said  that  "  omnes  tribua 

8  Livy,  III.  58.    Dionysius,  XI.  46.  earn  ro^ationem  aceeperunt."     On  the  other 

9  Livy,  III.  59.  hand,  Dionysius  says  that  tho  consuls  summon- 
*  Livy,  III.  60-63.  ed  the  people  to  the  assembly,  and  the  tribunes 

21  It  is  not  clear  whether  the  vote  in  favor  of    are  represented  as  seconding  their  representa- 


^populi  jussu  triuraphatura  est,"  not  "plebis    circumstances  suit  best  the  comitia  of  centuries, 
jussu."     Yet  the  vote  is  passed  on  tbe  motion    for  the  consuls  could  not  enter  tho  city  without 


Proceedings  of  Duil 
at  tlxe  election  of  ne 
tribunes. 


126  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XVI 

tion,  moved  that  the  Roman  people,  by  its  supreme  authority,  should  order  the 
consuls  to  triumph.  In  vain  did  the  patricians  oppose  the  motion  to  the  utmost : 
they  had  taken  up  an  ill-chosen  position,  and  the  reaction  here  availed  ihem 
nothing :  the  people  ordered  as  Icilius  proposed,  and  the  consuls  triumphed. 

This,  if  the  consular  Fasti  may  be  trusted,  took  place  in  August.  Again  the 
crowin-  strewn,  of  the  mist  closes  over  the  events  of  the  remainder  of  the  year,  and  we 
Autocratical  party.  can  on]y  judge  of  their  nature  by  the  result.  The  reaction  grew 
stronger,  and  was  increased  by  all  the  inherent  strength  of  an  aristocracy,  the 
most  powerful  of  all  governments  so  long  as  it  retains  any  portion  of  its  original 
vigor.  The  patricians  were  determined  that  the  new  constitution  should  never 
take  effect ;  that  there  should  be  no  plebeian  consul,  and  no  plebeian  tribunes  of 
the  soldiers :  whether,  if  these  points  were  carried,  they  might  be  forced  also  to 
have  no  patrician  tribunes  of  the  commons,  they  cared  but  little. 

To  meet  this  determination,  the  bolder  part  of  the  leaders  of  the  commons  re- 
iiia  solved  that  the  magistrates  for  the  present  year  should  be  re-elect- 
ed. "  If  the  patricians  will  not  have  the  constitution/'  they  said, 
"  we  will  at  least  keep  matters  exactly  as  they  now  are  ;  we  have  two  consuls 
whom  we  can  trust  to  the  death,  we  have  ten  true  and  zealous  tribunes,  the  lead- 
ers of  our  late  glorious  deliverance.  If  we  retain  these,  the  patricians  will  gain 
little  by  their  resistance."  But  here  again  the  division  in  the  popular  party  made 
itself  manifest :  the  consuls  shrunk  from  the  odium  of  re-electing  themselves ; 
Duilius  was  equally  opposed  to  the  re-election  of  himself  and  his  nine  colleagues. 
The  lot  for  holding  the  comitia  for  the  election  of  the  new  tribunes  happened  to 
fall  to  him.  He  resolutely  refused22  to  receive  votes  for  any  of  the  last  year's 
tribunes  ;  and  as  many  of  the  voters  would  vote  for  no  other  candidate,  it  turned 
out  that  only  five  candidates  could  obtain  that  proportion  of  suffrages  out  of  the 
whole  number,23  which  was  required  to  constitute  the  legal  vote  of  a  tribe.  Ac- 
cordingly, when  the  sun  set,  he  pronounced  the  comitia  to  be  dissolved,  and  as 
all  elections  were  to  end  in  a  single  day,  he  declared24  that  the  voting  for  tribunes 

laying  aside  their  imperium,  and  so  giving  up  have  voted  for  no  one,  and  there  was  no  legal 

their  claim  to  a  triumph,  and  would  necessarily  return. 

assemble  the  people  without  the  walls.  Besides,  M  There  is  much  difficulty  here  in  Livy's  nar- 

the  Question  of  a  triumph  might  be  more  justly  rative.    After  saying  that  Duilius  dismissed  the 

decided  by  the  people  in  the  military  array  of  assembly  when  only  five  tribunes  had  been 

their  centuries  on  the  Campus  Martins,  than  by  elected,  iind  that  he  would  not  go  on  with  the 

the  commons  in  their  tribes  in  the  Forum.     If  election  on  any  future  day,  "  concilium  dimisit, 

Livy's  expression,  "omnes  tribus  rogationem  nee  deinde  comitiorum  causa  habuit,"   Livy 

acceperunt,"  could  be  relied  upon,  it  would  go  goes  on  as  follows,  "  satisfactum  Icgi  aiebat, 

far  to  prove  that  the  blending  of  the  system  of  quoe  numero  nusquam  praefinito  tribunis,  modo 

centuries  Avith  that  of  tribes,  in  the  comitia  ccn-  lit  relinquerentur  sanciret,  et  ab  iis  qui  creati 

turiata,  that  most  perplexing  question  of  Roman  essent  cooptari  collegas  juberet.    Recitabatque 

constitutional  history,  began  at  least  as  early  as  rogationis  carmen,"  &c.     Now  this  evidently 

the  time  of  the  decemvirs,  and  probably  accom-  implies  that  Duilius  referred  to  his  own  law, 

panied  the  admission  of  the  patricians  and  their  passed  in  this  very  year,  by  which  it  was  made 

clients  into  the  tribes.    Fifty  years  later,  in  the  a  capital  offence  in  any  tribune  to  go  out  of  of- 

year  359,  Livy  speaks  of  the  "praerogativa  tri-  fice,  or  to  let  the  year  expire  without  providing 

bus,"  and  the  "jure  vocatse  tribus,"  at  the  co-  for  the  election  of  new  tribunes  to  succeed  him : 

mitia  of  centuries,  without  the  least  intimation  and  it  appears  that  this  very  law  had  contained 

that  the  system  implied  in  those  expressions  a  clause,  authorizing  the  elected  tribunes,  if 

was  then  of  recent  introduction.    See  Livy,  fewer  than  ten,  to  fill  up  their  number  by  choos- 

V.  18.  ing  their  own  colleagues,     Niebuhr,   on  the 

M  Livy,  III.  64.     "Cum  ex  veteribus  tribu-  other  hand,  supposes  that  this  was  a  new  law, 

nis,  negaret  ulluis  se  rationem  habiturum."  now  proposed  by  Duilius ;   and  he  therefore 

28  "  Cum  alii  candidati  tribus  non  explerent."  reads,  "  et  ab  iis  qui  creati  essent  cooptari  col- 
"  Explore  tribun,"  and  "  explore  centuriam,"  legaa  jubebat,"  referring  the  verb  to  Duilius, 
signify  the  obtaining  such  an  absolute  number  instead  of  the  common  reading  "juberet."  re- 
of  votes  out  of  the  whole  number  contained  in  ferring  to  the  former  law.  I  think,  however, 
tho  tribe  or  century,  as  was  required  to  consti-  that  the  grammar  is  against  this  construction, 
tute  its  suffrage  :  'for  if  the  votes  of  the  tribes  for  if  Livy  had  meant  that  Duilius  brought  for- 
were  divided  amongst  so  many  candidates,  that  ward  a  new  measure,  which  must  have  been 
no  one  had  an  absolute  majority  of  the  whole  done  at  a  particular  time  and  place,  he  would 
tribe  in  his  favor,  the  tribe  was  held  to  have  not  have  used  the  imperfect  tenses  "aiebat" 
voted  for  110  one.  And  so  if  no  candidate  had  and  "recitabat,"  but  rather  "dixit"  and  "  ro- 
an absolute  majority  of  the  whole  number  of  citavit."  And  besides,  what  likelihood  is  there 
tribes  in  his  favor,  the  comitia  were  held  to  that  such  a  measure  would  have  been  passed  by 


CHAP.  XVI] 


THE  TREBONIAN  LA\V. 


127 


was  duly  finished ;  that  the  commons  had  elected  no  more  than  five,  and  that  it 
must  remain  with  these  five  to  complete  their  own  number.  Accordingly,  the 
five  elected  tribunes  chose  to  themselves  five  colleagues,  and  two25  of  these  are 
expressly  said  to  have  been  moderate  patricians.  We  may  safely  conclude  that 
all  five  were  patricians,  and  that  Duilius,  hoping  to  prevail  by  moderation  and 
conciliation,  took  this  opportunity  to  carry  into  effect  one  part  of  the  new  consti- 
tution, in  the  confidence  that,  after  this  proof  of  honorable  dealing,  the  patricians, 
for  very  shame,  would  be  forced  to  fulfil  the  rest  of  it. 

In  this,  however,  he  was  mistaken  :  they  had  no  thought  of  fulfilling  it,  although 
by  what  means  they  were  enabled  to  defeat  it  we  can  only  conjee-  me  new  constitution  U 
ture.  Many  years  afterwards  the  patricians  habitually  set  the  Li-  setaaide- 
cinian  law  at  defiance,  and  prevented  the  election  of  a  plebeian  consul,  when- 
ever the  comitia  were  held  by  a  magistrate  devoted  to  their  interests.  But  how 
could  they  persuade  Horatius  and  Valerius,  whom  they  had  so  recently  insulted, 
to  enter  into  their  feelings,  and  when  the  day  of  election  came  on,  to  refuse  all 
votes  given  in  favor  of  a  plebeian  candidate  ?  Perhaps  the  opposition  of  the  pa- 
tricians was  so  determined,  that  the  consuls  could  not  but  yield  to  it ;  they  might 
know,  that  although  the  centuries  should  elect  a  plebeian,  yet  the  curiae  would  not 
confirm  the  election  by  conferring  on  him  the  imperium,  or  sovereign  power  ;  and, 
above  all,  they  might  feel  that  there  was  not  in  the  mass  of  the  commons  so  deep 
an  interest  in  the  point  as  could  overpower  even  the  most  resolute  resistance. 
Thus  they  abandoned  the  new  constitution  to  its  fate  :  there  was  no  election  of 
ribunes  of  the  soldiers,  nor  of  a  plebeian  consul ;  only  two  patricians  of  known 
loderation  were  chosen,  Lars  Herminius26  and  T.  Yirginius  Caelimontanus,  men 
who  were  not  likely  to  abuse  their  power,  and  so  to  make  the  victory  of  the  pa- 
tricians insupportable. 

*  Thus  the  hopes  of  Duilius  were  altogether  disappointed,  and  the  tribuneship 
had  been  laid  open  to  the  patricians  for  nothing.  The  most  mod- 

i  j  i  i        11  1111  iTrni          •  ™ke  Trebonian  law. 

erate  men  now  saw  that  they  had  been  deluded,  and  L.  irebonius, 
one  of  the  five  plebeians,  was  loud  in  his  complaints  of  the  treachery  of  the  pa- 
tricians. He  then  proposed  a  law,27  which  enacted  that  the  election  of  the  trib- 
mes  of  the  commons  should  from  henceforth  be  continued  till  the  whole  num- 
ber of  ten  were  elected.  We  read  of  no  opposition  to  this  law  from  any  quarter ; 
the  patricians  knew  that  they  must  abandon  their  hold  on  the  tribuneship  if  they 
insisted  on  keeping  all  the  curule  offices  to  themselves,  and  probably  they  were 
anxious  to  leave  no  vestige  of  the  new  constitution  in  existence,  lest  the  commons, 
while  any  part  of  it  remained,  should  be  tempted  to  demand  the  whole.  Ac- 
cordingly, all  things  returned  to  their  old  state  :  except  that  the  two  orders  were 
rendered  more  distinct  than  ever  by  the  positive  law  enacted  by  the  decemvirs, 
and  introduced  into  the  twelve  tables,  by  which  intermarriage  between  them  was 
strictly  forbidden. 

It  was  impossible,  however,  that  matters  should  so  rest.     The  moderate  con- 
suls of  the  year  307  were  succeeded  by  two  men  of  a  different 
character,  M.  Geganius  Macerinus28  and  C.  Julius.     Immediately 


the  commons  at  the  very  moment  when  they 
were  complaining  of  Duilius's  conduct  ?  Where- 
as it  is  very  conceivable  that  the  clause  appealed 
to  by  Duilius  had  been  inserted  by  him  in  his 
former  law,  perhaps  with  a  view  to  the  very  ob- 
ject which  he  now  proposed  to  gain  by  it; 
namely,  the  securing  the  admission  of  some  pa- 
tricians into  the  number  of  tribunes.  And  the 
clause  would  then  have  been  passed  without 
suspicion,  as  it  involved  no  new  principle,  as 
might  seem  intended  merely  to  relieve  the  trib- 
une presiding  at  the  comitia  from  the  fearful 
penalty  of  the  law,  in  a  case  in  which  he  might 
be  perfectly  innocent;  for  it  might  not  be  in 
his  power  to  secure  the  election  of  ten  tribunes 


in  a  single  day,  if  there  was  a  very  great  num- 
ber of  candidates.  And  thus  the  tenses  aiebat 
and  reeitabat  are  quite  right ;  for  they  express 
the  defence  which  Duilius  was  in  the  habit  of 
making,  whenever  his  conduct  was  called  in 
question. 

25  These  were  Sp.  Tarpeius  and  A.  Aternius, 
the  consuls  of  the  year  300,  who  had  passed  the 
law  "De  multse  sacramento."  Livy,  III.  65, 
and  Cicero,  de  Eepub.  II.  35. 

28  Livy,  III.  65.  The  consuls  at  this  time  cam* 
into  office  on  the  Ides  of  December.  Dionysius, 
XI.  63.  Livy,  IV.  37. 

27  Livy,  IIL  65. 

28  Livy,  III.  65. 


128  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XVI 

we  hear  again  of  the  young  patricians,  as  in  the  time  of  the  dec  3mvir  Appius 
and  of  Keeso  Quinctius.  The  tribunes  in  vain  endeavored  to  break  up  their 
organization,  by  impeaching  the  most  forward  individuals :  the  consuls  took  their 
part,  and  repressed,  says  Livy,  the  combination  among  the  tribunes  without 
attacking  the  tribunitian  power  in  itself,  and  yet  without  compromising  the  dig- 
nity of  the  patricians.  This  can  only  mean  that  private  influence,  corruption,  or 
intimidation,  were  used  to  deter  the  accusers  from  proceeding.  Thus  relieved 
from  all  restraint,  the  patricians  went  on  more  boldly ;  violence  was  constantly 
offered  to  individual  plebeians ;  the  young  patricians,  organized  in  their  clubs, 
supported  each  other  in  their  outrages  :  and  even  the  tribunes,  far  from  being 
able  to  protect  their  constituents,  were  themselves,  in  spite  of  the  sacred  laws, 
insulted  and- assaulted.  The  commons  complained  that  they  wanted  tribunes  like 
Icilius  ;  that  those  whom  they  now  had  were  no  better  than  mere  shadows.  It 
requires,  indeed,  no  ordinary  man  to  act  the  part  of  popular  leader  against  a 
powerful  aristocracy.  Even  in  the  Forum  the  patrician  clubs  were  now  the  strong- 
est party;  so  great  is  the  superiority  of  youth,  high  birth,  training  in  martial  ex- 
ercises, and  organization,  over  mere  numbers.  .But  when  they  left  the  Forum,  the 
tribunes  were  but  individuals,  often  advanced  in  life,29  with  few  slaves  and  no  de- 
pendents ;  exposed  in  their  own  persons,  and  still  more  in  their  families,  to  all  the 
insults  and  oppressions  which  wealth,  rank,  and  their  numerous  clients,  enabled 
the  patricians  to  offer.  Whose  spirit  would  not  be  broken  by  such  a  trial  ?  Who 
but  the  very  boldest  and  firmest  of  men  would  have  scrupled  to  purchase  secu- 
rity in  private  life  from  such  constant  persecution,  by  withdrawing,  in  his  public 
capacity,  that  opposition  which,  after  all,  he  might  feel  to  be  hopeless  ? 

In  the  next  year,  a  member  of  the  Quinctian  house  was  chosen  consul,  T.  Quinc- 
A.  u.  c.  309.  A.  c.  tius  Capitolinus.  Accordingly,  the  story  of  the  year  is  made  up 
Sncth.0s!8lThipcInuI  from  some  of  the  memorials  of  the  Quinctian  family,  and  is  a  mere 
panegyric  of  the  consul's  great  qualities  in  peace  and  in  war.  The 
real  history  of  the  year  is  lost  almost  entirely ;  it  is  only  said30  that  the  irritation 
of  the  commons  was  continually  becoming  more  violent,  and  that  impeachments 
against  individual  patricians  were  constantly  the  occasion  of  fresh  contests  between 
the  orders.  Then  the  panegyric  succeeds,  and  describes31  how  the  JEquians  and 
Volscians  broke  in  upon  the  Roman  territory,  and  carried  their  ravages  up  to  the 
very  walls  of  Rome ;  how  there  was  no  one  who  went  out  to  oppose  them  ;  and 
how  the  consul  then  called  the  people  together,  and  addressed  them  so  earnestly, 
and  with  such  effect,  that  all  internal  quarrels  were  suspended,  every  man  fol- 
lowed the  consul  to  the  field,  and  a  great  victory  was  gained  over  the  enemy.  So 
ran  the  story ;  but  on  this  occasion  it  has  not  found  its  way  into  the  Fasti,  and 
the  annals  of  the  year  contain  no  record  of  a  triumph  obtained  by  either  consul. 
When  Quinctius  and  his  panegyric  disappear  from  the  state,  the  story  of  inter- 
nal disputes  returns,  and  we  find32  the  Equians  and  Volscians,  to- 

A.U.C.310.  A.C.442.  .         "   .   .      .       Tr    .  '  i     A      i       A-  •      j.1  •         T» 

gether  with  the  Veientians  and  Ardeatians,  again  threatening  Rome 
from  without.  But  the  new  college  of  tribunes  contained  a  man  of  resolution, 
C.  Canuleius,  and  one,  to  all  appearance,  as  wise  as  he  was  bold.  He  chose  that 
particular  reform  out  of  many  in  which  the  commons  felt  a  deep  interest,  and  in 

29  Shakspcarc  has  truly  seized  this  point  in  cannot  expect  to  bo  distinguished  as  early  in 

the  character  of  the  tribimcship,  that  it  was  life  as  those  who  are  recommended  at  once  tc 

generally  held  by  men  of  mature,  or  even  of  ad-  public  notice  by  the  celebrity  of  their  family, 

vanced  age ;  the  tribunes  who  oppose  Coriola-  Afterwards,  when  the  tribunes,  as  in  the  case 

nus  are  elderly  men,  like  the  city  magistrates  of  of  the  Gracchi,  were  chosen  from  families,  which, 

modern  times;  and  the  aristocratical  party  taunt  though  not  patrician,  were  yet  in  the  highest 

them  with  their  want  of  strength:  "Aged  sir,  degree  noble,  young  men  might  be  elected  to 

hands  off."     "  Hence,  rotten  thing !   or  I  will  the  office,  for  then  they  enjoyed  all  the  aristo- 

shake  thy  bones  out  of  thy  garments."    So  the  cratical  advantages  of  hereditary  distinction,  al- 

pop_  ular  leader  of  Syracuse,  Athenagoras,  com-  though  their  office  was  still  a  popular  one. 

plains  of  the  youth  and  presumption  of  Her-  °  Livy,  III.  66. 

mocrates  and  his  party.    And  this  is  natural ;  31  Livy,  III.  66. 

for  he  who  has  to  make  his  own  way  to  fame,  ffl  Livy,  IV.  1. 


CHAP.  XVI]  THE  CANULEIAN  LAW  CARRIED.  129 

which  many  of  the  patricians  sympathized  with  them  ;  the  repeal,  namely,  of  that 
law  of  the  twelve  tables  which  forbade  connubia  between  the  two  orders.  Many 
families  must  have  felt  the  hardship  of  this  law ;  for  marriages  between  patricians 
and  plebeians  were  common,  and  as  they  were  not  in  the  highest  sense  legal,  the 
children  followed  the  mother's  condition,  not  the  father's,  and  were  not  subject 
to  their  father's  power,  nor  could  inherit  from  him  if  he  died  intestate.  On  this 
point  there  was  a  strong  and  general  feeling;  but  the  other  nine  tribunes,33 _§n-_ 
couraged  by  their  colleague's  boldness,  attempted  to  revive  the  question  of  the 
admission  of  plebeians  to  the  consulship,  and  they  proposed  a  law,  "  that  the 
consulship  should  be  thrown  open,  without  distinction,  to  the  members  of  both 
orders." 

Here,  again,  the  family  memorials,  and  the  annalists  who  compiled  their  narra- 
tives from  them,  have  left  a  blank  in  the  story.     No  patrician  made  m 

,      ,  ,  .,  i         -,  •  •  r      •    •  i          Tumult  on  the  Janicti- 

himself  remarkable,  either  by  his  magnanimous  opposition  to  the  j»m.  ^ The^canuiehm 
commons,  or  by  his  patriotic  support  of  their  claims ;  no  memora- 
ble tale  of  outrage  or  of  heroism  was  connected  with  these  events,  and  thus  they 
have  been  passed  by  almost  unnoticed.  But  the  short  statement  of  Zonaras,84 
"  that  many  violent  things  were  said  and  done  on  both  sides,"  acquires  something 
more  of  distinctness  from  the  mention  made  by  Florus35  of  a  tumult  which  broke 
out  on  the  hill  Janiculum,  headed  by  the  tribune  Canuleius.  It  seems,  then,  that 
the  commons  again  took  up  arms,  and  established  themselves,  not,  as  before,  on  the 
Aventine  or  the  Sacred  Hill,  but  beyond  the  Tiber,  on  a  spot  easily  capable  of 
being  converted  into  a  distinct  city.  Thus  pressed,  the  patricians  once  more 
yielded,  and  the  law  of  Canuleius,  to  repeal  the  decemvirs'36  prohibition  of  inter- 
marriages between  the  two  orders,  was  carried  without  further  opposition. 

The  success  of  Canuleius  encouraged  his  colleagues ;  and  they  now  more  ve- 
hemently urged  their  law  for  opening  the  consulship  to  the  com- 

J          to ,  .  &      .        ,  i    •    j  ,     Disputes  about  the  law 

mons.     But  this  measure,  it  seems,  excited  a  less  general  interest  proposed  by  his  Coi- 

.,,,„...,.  ,  ,  .     _  .°.  ._,,  leagues  for  opening  the 

m  its  behalf,  while  it  awakened  a  yet  fiercer  opposition.  We  may  coniuuyp  to  the  com- 
suppose,  however,  that  the  commons  again  occupied,  in  military 
order,  either  the  Aventine  or  the  Janiculum :  for  the  patricians  held  meetings 
amongst  themselves,37  which  neither  Valerius  nor  Horatius  would  attend  ;  and  C. 
Claudius,  true  to  the  spirit  of  his  family,  wanted  to  invest  the  consuls  with  full 
military  power,  and  to  commission  them  to  attack  the  tribunes  and  the  commons 
by  force  of  arms.  The  Quinctii,  however,  so  said  their  family  accounts,  would 
have  no  violence  done  on  the  sacred  persons  of  the  tribunes ;  and  their  milder 
counsels  led  to  a  temporary  settlement  of  the  contest.  The  consulship  was  to  be 
suspended,  but  tribunes  of  the  soldiers,  with  consular  power,  were  to  be  appointed, 
and  these  might  be  either  plebeians  or  patricians.  What  was  to  be  the  number 
of  these  tribunes  is  uncertain  ;  three  only  were  actually  chosen ;  but  Zonaras  says,38 
t  according  to  the  constitution  of  the  office  there  were  to  be  six,  three  to  be 
en  from  each  order.  Perhaps  the  number  three  had  reference  to  the  three 
tribes  of  the  Roman  people,  the  Ramnenses,  the  Titienses,  and  Luceres,  and 
these,  in  the  division  of  the  centuries,  were  now  six,  the  sex  suffragia,  it  may 
,ve  been  intended,  in  like  manner,  that  after  three  patrician  tribunes  had  been 
cted,  three  plebeians  should  be  added  to  their  number,  like  the  first  and  second 
nturies  of  the  three  tribes,  according  to  the  system  ascribed  to  the  elder  Tar- 
quinius.  At  any  rate,  three  tribunes  were  elected ;  and,  as  Livy  declares,  three 
patricians :  A.  Sempronius  Atratinus,  L.  Atilius,  and  Cloelius.39 

38  Livy,  IV.  1.  w  Livy,  IV.  6.    Dionysius,  XI.  55. 

84  IIoAAa  KUT'  uAAi;Auv  Kal  filcua  c\ev6v  TE  Kai        M  VII.  19.    Dionysius  also  agrees  with.  him. 

fyjrparrov.      VII.  1'J.  XI.  60. 

30  Tertiara  seditionem  incitavit  matrimonio-        39  In  the  MSS.  of  Livy,  this  last  tribune  is 
rum  dignitas,  ut  plebeii  cum  patriciis  jungeren-    called  "  T.  Celius,"  or  "  Caelius,"  or  "  Caecilius ;" 

ir 


ir.    Qui  tumultus  in  monte  Janiculo,  duce  Ca-    Cueeilius  is  the  reading  followed  in  Draken- 
eio,  tribune  plcbis,  exarsit.     Florus,  I.  25.        borch's  edition,  but  Bekker  has  adopted  the 
88  Livy,  IV.  6.  correction  of  Sigonius,  "T.  Cloelius."     In  Dio- 


aleio 


130  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XVI. 

It  is  remarkable  that  two  out  of  these  three,  Sempronius  and  Cloelius,  were  chosen 


^  om  fam^es  especially  noted,  twelve  years'10  earlier,  for  their  vio- 
apwintment  of  consuls  lent  hostility  to  the  commons,  and  for  the  great  strength  of  their 
bands  of  associated  followers.  This  can  hardly  have  been  a  mere 
accident  :  it  looks  as  if  the  patricians  had  made  every  effort  to  bring  them  for- 
ward as  efficient  leaders  in  the  struggle  for  which  they  were  preparing.  But 
again  the  details  are  lost  ;  and  Livy's  story41  merely  relates  that  within  three 
months  the  tribunes  were  called  upon  by  the  augurs  to  resign,  from  an  alleged 
religious  informality  in  their  election  ;  that  there  was  then  a  dispute,  whether 
other  tribunes  should  be  elected,  or  whether  consuls  should  be  appointed,  as  be- 
fore ;  that  T.  Quinctius  Barbatus,  whom  the  patricians  had  appointed  interrex, 
was  on  this  occasion  their  leader  ;  that  the  commons,  feeling  that  only  patricians 
would  be  elected,  whether  under  the  name  of  consuls  or  tribunes,  thought  it  vain  to 
dispute  for  nothing  ;  and  that  thus,  in  the  end,  two  consuls  were  appointed,  L.  Pa- 
pirius  Mugillanus,  and  another,  Sempronius  Atratinus,  and  all  mention  of  the  laws 
proposed  by  the  tribunes  of  the  commons  was  thus  for  several  years  laid  to  sleep. 

Another  account42  represents  T.  Quinctius,  not  as  interrex,  but  as  dictator,  and 
vnrvin-  accounts  of  says  that  in  no  more  than  thirteen  days  he  put  an  end  to  the  con- 
.We  tractions.  testj  and  then  laid  down  fos  office.  And  as  we  find  the  record  of 
a  treaty  concluded  in  this  year  between  Rome  and  Ardea,  it  has  been  conjectured48 
that  the  patricians  may  have  availed  themselves  of  foreign  aid  in  putting  down 
the  opposition  of  the  commons.  It  is  certain  that  in  the  following  year  we  meet, 
for  the  first  time,  with  the  name  of  a  new  patrician  magistracy,  the  censorship  ; 
and  Niebuhr  saw  clearly  that  the  creation  of  this  office  was  connected  with  the 
appointment  of  tribunes  of  the  soldiers  ;  and  that  both  belong  to  what  may  be 
called  the  constitution  of  the  year  .312. 

This  constitution  recognized  two  points  :  a  sort  of  continuation  of  the  principle 
of  the  decemvirate,  inasmuch  as  the  supreme  fmvernment  was  again, 

New  constitution.  Cen-     ,  ,.  ,     .    r  V1.  j     ^i         i  •        i 

wre,  qimton,  and  tnb-  to  speak  in  modern  lanomasfe,  put  m  commission,  and  the  kmo;ly 

ones  of  the  soldiers.  "  .  .  •        i^          i         " 

powers,  formerly  united  in  the  consuls  or  praetors,  were  now  to  be 
divided  between  the  censors  and  tribunes  of  the  soldiers  ;  and,  secondly,  the  eli- 
gibility of  the  commons  to  share  in  some  of  the  powers  thus  divided.  But  the 
partition,  even  in  theory,  was  far  from  equal  :  the  two  censors,  who  were  to  hold 
their  office  for  five  years,  were  not  only  chosen  from  the  patricians,  but,  as  Nie- 
buhr thinks,44  by  them  ;  that  is,  by  the  assembly  of  the  curias  ;  the  two  quaes- 
tors who  judged  in  cases  of  blood  were  also  chosen  from  the  patricians,  although 
by  the  centuries.  Thus  the  civil  power  of  the  old  praetors  was,  in  its  most  im- 
portant points,  still  exercised  exclusively  by  the  patricians  ;  and  even  their  mili- 
tary power,  which  was  professedly  to  be  open  to  both  orders,  was  not  transmitted 

dorus  the  MSS.  read  Kdnro?,  for  which  the  edit-  the  patricians  resisted  this,  and  finally,  to  sim- 

ors  have  corrected  Ko«/nos  (Quintius,  or  Quinc-  plify  the  question,  got  rid  of  their  own  tribunes 

tins).      In  Dionysius,  the  common  reading  is  ulso,  and  returned  to  the  government  by  con- 

KX6<r<ov  YiK£\6v,  but  the  cognomen  enables  us  to  suls. 

correct  this,  and  in  the  Vatican  MS.  it  is  rightly  40  Dionysius,  X.  41. 

given  KXtiAjov  2tics\6v.     Neibuhr  says  that  L.  41  Livy,  IV.  7. 

Atilius  must  have  been  a  plebeian,  because  the  42  Lydus,  do  Magistratibus,  I.  38.     But  tho 

Atilii  were  a  plebeian  family,  and  the  L.  Atilius,  infinite  confusions  of  the  passage  in  which  this 

who  was  tribune  of  the  soldiers  in  356,  is  ex-  state  inent  occurs,  render  its  authority  extremely 

pressly  called  a  plebeian  by  Livy  himself.    But  questionable. 

this  is  merely  the  same  question  which  occurs  ia  Niebuhr,  Vol.  II.  p.  410,  Engl.  Transl. 

with  respect  to  some  of  the  decemvirs  ;  and  it  44  Vol.  II.  p.  394,  Engl.  Transl.     It  appears 

never  can  be  shown  that  there  were  not  some  that  in  after  times  the  election  of  the  censors 

patrician  houses  of  all  those  names,  which,  to  was  confirmed  by  a  lex  centuriata,  as  that  of  the 

us  in  the  later  history,  occur  only  as  plebeian,  other  curule  magistrates  was  by  a  lex  curiata. 

except  where  the  plebeian  family  had  been  noble  Both  were,  then,  a  mere  formality;  but  Nie 

in  some  other  city  of  Italy,  and  was  not  of  Ro-  buhr  infers  from  this  difference  between  tho 

man  extraction.    Thus  we  do  not  hear  of  any  censorship  and  the  other  magistracies,  that  the 

patrician  JEYii  or  Csccilii.    It  is  more  probable,  former  was  originally  conferred  by  the  curioe, 

L  think,  that  tke  three  tribunes  first  chosen  and  confirmed  by  the  centuries,  as  the  others 

were  patricians,  and  that  three  plebeians  were  were  conferred  by  the  centuries,'  and  confirmed 

to  have  heen  added  to  their  number  ;  but  that  by  the  curise. 


CHAP.  XVI.]  CONSTITUTION  OF  312.  131 

to  the  tribunes  of  the  soldiers,  without  some  diminution  of  its  majesty.  The  new 
tribuneship  was  not  an  exact  image  of  the  kingly  sovereignty ;  it  was  not  a  curule 
office,  and  therefore  no  tribune  ever  enjoyed  the  honor  of  a  triumph,45  in  which 
the  conquering  general,  ascending  to  the  Capitol  to  sacrifice  to  the  guardian  gods 
of  Rome,  was  wont  to  be  arrayed  in  all  the  insignia  of  royalty. 

But  even  the  small  share  of  power  thus  granted  in  theory  to  the  commons, 
was  in  practice  withheld  from  them.  Whether  from  the  influence  jts inequality  as  reg^ 
of  the  patricians  in  the  centuries,  or  by  religious  pretences  urged  ed  the  common8- 
by  the  augurs,  or  by  the  enormous  and  arbitrary  power  of  refusing  votes  which 
the  officer  presiding  at  the  comitia  was  wont  to  exercise,  the  college  of  the  trib- 
unes was  for  many  years  filled  by  the  patricians  alone.  And  while  the  censor- 
ship was  to  be  a  fixed  institution,  the  tribunes  of  the  soldiers  were  to  be  replaced, 
whenever  it  might  appear  needful,  by  two  consuls ;  and  to  the  consulship  no  ple- 
beian was  so  much  as  legally  eligible.  Thus  the  victory  of  the  aristocracy  may 
seem  to  have  been  complete,  and  we  may  wonder  how  the  commons,  after  having 
carried  so  triumphantly  the  law  of  Canuleius,  should  have  allowed  the  political 
rights  asserted  for  them  by  his  colleagues  to  have  been  so  partially  conceded  in 
theory,  and  in  practice  to  be  so  totally  withheld. 

The  explanation  is  simple,  and  it  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  lessons  of  history. 
The  commons  obtained  those  reforms  which  they  desired,  and  they  Cn}Igeg  why  thi,  WM 
desired  such  only  as  their  state  was  ripe  for.  They  had  withdrawn  quietly  endured- 
in  times  past  to  the  Sacred  Hill,  but  it  was  to  escape  from  intolerable  personal 
oppression ;  they  had  recently  occupied  the  Aventine  in  arms,  but  it  was  to  get 
rid  of  a  tryanny  which  endangered  the  honor  of  their  wives  and  daughters,  and 
to  recover  the  protection  of  their  tribunes  ;  they  had  more  lately  still  retired  to 
the  Janiculum,  but  it  was  to  remove  an  insulting  distinction  which  embittered  the 
relations  of  private  life,  and  imposed  on  their  grandchildren,  in  many  instances, 
the  inconveniences,  if  not  the  reproach,  of  illegitimacy.  These  were  all  objects  of 
universal  and  personal  interest ;  and  these  the  commons  were  resolved  not  to  re- 
linquish. But  the  possible  admission  of  a  few  distinguished  members  of  their 
body  to  the  highest  offices  of  state  concerned  the  mass  of  the  commons  but  little. 
They  had  their  own  tribunes  for  their  personal  protection ;  but  curule  magistra- 
cies, and  the  government  of  the  commonwealth,  seemed  to  belong  to  the  patri- 
cians, or,  at  least,  might  be  left  in  their  hands  without  any  great  sacrifice.  So 
it  is  that  all  things  come  best  in  their  season ;  that  political  power  is  then  most 
happily  exercised  by  a  people,  when  it  has  not  been  given  to  them  prematurely, 
that  is,  before,  in  the  natural  progress  of  things,  they  feel  the  want  of  it.  Security 
for  person  and  property  enables  a  nation  to  grow  without  interruption ;  in  con- 
tending for  this,  a  people's  sense  of  law  and  right  is  wholesomely  exercised  ;  mean- 
time, national  prosperity  increases,  and  brings  with  it  an  increase  of  intelligence, 
till,  other  and  more  necessary  wants  being  satisfied,  men  awaken  to  the  highest 
earthly  desire  of  the  ripened  mind,  the  desire  of  taking  an  active  share  in  the 
great  work  of  government.  The  Roman  commons  abandoned  the  highest  magis- 
tracies to  the  patricians  for  a  period  of  many  years :  but  they  continued  to  in* 
in  prosperity  and  in  influence ;  and  what  the  fathers  had  wisely  yielded, 
leir  sons,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  acquired.  So  the  English  house  of  commons, 

the  reign  of  Edward  III.,46  declined  to  interfere  in  questions  of  peace  and  war,  as 
?ing  too  high  for  them  to  compass  ;  but  they  would  not  allow  the  crown  to  take 
leir  money  without  their  own  consent ;  and  so  the  nation  grew,  and  the  influence 

the  house  of  commons  grew  along  with  it,  till  that  house  has  become  the 

jat  and  predominant  power  in  the  British  constitution. 

t5  Zonaras,  VII.  19.    It  might  be  a  curious    origin  the  inferior  rank  of  the  general  who  had 
ration  whether  the  ovation,  or  inferior  tri-*  gained  it,  rather  than  the  less  importance  of  his 
iph,  in  which  the  conquering  general  walked    military  successes. 

toot  instead  of  riding  in  his  chariot,  was  not        46  Hallam,  Middle  Ages,  Vol.  III.  p.  71.  ei, 
it  introduced  in  the  case  of  a  tribune  of  the    1822. 
more ;  and  whether  it  did  not  mark  in  its 


132  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CiiAr.  XVII 

If  this  view  be  correct,  Trebonius  judged  far  more  wisely  than  M.  Duilius  ;  and 
the  abandonment  of  half  the  plebeian  tribuneship  to  the  patricians,  in  order  to 
obtain  for  the  plebeians  an  equal  share  in  the  higher  magistracies,  would  have 
been  as  really  injurious  to  the  commons,  as  it  was  unwelcome  to  the  pride  of  the 
aristocracy.  It  was  resigning  a  weapon  with  which  they  were  familiar,  for  one 
which  they  knew  not  how  to  wield.  The  tribuneship  was  the  foster  nurse  of  Ro- 
man liberty,  and  without  its  care  that  liberty  never  would  have  grown  to  maturity. 
What  evils  it  afterwards  wrought,  when  the  public  freedom  was  fully  ripened, 
arose  from  that  great  defect  of  the  Roman  constitution,  its  conferring  such  extrav- 
agant powers  on  all  its  officers.  It  proposed  to  check  one  tyranny  by  another ; 
instead  of  so  limiting  the  prerogatives  of  every  magistrate  and  order  in  the  state, 
whether  aristocratical  or  popular,  as  to  exclude  tyranny  from  all. 


CHAPTER  XVII, 

INTERNAL  HISTORY  FROM  312  TO  350— THE  CENSORSHIP,  AND  THE  LIMITATION 
OF  IT  BY  MAMERCUS  ^EMILIUS— SP.  M^ELIUS  AND  C.  AHALA— THE  QU^ES- 
TORSHIP  LAID  OPEN  TO  THE  COMMONS— SIX  TRIBUNES  OF  THE  SOLDIERS 
APPOINTED,  AND  PAY  ISSUED  TO  THE  SOLDIERS. 


"What  can  be  more  instructive  than  to  observe  the  first  principles  of  right  springing  up, 
involved  in  superstition  and  polluted  with  violence ;  until,  by  length  of  time  and  lavornble  cir- 
cumstances, itnas  worked  itself  into  clearness  ?" — BURKE,  Abridgment  of  English  History,  Book 
III.  Chap.  IX.  

THE  period  of  nearly  forty  years  on  which  we  are  now  going  to  enter,  so  short 
a  space  in  the  history  of  a  nation,  so  long  to  all  of  us  individually,  includes  within 
it  the  whole  of  the  Peloponnesian  war.  Whilst  at  Rome  the  very  form  and  tend- 
ency of  great  political  revolutions  cannot  be  discovered  without  difficulty ;  whilst 
military  events  are  wholly  disguised  by  ignorance  or  flattery,  and  whilst  we  can 
as  yet  obtain  no  distinct  ideas  of  any  one  individual,  nor  fully  conceive  the  char- 
acter of  the  national  mind,  Athens  is,  on  the  other  hand,  known  to  us  almost  in 
its  minutest  points  of  detail.  During  this  time  Thucydides  was  collecting  mate- 
rials for  his  history ;  and  Herodotus,  after  having  travelled  nearly  all  over  the 
world,  was  making  the  last  additions  to  his  great  work  in  the  country  of  his  later 
years,  on  the  southern  coast  of  Italy.  Pericles  had  passed  all  of  his  glorious  life 
except  its  most  glorious  close ;  and  Socrates,  the  faithful  servant  of  truth  and 
virtue,  was  deserving  that  common  hatred  of  the  aristocratical1  and  democratical 
vulgar,  which  made  him  at  last  its  martyr.  The  arts  and  manufactures  of  Athens 
were  well  known  at  Rome ;  and  those  names  and  stories  of  the  wars  of  Thebes 
and  Troy,  which  their  dramatists  were  continually  presenting  afresh  to  the  mem- 
ory of  the  Athenians,  were  familiar  also  in  the  heart  of  Italy,  were  adopted  into 
the  language  and  traditions  of  Etruria  and  of  Rome,  and  employed  the  genius  of 

1  The  aristocratical  hatred  against  Socrates  is  who  politically  are  most  at  variance  with  each 

exhibited  in  the  Clouds  of  Aristophanes  ;  and  other ;  and  so  the  common  dread  and  hatred  ot 

the  famous  speech  of  Cleon  on  the  question  of  improvement,  of  truth,  of  principle — in  other 

the  punishment  of  the  revolted  Mytilenseans,  words,  of  all  that  is  the  light  and  life  of  man, 

shows  the  same  spirit  in  connection  with  the  has,  on  more  than  one  occasion,  united  in  one 

strong  democratical  party.    Political  parties  are  cause  all  who  are  low  in  intellect  and  morals, 

not  the  ultimate  distinction  between  man  and  from  the  highest  rank  in  society  down  to  tha 

man :  there  are  higher  points,  whether  for  good  humblest. 
or  evil,  on  which  a  moral  sympathy  unites  those 


CHAP.  XVII]  INTERNAL  HISTORY.  133 

Italian  artists2  as  of  those  of  their  original  country.  But,  during  the  period  at 
which  we  are  now  arrived,  central  Italy  became  acquainted,  not  with  Athenian 
art  only,  but  with  the  fame  of  the  Athenian  arms.  The  Etruscans  heard  with 
delight  that  a  mighty  avenger  of  their  defeat  at  Cuma3  was  threatening  their  old 
enemies  of  Syracuse ;  their  cities  gladly  lent  their  aid  to  the  invader  ;  and  the 
Romans  must  have  heard  with  interest  from  their  neighbors  and  friends  of  Caere 
or  Agylla,  how  some  of  their  countrymen  had  done  good  service  in  the  lines4  of 
the  Athenian  army,  and  how  they  had  been  involved  in  that  sweeping  ruin-in 
which  the  greatest  armament  ever  yet  sent  out  by  a  free  and  civilized  common- 
wealth had  so  miserably  perished.  But  the  Romans  knew  not,  and  could  not 
know,  how  deeply  the  greatness  of  their  own  posterity,  and  the  fate  of  the  whole 
western  world,  was  involved  in  the  destruction  of  the  fleet  of  Athens  in  the  har- 
bor of  Syracuse.  Had  that  great  expedition  proved  victorious,  the  energies  of 
Greece  during  the  next  eventful  century  would  have  found  their  field  in  the  west 
no  less  than  in  the  east :  Greece,  and  not  Rome,  might  have  conquered  Carthage  ; 
Greek,  instead  of  Latin,  might  have  been  at  this  day  the  principal  element  of  the 
languages  of  Spain,  of  France,  and  of  Italy  ;  and  the  laws  of  Athens,  rather  than 
of  Rome,  might  be  the  foundation  of  the  law  of  the  civilized  world. 

The  period  now  before  us  is  marked,  as  far  as  Rome  itself  is  concerned,  with 
few  events  of  great  importance.  The  commons  retained  and  asserted  General  chamcter  of 
those  rights  which  were  the  best  suited  to  their  actual  condition;  the ensuins period' 
and  thus  became  gradually  fitted  to  desire  and  to  claim  others  of  a  higher  char- 
acter. But  for  the  first  important  advantage  to  their  cause  they  were  indebted 
to  one  of  the  wisest  and  best  Romans  of  his  time,  who  was  at  once  trusted  by 
them,  and  respected  by  his  own  order,  the  patrician  Mamercus  JEmilius.  Nine 
years  after  the  institution  of  the  censorship,  Mamercus,  having  been  A>  u.  c  m  A  c> 
named  dictator,  to  oppose  a  threatened  attack  from  the  Etruscans,  43K 
proposed  and  carried  a  law5  to  limit  the  duration  of  the  censorship.  That  office, 
in  its  powers  and  outward  splendor  a  lively  image  of  royalty,  was  held  for  a  term 
of  five  years.  By  the  law  of  Mamercus  ^Emilius  it  was  to  be  held  in  future  only 
for  eighteen  months ;  and  as  the  election  of  censors  still  took  place  only  at  inter- 
vals of  five  years,  this  magistracy  was  always  in  abeyance  for  a  longer  time  than 
it  was  in  existence. 

The  censorship  was  an  office  so  remarkable,  that,  however  familiar  the  subject 
may  be  to  many  readers,  it  is  necessary  here  to  bestow  some  notice 
on  it.     Its  original  business6  was,  to  take  a  register  of  the  citizens  T 
and  of  their  property ;  but  this,  which  seems  at  first  sight  to  be  no  more  than 
the  drawing  up  of  a  mere  statistical  report,  became,  in  fact,  from  the  large  dis- 
cretion allowed  to  every  Roman  officer,  a  political  power  of  the  highest  import- 
"-.ce.     The  censors  made  out  the  returns  of  the  free  population  ;°but  they  did 

Dre ;  they  divided  it  according  to  its  civil  distinctions,  and  drew  up  a  list  of  the 

nators,7  a  list  of  the  equites,  a  list  of  the  members  of  the  several  tribes,  or 

a  In  specimens  of  Etruscan  vases  and  frescoes  by  Pindar,  Pyth.  I.  140,  and  one  of  the  helmets 

ven  by  Micali  in  the  atlas  accompanying  his  taken  from  the  enemy  on  this  day,  and  sent  as 

istory  of  the  Ancient  People  of  Italy,  and  in  an  offering  to  the  Olympian  Jupiter,  was  dis- 

ose  published  more  recently  by  the  Antiqua-  covered  by  an  English  traveller,  in  1817,  amongst 

IE.  Society  of  Rome,  it  is  curious  to  observe  the  ruins  of  Olympia,  and  bears  an  inscription 

>w  many  of  the  subjects  are  taken  from  the  which  tells  its  story,  "  that  Hiero,  the  son  of 

cry  of  the  siege  of  Thebes,  and  still  more  from  Dinomenes,  and  the  Syracusans,  offered  it  to 

that  of  Troy.   Many  of  the  vases  on  which  these  Jove  as  a  part  of  the  Tyrrhenian  spoil  from  Cu- 

subjects  occur  are  thought  to  be  actually  of  ma."    See  Bockh,  Corpus  Inscript.  Grcec.  torn. 

Athenian  manufacture ;  others  appear  to  be  Ital-  I.  p.  34. 

mn  imitations ;  but  both  equally  prove  that  the  *  Thucydides,  VII.  53. 

stories  of  the  heroic  age  of  Greece  were  well  B  Livy,  IV.  24. 

known  in  Italy,  and  the  works  of  Grecian  art  6  Magistratus,  cuiscribarumministeriumous- 

sulmired  and  sought  after.  todiasque  et  tabularum  cura,  cui  arbitrium  for- 

3  The  naval  victory  of  Cuma  was  won  by  Hiero,  muloe  censendi  subjiceretur.  Livy,  IV.  8. 

the  brother  and  successor  of  Gelon,  over  the  7  See  the  accounts  of  the  census  in  Livy. 

Etruscans,  in  the  year  474  B.C.  Olymp.  76-3.  XXIV.  18,  and  XXXIX.  42,  44.    See  also  Zo- 

It  is  commemorated  by  Diodorus,  XI.  51,  a-;d  naras,  VII.  19. 


134  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XVIL 

of  those  citizens  who  enjoyed  the  right  of  voting,  and  a  list  of  the  aerarians,  con- 
sisting of  those  freedmen,  naturalized  strangers,  and  others,  who,  being  enrolled 
in  no  tribe,  possessed  no  vote  in  the  comitia,  but  still  enjoyed  all  the  private  rights 
of  Roman  citizens.  Now  the  lists  thus  drawn  up  by  the  censors  were  regarded 
as  legal  evidence  of  a  man's  condition  :  the  state  could  refer  to  no  more  authen- 
tic standard  than  to  the  returns  deliberately  made  by  one  of  its  highest  magis- 
trates, wno  was  responsible  to  it  for  their  being  drawn  up  properly.  He  would, 
in  the  first  place,  be  the  sole  judge  of  many  questions  of  fact,  such  as  whether  a 
citizen  had  the  qualifications8  required  by  law  or  custom  for  the  rank  which  he 
claimed,  or  whether  he  had  ever  incurred  any  judicial  sentence  which  rendered 
him  infamous  :9  but  from  thence  the  transition  was  easy,  according  to  Roman  no- 
tions, to  the  decision  of  questions  of  right  ;  such  as  whether  a  citizen  was  really 
worthy  of  retaining  his  rank,  whether  he  had  not  committed  some  act  as  justly 
degrading  as  those  which  incurred  the  sentence  of  the  law  ;  and  in  this  manner 
the  censor  gave  a  definite  power  to  public  opinion,  and  whatever  acts  or  habits 
were  at  variance  with  the  general  feeling,  he  held  himself  authorized  to  visit  with 
disgrace  or  disfranchisement.  Thus  was  established  a  direct  check  upon  many 
vices  or  faults  which  law,  in  almost  all  countries,  has  not  ventured  to  notice. 
Whatever  was  contrary  to  good  morals,  or  to  the  customs  of  their  fathers,  Roman 
citizens  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  practise  :  if  a  man10  behaved  tyrannically  to  his 
wife  or  children,  if  he  was  guilty  of  excessive  cruelty  even  to  his  slaves,  if  he 
neglected  his  land,11  if  he  indulged  in  habits  of  extravagant  expense,12  or  followed 
any  calling  which  was  regarded  as  degrading,13  the  offence  was  justly  noted  by 
the  censors,  and  the  offender  was  struck  off  from  the  list  of  senators,  if  his  rank 
were  so  high  ;  or  if  he  were  an  ordinary  citizen,  he  was  expelled  from  his  tribe, 
and  reduced  to  the  class  of  the  Eerarians.  Beyond  this  the  censor  had  no  power 
of  degradation  ;u  for  the  private  rights  of  Roman  citizens  could  not  be  taken  away 
by  any  magistrate  ;  the  sentence  could  only  affect  his  honors,  or  such  privileges 
as  were  strictly  political. 

Yet  the  censors  had  a  further  hold  even  on  the  aBrarians,  nor  was  their  power 
limited  to  the  degrading  a  citizen  from  his  rank  ;  they  could  also 
affect  his  fortune.  It  was  their  business,  as  I  have  said,  to  make 


a  return  of  the  property  of  every  Roman,  and  of  its  value  ;  for 
the  taxes  were  levied  according  to  this  return,  and  here,  too,  its  evidence  was 
decisive.  Every  citizen  presented  at  the  census  a  detailed  account  of  his  prop- 

8  For  instance,  whether  a  man  claiming  to  be-  honorable  tribe  to  a  less  honorable,  but  he  could 
long  to  one  of  the  tribes,  followed  any  trade  in-  not  remove  him  from  all  the  thirty-five  tribes, 
compatible  with  the  character  of  a  plebeian  ;  all  and  so,  in  effect,  disfranchise  him.     And  yet 
retail  trades  being  forbidden  at  this  time  to  the  the  expression  "  in  serarios  referri,"  is  equiva- 
commons.    See  Dionysius,  IX.  25.  lent  to  "  in  Ceritum  tabulas  referri,"  and  this 

9  This  was  called  a  "judicium  turpe,"  and  is  a  well-known  designation  of  the  "civitas  sine 
this  was  incurred  in  various  actions,  which  are  suffragio  ;"  for  Gellius  says  expressly,  that  "  in 
specified  by  the  lawyers:  as,  for  instance,  if  a  has  tabulas  censores  referri  jubebant,  quos  notae 
man  were  cast  in  an  actio  furti,  or  vi  bonorum  causa  suffragiis  privabant."   XVI.  13.   It  would 
raptorum,  or  tutelse,  or  mandati,  or  pro  socio,  seem,  however,  that  "tribu  movere,"  and  "in 
&c.     See  Gains,  Institutes,  IV.  §  182.    And  tho  serarios  referre,"  were  two  distinct  sentences, 
disqualification  thus  incurred  was   perpetual,  and  that  the  former  did  indeed  only  imply  a  re- 
arid  could  not  be  reversed  by  the  censors.    See  moval  from  a  higher  tribe  to  a  lower  (in  which 
Cicero,  pro  Cluentio,  42.  sense  it  probably  is  that  Dionysius  speaks  of 

10  Dionysius,  XX.  3.    Fragm.  Mai.  the  censors  as  removing  a  man  tis  rfc  ru>v  art- 

11  A.  Gellius,  IV.  12.  ^v  0v*a?,  XVIII.  22.     Fragm.  Mai)  ;  but  that 

12  Dionysius,  XX.  3.    Seethewell-knownsto-  the  latter  was,  for  the  time,  equivalent  to  a  ju- 
ry of  the  censor  Fabricius  expelling  Eufinus  from  dicium  turpe,  and  deprived  a  citizen  of  all  his 
the  senate,  because  he  had  ten  pounds'  weight  political  rights  ;  but  it  could  be  reversed  either 
of  silver  plate  in  his  possession.  by  the  censor's  colleague,  or  by  the  next  cen- 

13  As,  for  instance,  that  of  an  actor.      Seo  sors.   But  the  question  concerning  the  aerarians. 
Livy,  VII.  2.  like  every  other  connected  with  the  censors  and 

14  There  is  a  remarkable  passage  in  Livy,  the  centuries,  is  beset  with  difficulties,  from  our 
XLV.  15,  in  which  C.  Claudius,  one  of  the  cen-  ignorance  of  the  changes  introduced  at  differ- 
sors  in  the  year  584,  is  represented  as  denying  ent  periods,  and  thus  being  apt  to  ascribe  to  one 
the  right  ot  the  censor  to  deprive  any  man  of  time  what  is  applicable  only  to  another. 

his  vote:    he  could  remove  him  from  a  more 


: 


CHAP.  XVII.]  POWERS  OF  THE  CENSORS.  135 

erty ;  he  stated  the  name15  and  situation  of  his  landed  estate,  what  proportion  of 
t  was  arable,  what  was  meadow,  what  vineyard,  and  what  olive  ground.  He 
was  even  to  number  his  vines  and  olive-trees,  and  to  the  whole  thus  minutely 
escribed  he  was  to  affix  his  own  valuation.  He  was  to  observe  the  same  rules 
ith  regard  to  his  slaves,  and  undoubtedly  with  regard  to  his  horses  and  cattle ; 
for  all  these  came  under  the  same  class  of  res  mancipii.  But  the  censor  had  an 
unlimited  power  of  setting  on  all  these  things  a  higher  valuation,  and,  conse- 
quently, of  subjecting  them  to  a  higher  rate  of  taxation.  Further,  we  have  in- 
stances16 of  a  censor's  calling  for  a  return  of  other  articles  of  property,  suelTas~ 
clothing,  jewels,  and  carriages,  which  were  not  returned  in  the  regular  order  of 
the  census ;  and  on  these  he  would  set  an  extravagant  valuation,  to  ten  times 
their  actual  worth.  Nor  does  it  appear  that  in  these  cases  there  was  any  remedy 
for  the  person  aggrieved :  the  censor's  decision  was  final.  '  On  the  return  of  tax- 
able property  thus  made,  the  senate,  in  case  of  need,  levied  a  certain  rate,  ordi- 
narily,17 as  it  seems,  of  no  more  than  one  per  thousand  ;  but  raised,  as  circum- 
stances might  require,  to  two,  three,  or  four  per  thousand.  For  it  must  be  un- 
derstood that  this  property  tax,  or  tributum,  was  mostly  a  war  tax,  and  not  a 
part  of  the  regular  revenues  of  the  state :  it  might  happen,  therefore,  that  no 
property  tax  was  levied,  and  in  that  case  the  censor's  surcharge,  or  over- valua- 
tion, would  have  been  inoperative ;  but  wars  were  so  frequent,  and  the  necessi- 
ties of  the  state  so  great,  in  the  early  periods  of  the  Roman  history,  that  there 
was  probably  no  one  term  of  five  years  in  which  the  tributum  was  not  needed, 
and,  consequently,  no  return  of  any  censors  which  was  not  carried  into  effect. 
We  are  told  also  that  the  censors,18  on  some  occasions,  not  only  put  their  own 
valuation  on  the  property  returned  at  the  census,  but  also  fixed  the  rate  to  be 
levied  upon  it :  being  sure  in  this,  as  in  so  many  other  instances,  to  have  their 
acts  sanctioned  by  the  senate,  if  it  did  not  appear  that  they  had  been  influenced 
by  any  unworthy  motives. 

In  addition  to  this  great  power  with  regard  to  the  taxes,  or  tributa,  the  cen- 
sors had  the  entire  management  of  the  regular  revenues  of  the 

•  .  10       mi  i  t   i  >  Over  the  vectigalia,  or 

state,  or  ot  its  vectigalia.  Ihey  were  the  commonwealth  s  stew-  property  of  the  cow- 
ards, and  to  their  hands  all  its  property  was  intrusted.  But  these 
state  demesnes  were  ample  and  various,  including  arable  land,  vineyards,  pas- 
tures, forests,  mines,  harbors,  fisheries,  and  buildings.  The  letting  or  farming  of 
all  these  belonged  wholly  to  the  censors  ;  the  harbors  including  the  portoria  or 
customs,  which  appear  to  have  been  levied  as  a  harbor,  wharfage,  and  perhaps 
warehouse  duty.  They  were  thus  a  charge  paid  by  the  merchant  for  his  use  of 
the  state's  property  ;  and  this  is  the  proper  notion  of  vectigal  as  opposed  to 
tributum ;  that  the  first  was  received  by  the  state  in  its  capacity  of  landlord  or 
proprietor,  the  latter  was  paid  to  it  as  a  political  society ;  the  vectigal  was  given 
by  the  farmer,  trader,  or  consumer,  as  the  price  of  some  commercial  or  econom- 
ical benefit ;  the  tributum  was  the  citizen's  duty  to  his  country.  Besides  all 
these  sources  of  revenue,  the  state  claimed  a  monopoly  of  salt  ;2J  and  the  right  of 

18  See  all  these  particulars  in  the  "  forma  cen-  "  Livy,  XXXIX.  44. 

eualis,"  given  by  Ulpian,  de  Censibus,  lib.  III.  19  Ut  vectigalia  populiEomani  sub  nutuatque 

quoted  in  the  Digest,  Tit.  de  Censibus,  L.  4.  arbitrio  (censorum  essent).    Livy,  IV.  8. 

<Lib.  L.  Tit.  XV.)  »  The  salt  works  at  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber 

M  Livy,  XXXIX.  44.    Ornamenta  et  vestem  were  said  to  have  been  first  established  in  the 

muliebrem  et  vehicula  ....  in  censum  referre  reign  of  Ancus  Marcius.    Livy,  I.  33.    Accord- 

jussit : uti  dccies  tan  to  pluris  quam  ing  to  Gronovius'  excellent  note  on  the  well- 

quanti  essent  sestimarentur.  known  passage  in  Livy,  II.  9,  the  government, 

17  This  was  the  proportion  observed  in  the  in  the  early  times  of  the  commonwealth,  kepi 

tribute  imposed  on  the  twelve  defaulting  colo-  the  sale  of  salt  in  its  own  hands,  and  did  not 

nies  in  the  second  Punic  war;  Livy,  XXIX.  15 ;  farm  it,  as  was  usual  with  the  other  vectigalia. 

and  Niebuhr  concludes  that  it  was  the  ordinary  But  it  was  farmed,  and  the  price  at  which  it  was 

rate.     "  Three  per  thousand"  is  mentioned  as  to  be  sold  was  fixed  by  the  censors  in  the  year 

the  late  fixed  by  Cato  and  Valerius  Flaccus  in  548,  when  M.  Livius,  one  of  the  censors,  ao- 


their  severe  censorship  in  568.    Livy,  XXXIX.     quired  from  this  very  circumstance  his  nickname 
44.  Salinator.    Livy,  XXIX.  37. 


136  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XVII 

selling  this  most  necessary  article  was  also  let  by  the  censors  on  their  own  terras ; 
for  they  fixed  the  price  at  which  it  was  to  be  sold  to  the  public.  Why  salt  was 
thus  considered  as  state  property  may  probably  be  explained  on  the  principle 
that  the  sea  and  the  sea-shore  belonged  to  no  man ;  and  in  a  country  where  the 
whole  supply  of  salt  comes  from  the  sea,  it  would  not  appear  unnatural  that  the 
state  should  take  into  its  own  hands  the  sale  of  a  commodity  so  universally 
needed,  and  which  was  derived  immediately  from  that  element  which  no  individ- 
ual could  claim  as  his  property.  At  any  rate,  salt  was  at  Rome,  as  afterwards 
in  France,  an  article  that  could  be  sold  only  by  the  government. 

With  these  almost  kingly  powers,  and  arrayed  in  kingly  state,  for  the  censor's 
robe81  was  all  scarlet,  and  not  merely  bordered  with  a  scarlet  band,  elected  by 
the  curice,  and  holding  their  office  for  five  years,  the  censors  might  ,vell  seem  too 
great  for  a  free  commonwealth,  and  the  patricians,  in  retaining  an  office  so  im- 
portant in  their  own  exclusive  possession,  seemed  to  have  more  than  compensated 
for  their  loss  of  a  part  of  the  military  tribuneship,  had  the  constitution  of  312 
been  really  acted  on.  It  was  a  most  welcome  law,  then,  to  the  commons,  when 
the  dictator  Mamercus  JEmilius,  in  the  year  321,  proposed  the  shortening  of  the 
term  of  the  censor's  office  to  eighteen  months.  Nor  did  the  patricians  refuse 
their  consent  to  the  measure ;  for  there  were  many  of  their  body  who  felt  that  a 
magistracy  held  for  five  years  could  be  accessible  only  to  a  few  individuals  of  the 
highest  distinction ;  and  that  the  mass  of  the  patricians,  no  less  than  of  the  com- 
mons, would  be  subject  to  the  power  of  the  censors,  without  being  ever  able  to 
exercise  it  themselves. 

The  greatness  of  tho  censor's  office  has  led  me  to  depart  a  little  from  the  chro- 
nological order  of  events,  and  to  anticipate,  by  a  few  years,  the  regular  mention 
of  the  ^Emilian  law.  I  now  go  back  to  the  year  312,  and  the  appointment  of 
consuls  in  the  room  of  tribunes  of  the  soldiers,  immediately  after  the  institution 
of  this  latter  office. 

Consuls  continued  to  be  appointed  for  the  next  four  years  ;  but  a  memorable 

u.  c.  sis.  A.  c.  event  which  occurred  in  the  year  316,  again  led  to  the  election  of 
uned8eof  tribunes.  The  year  315  had  been  a  season  of  great  scarcity:22  a 
special  officer  had  been  named  with  the  title  of  prsefectus  anno- 
nce,  or  master  of  the  markets,  in  order  to  relieve  the  general  distress  ;  but  he  had 
been  able  to  do  very  little,  and  the  suffering  was  so  extreme  that  many  of  the 
poorer  citizens  threw  themselves  into  the  Tiber  in  despair.  In  this  state  of 
things,23  Sp.  Meelius,  one  of  the  richest  of  the  commons,  and  a  member  of  one  of 
the  plebeian  centuries  of  knights  or  equites,  a  man  of  large  mercantile  dealings, 
and  having  thus  many  connections  in  the  neighboring  countries,  succeeded  in 
making  large  purchases  of  corn,  and  issued  it  to  the  poorer  citizens  either  at  a 
very  low  price,  or  even  gratis.  He  thus  became  exceedingly  popular,  and  was 
followed  by  a  great  multitude24  whenever  he  appeared  in  the  Forum  ;  so  that  it 
was  supposed  that  he  would  attempt  to  win  a  share  of  the  consulship  for  the 
commons,  and  was  likely  himself  to  become  the  first  plebeian  consul.  The  patri- 
cians, resolved  to  prevent  this,  procured  the  appointment  of  one  of  the  most  emi- 
A.  u.  c.  SIB.  A.  c.  nent  °f  their  order,  T.  Quinctius  Capitolinus ;  but  the  danger 
might  be  only  delayed :  the  scarcity  still  continued,  and  Mselius 
was  gaining  fresh  popularity  every  day :  the  harvest  was  still  distant,  and  if  the 
distress  became  greater,  the  mingled  despair  and  gratitude  of  the  commons  might 
overbear  all  opposition,  and  the  consulship  might  be  wrested  from  the  patricians 
in  spite  of  all  their  efforts.  On  a  sudden25  it  was  announced  that  the  old  L. 

"  Polybius,  VI.  53.    And  a  censor's  funeral,  23  Livy,  IV.  13,     Zonaras,  VII.  20. 

farms  censorium,  used  to  be  voted  even  to  the  M  Zonaras  adds,  that  he  had  actually  provid- 

emperors,  as  the  most  honorable  and  magnifi-  ed  himself  with  men  to  seize  the  Capitol,  and 

cent  of  any.    See  Tacitus,  Ann.  IV.  15,  and  other  strong  positions  in  the  city ;  for  this  must 

XII.  2,  with  Lipsius'  note  on  the  first  quoted  be  the  meaning  of  the  expression,  faopiaaTo  <ppo- 

passage.  vpovs. 

**  Livy,  IV.  12.  '*  The  senate,  according  to  Zonaras,  appoint- 


CHAP.  XVIL]  DEATH  OF  SP.  ^^LIUS.  137 

Quinctius  Cincinnatus  had  been  named  dictator  by  the  consul  T.  Quinctius,  in 
consequence  of  a  meeting  of  the  senate  :  the  dictator  had  made  C.  Servilius  Ah.ila 
his  master  of  the  horse;  the  patricians  and  the  plebeian  knights26  had  occupied 
the  Capitol  and  the  other  strong  places  of  the  city  during  the  night,  and  in  the 
morning  the  dictator  appeared  in  the  Forum,  with  the  array  of  his  four-and- 
twenty  lictors,  all  bearing  along  with  their  rods  those  well-known  axes  which  de- 
noted his  sovereign  power,  while  he  was  supported  besides  by  his  master  of  the 
horse,  at  the  head  of  a  numerous  body  of  the  younger  patricians  in  arms. 

The  dictator  took  his  seat  at  his  tribunal,  and  sent  C.  Ahala  to  summon  Mse- 
lius  to  appear  before  him.  As  master  of  the  horse,  all  the  mem-  He  ig  _utto  death  by 
bers  of  the  centuries  of  equites  were  under  his  immediate  authori-  c-Aha'a- 
ty  ;  and  on  this  account,  perhaps,  he  was  chosen  to  deliver  the  summons.  Mse- 
lius  saw  that  his  fate  was  determined ;  he  endeavored  to  fly :  his  enemies 
charged  him  with  snatching  up  a  butcher's  knife,27  and  endeavoring  to  repel  the 
knights  who  were  pursuing  him ;  under  somewhat  similar  circumstances  the 
treacherous  murder  of  Wat  Tyler  was  excused  by  his  pretended  insolent  be- 
havior to  the  king ;  and  Ahala,  as  eager  as  Sir  William  Wai  worth  to  do  us 
work,  slew  Maelius  on  the  spot,  as  guilty  of  disobedience.  The  old  dictator28 
justified  the  deed  to  the  multitude  :  "  Mselius  had  aimed,  not  at  the  consulship, 
but  at  making  himself  king ;  the  master  of  the  markets  had  reported  to  the  sen- 

ite  that  secret  meetings  were  held  at  his  house,  and  arms  collected.  To  meet 
this  danger  the  senate  had  appointed  a  dictator ;  he  had  purposed  to  try  Mse- 
lius, and  judge  him  according  to  his  guilt  or  innocence  ;  but,  as  he  had  refused 
to  obey  his  summons,  and  had  resisted  his  own  immediate  commander,  he  had 

;en  lawfully  slain."29  Immediately  afterwards,  treating  Mcelius  as  a  convicted 
traitor,  he  ordered  his  house  to  be  levelled  with  the  ground ;  thus  the  story  of 
the  concealed  arms  could  never  be  disproved,  for  no  time  was  allowed  to  the 

ribunes  of  the  commons  to  search  the  house  :  Mselius'  enemies  might  report 
whatever  they  pleased.  The  house  stood  under  the  Capitol,  not  far  from  the 
Mamertine  prison,30  and  the  site  of  it  was,  for  ages  after,  called  the  JSquimse- 
lium,  or  the  Mselian  level. 

Such  is  the  story  which  the  traditions  or  memoirs  of  the  Quinctian  and  Ser- 
vilian  families  handed  down,  and  which  the  annalists  adopted  on  The  commons  nre  in_ 
their  authority.  Whatever  ambitious  designs  Meelius  may  have  had,  dignant  »*  i»«  death, 
nothing,  even  according  to  the  statement  of  his  enemies,  was  proved  against  him  ; 
and  his  aiming  at  the  consulship  would  have  been  a  sufficient  crime  in  the  eyes  of 
the  patricians  to  tempt  them  to  violent  measures.  On  the  other  hand,  charity 
was  so  little  familiar  to  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  that  the  splendid  munificence  of 
Mselius  is  in  itself  suspicious  ;  a  time  of  great  distress  would  make  it  easy  for  a 
man  of  his  wealth  to  engage  a  band  of  armed  adventurers,  sufficient  to  put  him 
in  possession  of  the  Capitol  by  a  sudden  attack  ;  and  then  his  popularity  with 
the  commons,  and  their  hatred  of  the  patricians,  would  have  rendered  him  ample 
service.  However,  the  commons  were  indignant  at  his  summary  death  ;  and 
there  is  a  dim  and  confused  account  of  disturbances  consequent  upon  it.  Ahala 

ed  L.  Quinctius  dictator  before  they  left  the  in  the  sex  suffragia,  or  patrician  centuries  of 

senate-house ;   and  they  did  not  separate  till  knights  or  cavalry.     And  so,  after  the  death  of 

evening,  that  the  result  of  their  measures  might  Maelius,  Ahala  is  described  as  returning  to  the 

not  be  prematurely  known.    The  occupation  of  dictator,  u  stipatus  caterva  patricioruni  juve- 

the  Capitol  during  the  night,  and  the  appear-  num."     Livy,  IV.  14. 

ance  ot  the  dictator  in  the  Forum  early  in  the  '•"  Dionysius,  XII.  1.    Fragm.  Mai. 

morning,  ready  to  anticipate  whatever  might  w  Livy,  IV.  15. 

have  been  the  designs  of  Maelius,  remind  us  of  w  "  Jure  csesum  pronuntiavit,"  an  expression 

the^Doge  of  Venice,  Gradenigo,  and  the  ener-  which  seems  as  technical  and  official  as  our 

getic  measures  by  which  he  met  and  baffled  the  verdict  of  "justifiable  homicide."    Suetonius 

conspiracy  of  the  Querini  and  Thiepoli.     See  pronounces  this  same  judgment  on  the  murder 

Daru,  B.  VII.  of  Caesar,  "Prffigravant  caetera  facta  dictaque 

6  Zonaras  says  that  the  Capitol  was  secured  ejus  ut .  .  .  jure  cassus  existimetur."    C.  7'}. 

tita  riav  limfuv.    This  may  include  the  plebeian  'M  Niebuhr.  Vol.  II.  note  928.    Bunsen,  Be- 

centuries  of  knights,  but  it  certainly  applies  schreibung  der  Stadt  Horn.  Vol.  III.  p.  46. 

mainly  to  the  patricians,  who  were  all  enrolled  Varro,  Ling.  Lat.  V.  §  157.    Ed.  Miiller. 


138  HISTOKY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XVII 

was  obliged  to  leave  Rome  ;31  and  tribunes  of  the  soldiers,  instead  of  consuls, 
were  chosen  for  the  following  year :  thus  much  is  intelligible  ;  and  the  strength 
of  the  patricians  in  the  comitia  of  the  centuries,  the  immense  power  of  the  officer 
who  presided  at  them,  and  perhaps,  also,  the  natural  leaning  of  the  richer  ple- 
beians to  the  side  of  the  patricians  in  a  time  of  distress,  when  the  contest  was  so 
likely  to  take  the  form  of  one  between  numbers  and  property,  will  sufficiently 
account  for  the  election  of  three  patricians,  and,  amongst  them,  of  L.  Quinctius, 
the  son  of  the  old  dictator.  But  still  the  greatest  number  of  votes  was  given  to 
Mamercus  ^Emilius,  who  had  been  chosen  one  of  the  qusestores  parricidii  along 
with  L.  Valerius  a  few  years  before,  and  whose  popular  dictatorship  four  years 
later  we  have  already  noticed. 

There  was,,  however,  a  much  more  mysterious  story32  to  be  found  in  some  of 
story  of  L.  Minucius  the  annalists  from  whom  Livy  compiled  his  history  ;  that  L.  Minu- 
comnfon8,neanderof°  hlg  cms>  that  very  master  of  the  markets  who  is  said  to  have  given 
popular  acts.  faQ  grst  information  of  the  dangerous  designs  of  Sp.  Mcelius,  now, 

in  the  disturbances  that  followed,  went  over  from  the  patricians  to  the  commons, 
was  chosen  by  the  ten  tribunes  to  be  their  colleague,  thus  raising  the  number  to 
eleven,  and  in  this  office  put  a  stop  to  the  dissensions.  Further,  he  is  said  to 
have  brought  down  the  price  of  corn  at  the  end  of  three  market  days  to  one  as 
for  the  modius,33  and  to  have  become  so  popular,  that  the  commons  presented 
him,  as  their  deliverer  out  of  misery,  with  an  ox  with  gilded  horns  to  offer  as  a 
sacrifice  ;34  and  a  statue  was  erected  in  his  honor  without  the  Porta  Trigemina, 
made  out  of  the  bronze  or  brass  coins  which  the  commons  subscribed  for  the 
purpose,  each  man  contributing  an  ounce,  or  the  twelfth  part  of  the  as,  which 
was  still  of  the  weight  of  a  full  pound. 

Dion  Cassius  has  preserved  a  statement,  that  in  these  times  many  patricians 
did,  in  fact,  go  over  to  the  commons ;  and  it  is  remarkable,  that 

Remarks  on  this  story.     „       '         .  .          .    °  .  .  1  .  '        . 

irom  this  time  forward  we  meet  with  none  but  plebeians  oi  the 
name  of  Minucius,  although  patrician  Minucii  have  hitherto  occurred  several 
times  in  the  Fasti.  And  it  is  conceivable  enough,  that  if  any  man  had  wished  so 
to  degrade  himself,  as  the  patricians  would  consider  it,  he  might  have  done  it 
with  no  opposition  on  their  part :  nay,  they  would  have  at  once  cast  him  out 
from  their  body  as  an  unworthy  member ;  for  the  feeling  of  later  times,  when 
P.  Clodius  was  adopted  into  a  plebeian  family  to  enable  him  to  stand  for  the 
tribuneship,  and  when  the  aristocracy  opposed  it  as  only  furthering  the  purposes 
of  his  ambition,  could  not  exist  amongst  the  haughty  patricians  of  the  fourth 

81  Valerius  Maximus,  V.  3,  §  2.    And  so  Ci-  be  Pliny's  meaning.    Then  the  sale  of  Mwlius' 

cero,  de  Kepublica,  I.  3.     Ofiensio  commemo-  corn  at  a  cheap  rate  may  have  taken  place  in 

ratur  Ahaloe.^    He  had  just  before  spoken  of  the  mean  while ;  and  if  much  corn  had  really 

"Camilli  exilium,"  and  immediately  afterwards  been  hoarded,  it  would  naturally  cause  a  great 

mentions  "  invidia  Nasicse."    Now  offensio  is  reduction  of  prices  when  brought  suddenly  into 

in  itself  an  ambiguous  term,  and  may  signify  the  market  in  the  spring,  especially  if  there 

either  exilium  or  invidia:  either  "the  misfor-  was  a  promise  of  an  abundant  harvest  in  the 

tune  or  calamity  of  Ahala,"  or   "  the  odium  coming  summer. 

which  he  incurred."  But  then  this  odium  may  M  Livy  mentions  the  ox,  Pliny  the  statue, 
have  induced  him  to  leave  Eome,  as  Nasica  XVIII.  4,  and  XXXIV.  11,  and  'both  specify 
did,  without  undergoing  any  formal  trial ;  and  the  place,  extra  portam  Trigeminam,  that  is,  oh 
then,  when  his  party  was  strong  enough,  he  the  bank  of  the  Tiber,  between  the  northeast- 
may  have  returned,  according  to  the  statement  ern  foot  of  the  Aventine  and  the  river.  But  as 
of  the  pseudo-Cicero  pro  Domo,  c.  32,  and  this  Livy's  expression,  "  bove  aurato  extra  portam 
may  have  been  called  a  return  from  banishment  Trigeminam  est  donatus,"  is  rather  strange,  his 
without  much  exaggeration.  editors  have  proposed  various  corrections, 
sa  Livy,  IV.  16.  amongst  which,  the  most  plausible  was  that  oi 
33  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  XVIII.  4.  Livy  describes  Gronovius,  who  proposed  to  read  "  bove  et 
this,  as  if  Minucius  had  sold  at  this  rate  the  prato."  But  a  bos  auratus,  that  is,  auratis 
corn  which  Mrclius  had  collected,  and  which  cornibus,  was  given  by  the  consul  to  P.  Decius, 
had  been  confiscated  after  his  death.  But  Pli-  one  of  the  tribunes  of  the  soldiers,  for  saving 
ny's  expression,  "  in  trinis  nundinis  ad  assem  his  army  in  the  first  Samnite  war,  Livy,  VII. 
redegit,"  implies  a  more  gradual,  and,  at  the  37 ;  and  Niebuhr's  conjecture  is  simpler  and 
same  time,  a  more  extensive  reduction  of  the  more  probable,  that  the  words  "et  statua" 
price.  If  he  proposed  a  law  to  fix  a  maximum,  have  dropped  out  in  Livy's  text,  between 
it  would,  of  course,  require  three  nundina)  to  "  bove  aurato"  and  "  extra  portam  Trigem> 
elapso  before  it  could  be  passed ;  and  this  may  nain." 


CiiAp.XVIL]  DICTATORSHIP  OF  M.  ^EMILIUS.  139 

century.  On  the  other  hand,  Cicero  treats  these  supposed  passings  over  from 
one  order  to  the  other  as  mostly  fictitious,  and  invented  by  plebeians,  merely  to 
claim  for  themselves  kindred  with  an  old  patrician  house  of  the  same  name.  Nor 
is  it  probable  that  there  could  have  been  eleven  tribunes  at  once  ;  but  it  may  be 
that  L.  Minucius  so  acted  in  concert  with  the  tribunes  as  master  of  the  markets,3* 
that  he  was  said  to  be  like  an  eleventh  member  of  their  college.  The  rest  is  suf- 
ficiently probable,  that  he  proposed  and  carried,  after  the  regular  period  of  three 
market  days,  a  law  to  fix  the  maximum  at  which  corn  should  be  sold ;  and  this, 
in  a  season  of  scarcity,  when  the  evil  is  always  attributed  by  the  vulgar  to  the 
covetousness  of  corn-dealers,  rather  than  to  natural  causes,  would  quite  account 
for  his  popularity. 

In  the  following  year,  however,  consuls  were  again  chosen,  and  continued  to 
be  so  for  four  years,  that  is,  till  321,  when  Mamercus  ^Emilius  Dictatorship  of  M» 
was  appointed  dictator.  His  law  for  abridging  the  duration  of  mercus  Mttdliu*- 
the  censor's  office  so  offended  the  existing  censors,  one  of  whom  was  M.  Gega- 
nius  Macerinus,  already  known  as  a  zealous  partisan  of  his  order  in  his  consul- 
ship in  308,  that  they  degraded  him  from  his  tribe,36  and  rated  his  property  in 
the  census  at  eight  times  as  much  as  its  real  value.  The  commons  were  so  in- 
dignant that  they  called  aloud  for  military  tribunes  instead  of  consuls  ;  and  for 
the  next  two  years  tribunes  were  accordingly  elected  ;  but  still  no  plebeian  was 
chosen,  nor  even  any  patrician  distinguished  for  his  attachment  to  the  popular 
cause. 

Again,  for  five  years,  we  find  the  names  of  consuls  in  the  Fasti,  from  324  to 
328  inclusive.  But  the  power  of  the  commons  was  silently  and  Th9  tribunes  of  the 
healthily  advancing ;  and  within  this  short  period  we  find  two  re-  *FyatoF*3SK 
markable  instances  of  it.  In  325,31  T.  Quinctius,  a  son  of  the  old  3?  ^\^&£ 
L.  Cincinnatus,  and  C.  Julius  Mento,  were  consuls.  The  ^Equians  ty< 
and  Volscians  had  united  their  forces,  and  assembled  a  great,  army  at  their  usual 
position  on  Algidus.  A  pestilence,  nearly  cotemporary  with  that  which  visited 
Athens  so  fearfully  in  the  early  years  of  the  Peloponnesian  war,  had  prevailed 
in  Rome  at  intervals  during  the  last  four  years,  and  had  carried  off  great  num- 
bers of  the  people.  This  gave  a  sense  of  weakness  ;  and,  to  increase  it,  the  con- 
suls, attacking  the  enemy  on  Algidus,  were  defeated.  Then  the  senate  resolved 
to  appoint  a  dictator  ;  but  the  consuls,  jealous  at  this  implied  censure  on  them- 
selves, refused  to  obey  the  senate's  decree.  Some  party  or  family  feuds,  of 
which  we  know  nothing,  were  most  probably  at  work  in  this  dispute  ;  and  it  was 
proposed  and  carried,  that  the  senate  should  call  upon  the  tribunes  for  their  aid. 
Niebuhr  thinks  that  the  tribunes  were  called  upon  to  propose  the  senate's  decree 
to  the  commons,  that  their  acceptance  of  it  might  give  it  the  force  of  a  law. 
Livy's  story  is,  that  the  tribunes  threatened  to  throw  the  consuls  into  prison,  if 
they  persisted  in  disobeying  the  senate.  However  this  be,  there  was,  at  any 
rate,  an  important  acknowledgment  of  the  power  of  the  commons,  when  the  pa- 
trician senate  appealed  to  them  to  enforce  its  authority  over  the  highest  patrician 
magistrates. 

Again,  in  328,  when  a  war  with  Veii  was  resolved  on,  the  tribunes  threatened81 
to  stop  the  enlistments  of  soldiers,  unless  the  question  of  o-oino-  to 

/>  i         ...     j      ,         ,  -i  i       .         .T1   .  .  O         &  The  qusstion  of  a  wai 

war  were  first  submitted  to  the  people  in  their  centuries.     The  ™th  veil  u  •ubmht* 

senate  had  considered  its  own  decree  sufficient ;  but  it  had  taught 

the  tribunes,  by  its  own  conduct,  not  to  regard  it  so  ;  and  accordingly  the  war 

85  Three  of  the  tribunes,  we  are  told  by  Livy,  the  college,  must  have  gone  along  with  him  in 

had  taken  no  part  in  proposing  the  vote  of  the  his  measures  as  master  of  the  markets,  and  his 

commons,  which  rewarded  Minucius  with  his  acting  in  concert  with  them,  perhaps,  in  some 

ox  and  his  statue,  but,  on  the  contrary,  con-  instances,  against  the  wishes  of  the  patricians, 

tinued  to  revile  him,  as  he  had  been  the  first  may  have  given  rise  to  the  story, 

person  to  give  information  to  the  senate  of  the  3°  Livy,  IV.  24. 

Bupposed  treasonable  designs  of  Mielius.    But  3T  Livy,  IV.  26. 

the  other  seven,  constituting  the  majority  of  **  Livy,  IV.  30. 


140  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XYI1 

was  proposed   in  the  comitia,   and  sanctioned  by  the  votes  of  all  the  cen- 
turies. 

These  were  great  constitutional  points  ;  another  matter,  deeply  affecting  indi- 
A  u  c  325  A  c  ^duals,  had  been  provided  for  by  a  law  passed  three  years  before, 
427.  'Law  for  a  Axed  which  fixed  a  definite  money  computation  for  the  fines  of39  sheep 

money  commutation  for  .  ,  111  i 

the^fines  of  sheep  and  and  oxen  commonly  imposed  by  the  consuls  for  contempt  of  their 
jurisdiction.  That  the  payment  of  these  fines  in  kind  would  be 
often  highly  vexatious,  is  obvious :  and  if  the  consul  were  allowed  to  fix  his  own 
rate  of  commutation,  it  might  bear  hardly  on  the  delinquent,  especially  if,  as  is 
probable,  the  brass  money  was  now  beginning  to  rise  in  value,  so  that  the  old 
money  price  of  an  ox  or  a  sheep  would  be  now  more  than  it  was  "worth.  Cice- 
ro's statement40  is,  that  the  censors,  L.  Papirius  and  P.  Pinarius,  had  imposed 
their  fines  in  kind,  and  had  thus  seized  so  many  cattle  ;  that  the  consuls,  to  re- 
lieve the  commons,  fixed  an  easy  rate  of  money  commutation,  at  which  the  cat- 
tle might  be  redeemed. 

From  the  year  329  to  341  we  have  tribunes  constantly,  with  the  exception  of 
A  u  c  331  AC  onty  two  years>  instead  of  consuls.  In  331,  after  a  long  interval,41 
la'a  wlILlair11* fo*  we  aS™n  near  °^  a  ca^  ^or  an  agrarian  law ;  recent  victories  over 
the  Volscians  and  Veientians  had  added,  probably,  to  the  amount 
of  the  demesne  land  ;  and  the  patricians  who  occupied  it,  either  paid  no  acknowl- 
edgment for  it  at  all,  or  if  they  did,  it  went  not  into  the  national  treasury,  but 
into  that  of  their  own  order  ;  the  commons  reaped  no  benefit  from  it.  At  the 
same  time  the  commons  had  to  serve  at  their  own  expense  in  war ;  and  thus,  as 
the  poorer  classes  could  ill  support  this  burden,  and  could  provide  themselves 
only  with  inferior  arms,  the  numbers  and  the  efficiency  of  the  regular  infantry 
were  much  below  what  they  might  have  been.  Accordingly,  the  tribunes  de- 
manded that  there  should  be  a  division  of  a  portion  of  the  demesne  land  amongst 
the  commons  ;  and  that  the  occupiers  of  the  remainder  should  pay  their  vectigal 
regularly,  and  that  it  should  be  devoted  to  the  purpose  of  paying  the  soldiers. 
Here  was  a  question  in  which  the  mass  of  the  commons  were  interested  ;  and  it 
was  likely  that,  during  the  continuance  of  this  contest,  the  leaders  of  the  com- 
mons would  gain  some  of  those  points  which  they  so  longed  for,  but  which  were 
of  far  less  importance,  in  the  estimate  of  their  followers,  an  admission  to  the 
higher  magistracies. 

A  favorable  opportunity  presented  itself  three  years  afterwards,  in  334  :  when 
,  the  patricians42  themselves  proposed  an  increase  in  the  number  of 

A.  U.  C.  334.     A.   C.        i  I    •      •    •        i       •  rv> 

4i8.  The  office  of  the  the  ouasstores  classici,  those  omcers  chosen  by  the  centuries,  and 

quaestores     classici    13  •         j  •    .  •  /•  '  i  •    •  i  •  •          i  i         • 

tLrown  open  to  the  quite  distinct  irom  the  quaestores  parncidn,  whose  business  it  was 
to  receive  all  money  paid  to  the  public  treasury,  and  to  make  all 
payments  from  it.  This  was  an  office  of  great  trust  and  dignity,  and  was  usu- 
ally regarded  as  entitled  to  a  place  in  the  senate ;  the  censors,  in  drawing  out 
their  list  of  that  body,  generally  included  in  it  the  quaestors  of  the  last  five 
years.  Now,  as  wars  were  beginning  to  be  carried  on  on  a  greater  scale,  and 
were  attended  with  more  success  than  formerly,  it  was  desirable  to  have  two  new 
qutestors  to  accompany  the  armies  to  the  field,  and  to  take  charge  of  the  plun- 
der that  might  be  gained,  or  of  the  lands  that  might  be  conquered.  But  the 
tribunes  naturally  demanded,  that  if  the  college  of  quaestors  were  thus  increased 
to  four,  two  of  them  should  be  chosen  from  the  commons.  This  the  senate 
would  not  listen  to,  but  proposed  that  the  whole  number  should  be  taken  indis- 
criminately from  either  order.  When  the  tribunes  refused  to  accept  this  com- 
promise, having  learned,  from  experience,  that  such  a  pretended  free  choice 
would  always  end  in  the  exclusive  election  of  patricians,  the  senate  dropped  the 
measure  altogether.  But  the  tribunes  then  brought  it  forward  themselves,  and, 
after  long  disputes,  the  compromise  first  proposed  by  the  senate  was  accepted, 

"  Livy,  IV.  30.  «  Livy,  IV.  36. 

40  De  Kepublicd,  II.  35.  «  Livy,  IV.  43. 


CiiAP.XVIL]  THE  MURDER  OF  M.  POSTUMIUS.  141 

and  the  quaestorship,  with  its  four  places,  was  declared  by  law  to  be  open  alike 
to  the  patricians  and  to  the  commons. 

Here,  again,  the  advantage  gained  by  the  commons  as  an  order  was  great ; 
but  the  individuals  who  had  sown  the  seed  did  not  reap  the  fruit ;  Disputfl  abont  the  Rgra. 
for  again,  owing  to  the  great  influence  of  the  magistrate  who  pre-  ££"  p"B^m^urbyr  LU 
sided  at  the  comitia,  none  but  patrician  qusestors  were  chosen.  8oldiers- 
Still  the  commons  waxed  stronger:  three  years  afterwards,  in  337,  an  agrarian 
law43  was  passed,  by  which  fifteen  hundred  of  the  commons  received  allotments 
of  two  jugera  a  man  out  of  the  land  lately  conquered  from  the  A.  u.  c.  S37-  A.  c> 
people  of  Lavici.  But  a  larger  division  of  the  demesne  land  was  415< 
demanded,  and  in  a  quarter  where  it  could  be  enjoyed  more  securely  ;  for  the 
colonists  sent  to  a  frontier  district  would  have  continually  to  defend  their  new 
property  with  their  swords,  and  men  naturally  longed  for  a  division  of  the  old 
demesne  nearer  home,  which  every  new  advance  of  the  Roman  boundary  placed 
at  a  greater  distance  from  danger.  This,  however,  the  patrician  occupiers  of 
this  land  were  too  powerful  to  permit ;  and  the  contest  really  A.  Vm  c  m  A<  c 
turned  upon  the  disposal  of  the  new  conquests.  Thus,  in  340,  412> 
Boise  was  conquered,  a  town  of  the  ^Equians,  not  far  from  Lavici ;  and  the  com- 
mons required  that  a  portion  of  this  new?y-won  territory  might,  at  least,  be 
allotted  to  them.  Even  this  was  resisted,  and  by  none  more  vehemently  than 
by  M.  Postumius  Regillensis,44  one  of  the  military  tribunes  of  the  year  341.  He 
commanded  one  of  the  armies  which  were  in  the  field  against  the  ^Equians,  and, 
abusing  his  military  power  for  political  purposes,  he  threatened  to  visit  upon  his 
soldiers  any  display  of  feeling  which  they  might  have  shown  in  favor  of  the  pro- 
posed agrarian  law.  This  excited  universal  indignation,  which  he  heightened  by 
refusing  to  his  army  any  share  of  the  spoil  which  they  had  won  in  recovering 
Boise  from  the  ^Equians.  Open  discontent  then  broke  out,  and  Postumius,  re- 
pressing it  with  extreme  severity  and  the  most  merciless  executions,  provoked  his 
soldiers  to  a  mutiny,  in  which  he  was  stoned  to  death. 

A  crime  so  rare  in  the  Roman  annals  produced  its  natural  and  just  conse- 
quence, a  reaction  against  the  cause  which  appeared  to  be  con-  proee0dm?<.  in  con- 
nected with  it.  Consuls  were  chosen  instead  of  tribunes  of  the  v**» <*<*"**** 
soldiers ;  and  the  commons,  to  whom  the  senate  had  given  the  choice  of  the 
judge45  in  this  cause,  commissioned  the  consuls  to  inquire  into  the  murder  of 
Postumius,  and  to  punish  the  guilty.  This  choice  was  sanctioned  by  the  curise, 
and  the  judges  thus  appointed  fulfilled  their  task  with  moderation,  so  that  the 
influence  which  the  patricians  had  gained  by  the  whole  transaction  was  marked 

I  by  the  undisturbed  election  of  consuls  for  three  years  following.  But  by  that 
time  the  feeling  had  changed  :  the  continued  opposition  of  the  patricians  to  any 
agrarian  law  seemed  a  more  present  evil  than  the  murder  of  Postumius;  and, 
while  that  crime  had  been  duly  punished,  the  injustice  of  the  patricians  was  tri- 
umphant. It  is  dangerous  to  overlook  a  change  in  public  opinion,  and  still  more  to 
try  to  force  in  its  old  direction  the  tide  which  is  beginning  to  turn.  The  patricians 
carried  the  election  of  consuls  for  a  fourth  year  in  spite  of  a  strong  feeling  of  dis- 
content ;  but  the  commons  were  so  roused,  that  in  spite  of  all  ob-  A.  u.  c.  346. '  A.  a 
structions  caused  by  the  presiding  officer,  they  elected,  at  the  4U6- 
open  comitia  of  quaestors,48  no  fewer  than  three  plebeians. 

Then  the  agrarian  law  was  demanded  more  vehemently  than  ever,  and  three 


43  Livy,  IV.  47.  ted  by  plebeians  against  the  patrician  order; 

44  Livy',  IV.  49,  50.  it  was  then  an  act  of  moderation  in  the  senate 
15  "  A  plebe  consensu  populi,  consulibus  no-  to  allow  the  offending  party  to  name  the  judge, 

gotium  mondatur."    Livy,  IV.  51.     A  remark-  and  the  patricians,  to  whom  the  injviry  had 

able  passage,  which  Niebuhr,  as  may  be  sup-  been  done,  would,  at  any  rate,  require  that  the 

posed,  lias  not  forgotten  to  appeal  to,  as  a  proof  nomination  should  be  submitted  to  thein  for 

of  the  identity  of  the  populus  in  old.times  with  their  approval, 

the  patricians.    It  would  seem  as  if  the  murder  46  Livy,  IV.  f>d. 
of  rostumius  was  regaided  as  a  crime  commit- 


«ftribune8of 

iiers  increased  to  sue. 


142  HISTORY  OF  ROME  [CHAP.  XVII 

contest  abm,t  the  agra-  tribunes,  all  of  the  Icilian  family,  were  conspicuous  as  the  loaders 
nan  law  continued.  of  ^g  C0mmons.  The  year  passed  away  in  these  contests,  but  the 
commons  insisted  on  having  tribunes  instead  of  consuls  for  the  year  following  ; 
and  this  was  consented  to,47  but  at  the  same  time  rendered  nugatory  by  the  con- 
dition annexed  to  it,  that  none  of  the  tribunes  of  the  commons  of  that  year 
should  be  either  re-elected  to  the  same  office,  or  be  chosen  tribunes  of  the  sol- 
diers. Thus  those  candidates  being  excluded  whose  claims  were  greatest,  the 
patricians  once  more  succeeded  in  defeating  the  plebeian  candidates  of  less  name, 
and  in  obtaining  every  place  in  the  tribuneship  for  their  own  body. 

Two  years  afterwards  came  the  issue  of  the  contest.     A  truce,  which  had 
been  concluded  for  twenty  years48  with  the  Veientians,  was  now 

A.  U«  C.   349.    A.  C.  i  •     i_       r  *    *  i  i  i 

numb^  on         Polnt  of  expiring  ;  and  as  war,  rather  than  peace,  was  sup- 
posed  to  be  the  nature!  state  of  things  between  two  nations,  un- 

i  , 

less  some  express  treaty  was  interposed,  so,  at  the  end  of  the 
truce,  hostilities  would  be  resumed  of  course,  unless  eithci  party  wished  to  re- 
new it,  and  was  willing  to  purchase  its  continuance  on  the  enemy's  terms.  Rome 
now  felt  itself  much  stronger  than  Veii,  for  that  town  had  been  lately  torn  with 
internal  discords,  so  much  more  violent  and  injurious  than  those  of  Rome,  in 
proportion  as  there  was  less  of  equal  law  and  of  acknowledged  rights.  The  Ro- 
mans, therefore,  put  a  higher  price  on  the  renewal  of  the  truce  than  the  Veien- 
tians would  consent  to  pay  ;  and  both  nations  prepared  for  war.  This  was  the 
moment  for  the  commons  to  press  their  claims,  and  they  refused  to  vote  for  the 
law  unless  something  was  done  to  satisfy  them.  The  patricians,  looking  forward 
to  all  the  glory  and  dominion  promised  them  by  the  expected  conquest  of  Veii, 
or  yielding  to  the  power  of  justice,  at  last  gave  way.  The  vectigal,49  or  titho, 
due  from  the  occupiers  of  the  public  land,  was  to  provide  pay  for  the  soldiers; 
if  this  were  not  sufficient,  it  was  to  be  made  good  by  a  tax  or  tribute  levied  upon 
the  whole  people,  according  to  the  census  of  every  citizen  ;  and  six  tribunes  of 
the  soldiers  were  henceforth  to  be  elected  annually  ;  one  of  whom,  as  Niebuhr 
thinks,  was  always  to  be  a  patrician,  and  to  perform  the  important  judicial  du- 
ties afterwards  discharged  by  the  praetor  urbanus  ;  the  other  live  were  to  be 
elected  indiscriminately  from  either  order.  At  any  rate,  six  tribunes  were  elected 
from  this  time  forwards,  and  this  increased  number  gave  the  commons  a  greater 
likelihood  of  seeing  some  of  the  places  filled  by  men  of  their  own  body.  And 
so  it  happened,  in  fact  ;  but  for  this  the  commons  had  yet  to  wait  five  years 
more. 

Accordingly  pay50  was  issued  to  the  soldiers,  six  tribunes  of  the  soldiers  were 
A.  u.  c.  350.  A.  c.  elected,  and  in  the  year  350,  about  the  end  of  the  Peloponnesian 

war,  the  Romans  began  their  vast  career  of  dominion  by  laying 
siege  to  the  great  Etruscan  city  of  Veii. 

47  Livy,  IV.  55.  14,  that  it  was  usual,  when  a  truce  was  nearly 

48  Livy,  IV.  58.     Livy  says,  that  in  the  year  expired,  to  negotiate  as  to  the  terms  on  which 
348  the  truce  had  already  expired  ;  and,  as  it  it  might  be  renewed  ;  and  this,  I  doubt  not,  is 
had  been  concluded,  according  to  his  own  ac-  the  true  explanation  of  the  negotiations  that 
count,  in  the  year  330,  Niebuhr  supposes  that  went  on  during  the  years  348  and  349. 

it  must  have  been  intended  to  last  only  twenty  4<J  This  is  not  stated  by  Livy  ;  but  as  it  had. 

cvclic  years,  of  ten  months  each.    But  we  find  been  the  great  object  insisted  on  by  the  trib- 

t)  at  hostilities  did  not  begin  till  350,  and  no  unes,  it  is  natural  to  suppose  that  it  must  either 

one  will  believe  that  the  Romans  allowed  two  have  been  granted,  or  at  any  rate  promised.   It 

years,  in  which  they  were,  according  to  ancient  was  probably,  however,  paid  very  irregularly, 

notions,  at  war  with  Veii,  to  pass  away  without  and  hence  the  pay  of  the  soldiers  would,  in 

attacking  their  enemy,  because  the  Veientians  point  of  fact,  be  provided  chiefly  out  of  the  taj 

were  involved  in  civil  dissensions,  and  the  Ro-  or  tributum. 

mans  were  too  generous  to  take  advantage  of  M  Livy,  IV.  59,  60,  61. 
their  weakness.    We  see  from  Thucydides,  V. 


143. 


CHAPTER  XVIIL 

WARS   OF  THE  ROMANS  FROM   300  TO  364— THE  ^EQUIANS  AND  VOLSCIANS— 
THE  ETRUSCANS— SIEGE  AND  CAPTURE  OF  VEIL 


Ta  p(v  ffirtv&6iifvot,  TO,  $t  iro^Eiiouvrts — ev  irapcffKevdaavro  ra  icoXtpta  xal  fpittt(>6Ttpot  lyivovro, 
mv&vvuv  rag  /icAcra;  iroiov^cvoi. — THUCTDIDES,  I.  18. 


THE  internal  history  of  Rome  in  the  first  century  of  the  commonwealth  is  ob- 
scure and  often  uncertain  ;  nor  can  we  venture  to  place  full  con-  The  f(?reign  hi8tory  0, 
fidence  in  the  details  of  events,  or  of  individual  characters.  The  J^ktCffi2«£ 
family  traditions  and  funeral  orations  out  of  which  the  oldest  an-  tic- 
nalists  compiled  their  narratives  were  often,  as  we  find,  at  variance  with  each 
other,  and  dealt  largely  in  exaggeration  and  misrepresentation.  Yet  still,  up  to 
a  certain  point,  they  were  a  check  upon  one  another  ;  there  were  necessarily  limits 
to  falsehood,  when  fellow-citizens,  whether  individuals  or  parties,  were  the  sub- 
ject on  which  it  was  exercised.  But  with  regard  to  foreign  enemies,  even  this 
check  was  wanting.  Every  family  might  claim  victories  over  the  ^Equians  or 
the  Veientians  :  there  was  no  sufficient  knowledge  of  chronology  to  make  it  evi- 
dent that  the  story  of  one  victory  and  one  triumph  was  fatal  to  the  truth  of 
others  ;  the  accommodating  annalists  found  room  for  a.l.  The  account,  then,  of 
the  early  wars  of  the  Romans  cannot  be  trusted  implicitly  in  its  merest  outline  ; 
we  have  the  highest  authority1  for  saying  that  victories,  and  even  triumphs,  were 
sometimes  purely  imaginary  ;  a  year  which  is  filled  with  pretended  successes  of 
the  Romans  may  have  witnessed  nothing  but  their  defeats.  We  are  reduced, 
therefore,  not  only  to  an  outline,  but  to  one  made  up  from  such  scattered  and 
almost  accidental  notices,  that  scarcely  any  one  but  Niebuhr  would  have  at- 
tempted, far  less  have  been  able,  to  restore  it.  Here,  as  well  as  in  the  domestic 
history,  the  work  is  almost  done  to  my  hands  :  it  were  endless  to  make  particu- 
lar acknowledgments,  when  scarcely  a  page  of  this  volume  could  have  been  writ- 
ten, had  I  not  enjoyed  the  benefit  of  Niebuhr's  guidance. 

Our  last  notice  of  the  foreign  affairs  of  Rome  stopped  at  that  disastrous  period, 
the  end  of  the  third  century,  when  the  JEquians  and  Volscians, 

1          •  T  -i          •  •     j  P   .i         T  Advance  of  the  Roman 

having  overrun  Latium,  having  occupied  many  of  the  Latin  towns,  power  between  300  M«I 
and  established  themselves  on  the  Alban  hills,  were  in  the  habit  3e 
of  carrying  their  plundering  inroads  up  to  the  very  walls  of  Rome.  And  whilst 
the  Opican  nations  were  thus  formidable  on  the  side  of  Latium,  the  Sabines  made 
frequent  descents  into  the  Roman  territory  between  the  Tiber  and  the  Anio,  and 
sometimes  spread  their  ravages  on  that  side  also  as  far  as  the  immediate  neigh- 
borhood of  the  city.  Such  nearly  was  the  state  of  things  about  the  year  300, 
which  may  be  considered  as  the  lowest  point  of  the  Roman  fortunes.  The  next 
sixty  years  witnessed  a  wonderful  change  ;  at  the  end  of  that  period  the  Roman 
power  had  spread  itself  out  on  every  side,  and  the  Opican  nations,  the  Sabines, 
and  the  Etruscans,  had  all  given  way  before  it. 

Of  these  three  enemies,  the  Sabines  were  the  soonest  and  most  effectually  re- 
pelled.    After  the  year  306,  when  M.  Horatius  Barbatus,  the  de- 

Iliverer  of  the  Roman  commons  from  the  decemvirs'  tyranny,  is  MpaT'wk'ttM  s»d. 
said  to  have  gained  a  great  victory  over  them,2  we  read  of  them 


1  That,  namely,  of  Cicero,  in  the  often  quoted  a  Livy,  IIT.  G2,  63.     Fasti  Capitoliui.     "M. 

passage  of  his  Brutus,  c.  16.     "Multa  scripta  Horatius,   M.   F.   Barbatus,   de  Sabineis   (tri- 

sunt  in  eis  (scil.  in  mortuorum  laudationibus)  umphavit)  Ann.  CCCIV.  VII.  K.  Septembr." 
' 


|uae  i'acta  non  sunt,  falsi  triumphi,"  &c. 


144  HISTORY  OF  HOME.  [CHAP.  XVIII 

no  more  during  a  period  of  more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  years.  A  treaty  of 
some  sort  or  other  must  have  followed  this  victory ;  perhaps  it  was  only  a  truce 
for  a  certain  number  of  years,  which  may  have  been  continually  renewed  by  mu- 
tual consent ;  the  Romans  having  enough  to  do  in  Latium  and  in  Etruria ;  and 
the  Sabine  youth  finding  a  field  for  their  enterprise,  by  joining  their  kinsmen  the 
Samnites,  who  soon  after  this  time  began  their  conquests  in  Campania.  Thus 
the  Roman  territory  along  the  left  bank  of  the  Tiber  was  left  in  peace,  and  the 
frontier  of  the  commonwealth  on  this  side  remained  long  unaltered,  being  bounded 
by  the  territory  of  the  Sabine  city  of  Eretum,  which  was  situated  about  nineteen 
miles  from  Rome. 

A  far  more  obstinate  and  varied  contest  was  maintained  against  the  ^Equians 
.  and  Volscians.  It  is  pretended  that  L.  Valerius,  the  worthy  col- 
nTiiadVoiceuuM.  Si"-  league  of  M.  Horatius,  gained  a  great  victory  over  them  in  the 
of  A?pLumkiS Tub°e7  year  306  ;3  but  in  3094  we  find  them  again  overrunning  the  Roman 
territory,  and  advancing  unopposed,  for  the  last  time,  as  far  as 
the  walls  of  Rome  by  the  Esquiline  gate.  In  that  same  year  T.  Quinctius  the 
consul  is  said  to  have  gained  a  great  victory  over  them,  and  there  is  this  evi- 
dence of  its  reality,  that  the  Romans  established  a  garrison  on  the  enemies'  fron- 
tier at  Verrugo  ;5  a  place  undoubtedly  on  the  Alban  hills,  but  whether  on  Algi- 
dus  above  Tusculum,  or  on  the  side  of  Velitrae  looking  towards  Antium  and  the 
Volscian  lowlands,  seems  impossible  to  be  ascertained.  From  this  time  we  hear 
of  no  general  efforts  of  the  JEquians  and  Volscians  for  fifteen  years ;  but  in  324 
A.  u.  c.  324.  A.  c.  the  united  armies  of  the  two  nations  again  appeared  on  Algidus,6 
and  the  Romans,  in  alarm,  named  A.  Postumius  Tubertus  dictator 
to  oppose  them.  That  the  danger  was  great,  is  shown  by  the  dreadful  story  re- 
lated of  A.  Tubertus,7  that  he  executed  his  own  son  for  having  engaged  with  the 
enemy  without  orders,  although  successfully.  This  rigorous  observance  of  dis- 
cipline always  occurs  in  Roman  history,  when  the  Roman  arms  were  engaged  in 
any  contest  more  than  ordinarily  hazardous ;  and  thus  in  the  great  Latin  war 
about  ninety  years  after  this  period,  the  act  of  A.  Postumius  Tubertus  was  again 
repeated  in  the  more  famous  instance  of  T.  Manilas.  On  the  present  occasion 
the  Latins  and  Hernicans  aided,  the  Romans  with  their  whole  force,  and  the  Opi- 
can  nations  were  completely  defeated.  A  truce  of  eight  years  was  concluded 
with  tlie  ^Squians  ;8  the  power  of  the  Volscians,  already  shaken  by  their  defeat, 
was  further  weakened  by  civil  dissensions ;  the  advocates  for  peace  and  war  pro- 
ceeding to  the  most  violent  extremities  against  each  other. 

Eight  years  afterwards,9  the  Opican  nations,  first  the  Volscians,  and  soon  after 

Livy,  III.  61.  the  year  333,  which  with  the  Roman  annalists 

Livy,  III.  G6.  is  wholly  devoid  of  military  transactions,  was 

Livy,  IV.  1.  indeed  devoid  of  Roman  victories,  but  not  of 

Livy,  IV.  26.  defeats,  or  at  least  of  disasters.    For  Livy  ber 

Livy,  IV.  29,  mentions  the  story,  but  wishes  gins  the  account  of  the  next  year  with  the 

not  to  believe  it.    It  is  related,  however,  by  Dio-  words,  "Non  diutius  fortuna  JEquis  indulsit, 

clorus,  XII.  64;  by  Valerius  Maximus,  II.  7,  §  qui  ambiguam  victoriam  Volscorum  pro  sua  am- 

6;   and  by  Aulus  Gcllius,  XVII.  21.    Gellius  plexi  fuerant."    Now  this  "  dubia  victoria"  had 

also  speaks  of  "Posthumia"  or  "Posthumiana  been  won  in  332,  and  the  expression,  "non  di- 

imperia  ct  Manliana,"  I.  13,  §  7 ;  although  it  is  utius  indulsit,"  would  imply  that  for  a  certain 

one  of  Livy's  reasons  for  not  believing  the  story,  time  fortune  had  favored  the  ^Equians ;  in  other 

that  the  common  proverbial  expression  to  do-  words,  that  they,  encouraged  by  the  Volscians' 

note  power  arbitrarily  and  cruelly  exercised  was  success  in  332,  took  up  arms  themselves  in  tho 

"  imperia  Manliana  non  Postumiana."  following  year,  and  were  during  that  year  mas  - 

8  Livy,  IV.  30.  ters  of  the  field.     Thus  it  would  seem  that  a 

0  According  to  Livy,  the  JEquians  had  ob-  truce  of  eight  years,  not  cyclic,  but  common 

tained  a  truce  for  eight  years,  in  tho  beginning  years,  had  been  observed  from  325  to  333 ;  and 

of  the  year  325.  IV.  30.    Five  years  afterwards,  the  probability  is,   that    the    term    originally 

iu  330,  they  are  described  as  suing  again  for  an  agreed  upon  was  five  years,  to  which  three 

extension  of  this  term,  and  obtaining  an  addi-  were  afterwards  added ;  Livy's  mistake  consist 

tional  truce  for  three  years.    IV.  35.    The  re-  ing  in  this,  that  he  supposes  the  whole  eiyht 

newal  of  hostilities  is  placed  in  the  year  334-,  years'  truce  to  have  been  granted  in  325,  and 

Livy,  IV.  43  ;  but  it  may  be  concluded  that  it  that  the  three  years  added  in  330  were  an  ;.ul 

should  in  fact  be  placed  a  year  earlier,  and  that  dition  to  this  number. 


CHAP.  XVIII.]  WARS  WITH  THE  OPICAN  NATIONS.  145 

the  JEquians,  again  renewed  the  contest.  The  seat  of  war  was  War  on  tlie 
again  on  the  frontier  of  the  J£quians  :  and  there,  in  the  year  332,  JSS 
the  Romans  received  a  check  which  we  may  not  improbably  con-  m"ns- 
jecture  to  have  been  a  serious  defeat.  But  four  years  afterwards,  in  336,  the 
people  of  Lavici10  are  mentioned  as  joining  the  ^Equians,  and  are  spoken  of  as 
new  enemies.  Lavici,  now  La  Colonna,  placed  on  an  isolated  hill  which  rises  as 
a  sort  of  outwork  at  the  northern  extremity  of  the  Alban  cluster,  had  been  one 
of  the  thirty  Latin  cities  which  signed  the  treaty  of  alliance  with  Rome  in  261^ 
Since  that  time  the  conquest  of  the  Opican  nations  had  separated  it  from  its  old 
confederacy,  and  it  had  possibly  received  an  .^Equian  colony ;  but  it  had  hitherto 
.taken  no  active  part  against  Rome.  Now,  however,  it  openly  joined  the  JEqui- 
ans ;  and  its  soldiers,  after  having  ravaged  the  neighboring  territory  of  Tusculum, 
encamped,  together  with  their  allies,  in  their  old  station  on  Algidus.  They  gained 
one  victory,  but  it  was  speedily  retrieved  by  the  dictator  Q.  Servilius  Priscus ; 
Lavici  was  taken  by  the  Romans,11  its  inhabitants  massacred,  expelled,  or  sold  for 
slaves,  and  a  large  portion  of  its  land  was  allotted  to  colonists  of  the  Roman 
commons.  This  was  a  decided  conquest,  and  gave  the  Romans  possession  of  an 
advantageous  post  on  their  enemy's  frontier.  The  victory  seems  ilso  to  have 
shaken  the  ^Equian  confederacy ;  for  Bola,  another  town  formerly  belonging  to 
the  Latins,  but  wrested  from  them  by  the  Opican  conquerors,  was  allowed  by  the 
other  ^Equian  states  to  fall  unassisted,  and  another  important  post  was  thus  oc- 
cupied by  the  Romans.  This  happened  in  the  year  341. 12 

The  tide  had  now  turned,  and  as  ill  success  loosened  the  bond  which  held  tho 
Opican  nations  and  cities  together,  so  victory  strengthened  the  al- 

T  ,.     ,-,          -p.  T        .°  i     -f-,.          .     *  T0          .  i  •      i  Continued    gucsew     o 

liance  of  the  Romans,  Latins,  and  Hermcans.  In  342,  this  last  the  Romans,  Latin., 
people  recovered  Ferentinum,13  one  of  their  towns  which  the 
Volsciaris  had  formerly  conquered ;  and  as  we  hear,  in  two  following  years,  of 
the  ravage  of  the  Latin  and  Hernican  territory  by  the  enemy,  we  cannot  doubt 
that  all  the  three  confederate  nations  took  an  active  part  in  the  war.  The  Opi- 
cans,  however,  struggled  vigorously  ;  the  frontier  posts  of  Verrugo,14  and  of  the 
castle  of  Carventum,15  were  taken  and  retaken ;  but  the  .^Equians  suffered  so 
much  from  having  the  seat  of  war  so  continually  on  their  frontier,  that  in  the 
rally  of  the  Opican  league,  which  took  place  in  the  year  347,  the  lowland  Vol- 
scians  appear  at  the  head  of  the  confederacy,  and  the  gathering-place  of  the 
army  was  at  Antium.  For  two  years  nothing  decisive  happened  ;  but  in  349,16 
the  Romans  opened  the  campaign  with  their  force  divided  into  three  small  ar- 
mies ;  and  while  one  threatened  Antium,  and  a  second  advanced  upon  Ecetrae, 
laying  waste  the  country  on  every  side  to  divert  the  enemy's  attention,  the  third 
pushed  direct  for  Anxur,  or  Tarracina,  a  most  important  place,  standing  at  the 
very  end  of  the  plain  of  the  Pontine  Marshes,  at  the  point  where  the  Apennines 
of  the  Volscian  highlands  come  down  close  upon  the  sea.  Tarracina,17  a  Tyr- 

[rjienian  city,  had  been  subject  to  Rome  in  the  last  period  of  its  They  take  Tarracina, 
monarchy;  immediately  afterwards  it  had  been  conquered  by  the  orAnxur> 
Volscians,  and  from  them  received  its  name  of  Anxur ;  it  is  the  natural  gate  of 
the  country  round  Rome  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  Campania  on  the  other,  and 
its  capture  would  restore  the  Roman  boundary  to  the  extent  which  it  had  for- 

1U  Livy,  IV.  45.  been  able  to  find  any  notice  of  the  place  in  West- 

11  Livy,  IV.  47.  phal's  work  on  the  neighborhood  of  Rome. 

12  Livy,  IV.  49.  16  Livy,  IV.  59. 

3  Livy,  IV.  51.  n  It  was  probably  a  town  belonging  to  the 

*  Livy,  IV.  55,  56,  58.  same  race  asCirceii  and  Ardea;  thai  race  which 

15  Livy,  IV.  53,  55.    The  position  of  Carven-  may  be  called  either  Tyrrhenian,  Pelasgian,  or 

cum  and  of  its  castle  or  citadel  is  wholly  un-  Sikclian,  and  which,  in  language  and  religion, 

known.    Sir  W.  Gell  puts  it  doubtfully  atKpcca  bore  so  close  an  affinity  to  the  Greeks.    Tarra- 

Massimi,  a  high  point  on  the  Volscian  high-  cina  is  mentioned  as  a  dependent  ally  of  Rome 

lands  near  Cora.     Bunsen  suggested  to  me  the  in  the  first  treaty  between  Rome  and  Carthage, 

high  ground  of  Monte  Ariano,  Mons  Artemi-  concluded  in  the  first  year  of  the   common- 

sius,  the  southeastern  summit  of  the  Alban  wealth.     See  Polybius,  III.  22. 
hills,  which  rises  above  Velletri.    I  have  not 
10 


14G  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XVIII 

merly  reached  under  the  Tarquinii.  Its  distance  from  the  front  of  the  wai 
probably  put  its  inhabitants  off  their  guard,  and  it  yielded  to  the  sudden  attack 
of  the  Romans  with  little  resistance.18  Twenty-five  hundred  of  the  inhabitants, 
who  survived  the  storming  of  the  town,  were  saved  alive  to  be  sold  for  slaves ; 
and  the  two  divisions  which  had  covered  the  siege  now  came  up  to  join  their 
comrades,  and  the  plunder  of  the  town  was  given  to  the  whole  army  without 
distinction.  Two  years  afterwards  the  Romans  invaded  the  Volscian  highlands, 
and  Artena,19  on  the  edge  of  the  mountains,  looking  across  to  the 
Alban  hills  at  the  back  of  Algidus,  was  taken,  and  razed  to  the 
ground.  From  henceforward  the  attention  of  Rome,  for  some  years,  was  so 
much  engaged  by  her  wars  on  the  Etruscan  frontier,  that  she  would  have  been 
well  contented  to  have  maintained  and  secured  her  conquests  from  the  j^Squians 
and  Volscians,  without  endeavoring  to  extend  them.  And  now  was  proved  the 
advantage  of  the  occupation  of  posts  on  the  enemies'  territory,  and  still  more  of 
the  Roman  system  of  colonies.  When  Anxur  was  taken,  the  neighboring  Vol- 
scian cities  seem  to  have  concluded  a  truce  with  Rome  to  save  their  lands  from 
ravage ;  at  least,  there  was  a  free  intercourse  between  them  and  the  garrison, 
and  the  Roman  soldiers  were  scattered20  over  the  neighborhood  to  traffic  with 
Annrh  lost  again  by  the  inhabitants  instead  of  plundering  them.  Advantage  was  taken 
a  surprise.  Qf  ^j^  an(j  Anxur  was  surprised  by  a  sudden  attack  and  recov- 

ered. But,  as  the  Volscians  are  not  charged  with  perfidy,  we  must  either  sup- 
pose that  the  assailants  came  from  some  of  the  more  distant  cities,  which  had 
not  been  included  in  the  truce,  or  that  the  truce  itself  was  concluded  only  for 
periods  of  a  few  days,21  and  continued  by  successive  renewals ;  and  that,  at  the 
end  of  one  of  these  periods,  the  Volscians  had  refused  to  renew  it,  whilst  the 
Romans  had  fully  depended  on  its  continuance.  This  was  in  353,  and  two  years 
afterwards  Anxur  was  again  recovered  by  a  fresh  surprise,  the 
Volscians22  neglecting  to  guard  their  walls  whilst  keeping  a  festi- 
val. It  was  recovered  just  in  time ;  for  as  the  war  of  the  Romans  with  Veii  and 
the  neighboring  cities  still  continued,  the  Opican  nations  seem  to  have  renewed 
their  league,  and  made  another  combined  effort  to  retrieve  their  losses.  In  35S,23 
the  Volscians  were  employed  in  besieging  Anxur,  while  the  JSquians  were  sur- 
rounding Lavici :  had  not  the  Romans  possessed  these  two  posts,  the  enemy 
might  have  again  spread  ravage  over  their  whole  territory,  at  a  moment  when  a 
force  could  ill  have  been  spared  to  check  them.  As  it  was,  Anxur  and  Lavici 
were  left  to  their  own  resources,  and  to  the  aid  of  the  Latins  and  Hernicans, 
who,  at  this  critical  period,  seem  to  have  sustained  the  whole  weight  of  the 
struggle  with  the  Opican  nations,  for  all  the  Roman  armies  were  engaged  else- 
where. Whether  Lavici  was  taken  or  not,  we  know  not ;  but  in  the  next  year 
Veii  fell,  and  then  the  ^Equians  and  Volscians  solicited  and  obtained  a  truce.24 
The  Romans  availed  themselves  of  it  to  establish  a  new  colony 
* eoion™rvi?ema,on  in  the  country  conquered  from  the  ^Equians,  at  Vitellia,85  not  far 

the  JEquian  frontier.          ,,  ,-,  * .  •          •  i          r  j  i  j.  t^iu 

from  Prseneste,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  great  gap  or  break  by 
which  the  chain  of  the  Apennines  is  there  interrupted.  They  had  found  the 
benefit  of  their  colony  at  Lavici ;  and  this  more  distant  settlement  was  made 

18  Livy,  IV.  59.  with.  Athens,  when  Lacedsemon  concluded  the 

19  Livy,  IV.  61.    The  present  Monte  Fortino,    peace  of  Nicias.    See  Thucydides,  V.  26,  82. 
according  to  Sir  W.  Gell;    and  according  to        M  Livy,  V.  13. 

Westphal  also,  if  Artena,  Ortona,  and  Virtona  23  Livy,  V.  16. 

be,  as  is  probable,  only  one  and  the  same  place.  M  Livy,  V.  2-5. 

I  learn,  from  a  review  of  this  history  in  the  25  Livy,  V.  24,  29.     Sir  W.  Gcll  places  Vitcllia 

Dublin  Review,  No.  XIII.,  that  Nibby  fixes  the  atVahnonte,  in  the  situation  described  In  the 

exact  site  of  Artena  ut  a  place  not  more  than  a  text.     Westphal  puts  it,  but  doubtfully,  irmne- 

mile  on  the  southeast  of  Monte  Fortino,  where  cliately  under  the  northeast  extremity  of  the 

the  remains  of  a  polygonal  wall  on  a  high  level  Alban  hills,  on  that  shoulder  of  ground,  raised 

spot  are  still  visible."  above  the  ordinary  level  of  the  Campagna,  which 

uu  Livy,  V.  8.  connects  the  roots  of  the  Alban  hills  with  tho 

51  Like  the  ten  days'  truce,  which  was  all  that  Apennines. 
the  Boeotians  could  be  persuaded  to  ugree  to 


CHAP.  XVIII.]  WARS  WITH  THE  VOLSCIANS,  ETC.  U? 

proportionably  stronger ;  three  thousand  colonists  were  sent  to  occupy  it  instead 
of  fifteen  hundred.  But  the  JSquians  were  more  roused  than  daunted  by  this 
occupation  of  Vitellia,  as  they  had  already  been  taught  the  importance  of  such 
colonies.  We  hear  nothing  of  the  Volscians,  so  that  they  probably  remained  at 
peace ;  but  the  ^Equians,  though  alone,  dislodged  the  Romans  The  ^quian(l  dcatr0y 
from  their  old  post  of  Verrugo,25  and  in  the  following  year  sur-  u- 
prised  the  new  colony  of  Vitellia.  Four  years  after  the  fall  of  Veii,  the  whole  force 
of  Rome,  under  both  consuls,  was  once  more  employed  against  the  ^quiansTjr 
the  old  battle-ground  of  Algidus  ;27  which  clearly  shows  that  the  JEquian  fron- 
tier had  again  advanced,  and  that  Vitellia  and  its  territory  were  lost  to  Rome. 
An  easy  victory  is,  indeed,  claimed  for  the  Roman  armies  in  this 

y  J  ,    .  ...  The  war  undecided  yp 

campaign,  but  the  contest  was  not  over,  ana  its  issue  was  still  un-  to  the  time  of  the  Gmn- 

•,  .          i  ,  <*     i         /-N        i  •    i      •  .  ish  invasiou. 

decided,  when  m  the  next  year  the  storm  ot  the  Gaulish  invasion 

broke  upon  Latium,  and  crushed  both  of  the  contending  parties  ;  the  Romans, 

however,  for  a  short  time  only,  the  JEquians  forever. 

Thus  in  her  long  contest  with  the  Opican  nations,  Rome  had  advanced,  indeed, 
from  her  depressed  state  at  the  beginning  of  the  century,  yet  had  Regults  of  thk  ivg 
by  no  means  reduced  her  enemies  to  submission.  The  occupa-  contest- 
tion  of  Anxur  on  the  side  of  the  Volscians,  and  of  Lavici  and  Bola  on  the  ^Equi- 
an  frontier,  was  an  important  advantage;  but  the  attempt  to  effect  a  settlement 
within  the  line  of  the  JEquian  highlands  had  been  utterly  defeated,  and  the 
/Equians,  instead  of  defending  their  own  country,  were  still  able  to  fix  the  war 
on  what  may  be  called  their  advanced  post  of  observation,  the  Alban  hills ;  and 
from  their  advantage  ground  of  Algidus,  could  still  overhang  Tusculum,  and 
threaten  devastation  to  the  whole  territory  of  Rome.  It  was  in  the  opposite 
quarter,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Tiber,  that  the  Romans  made  the  first  import- 
ant addition  to  their  dominion,  and,  for  the  first  time,  since  the  days  of  their 
kings,  increased  their  power  by  an  accession  of  new  citizens  from  the  population 
of  the  countries  which  they  conquered. 

We  have  seen  that  in  the  year  280,28  the  Veientians  had  concluded  a  peace 
with  the  Romans  for  forty  years.  But  in  the  year  317  the  two  War8  wlth  Veu  and 
nations  were  again  involved  in  war ;  whether  we  are  to  suppose,  FldemB- 
with  Niebuhr,  that  the  truce  was  to  last  only  for  forty  cyclical  years  of  ten  months 
each,  and,  therefore,  that  it  had  expired  three  years  before,  or  whether  it  was 
brought  to  a  premature  termination,  like  the  thirty  years'  peace  between  Athens 
and  Sparta,  which  was  cut  short  in  the  midst  by  the  breaking  out  of  the  Pelo- 
ponnesian  war.  The  latter  seems  more  probable,  because  the  quarrel  is  espe- 
cially said  to  have  originated  in  the  revolt  of  Fidense ;  whereas,  had  the  truce 
been  at  an  end,  no  particular  cause  of  war  would  have  been  needed ;  hostilities 
rould  have  been  resumed  as  a  matter  of  course. 

The  left  bank  of  the  Tiber,  immediately  above  its  confluence  with  the  Anio,  is 
skirted  by  a  line  of  low  hills  at  the  distance  of  about  half  a  mile.    On  situation  of 
me  of  these,  which,  like  all  the  hills  of  the  Campagna,  break  off  into  %$%, 
iliffs  on  their  sides,  stood  the  town  of  Fidence,29  between  five  and  man8' 
six  miles  distant  from  Rome ;  the  citadel,  as  some  think,  was  on  a  higher  point 

26  Li vy,  V.  28.  modern  Villa  Spada,  jus*  five  miles  from  Borne ; 

«  Livy,  V.  31.  According  to  Diodorus,  Ve-  a  spot  which  is  now  shown  to  strangers  as  the 
trjE  and  Satricum  revolted  from  Koine  at  this  site  of  the  villa  of  Phao;;,  Nero's  freedman,  and 
period,  and  Circeii  must  have  been  lost  pre-  the  place  where  Nero  killed  himself.  Accord- 
viously  and  recently  recovered  again,  as  a  col-  ing  toSir  W.  Gell,  Fidencewas  about  half  amile 
ony  was  planted  there  in  the  year  362.  It  is  further  on  the  road,  and  its  citadel  stood  on  the 
clear,  from  this  statement,  that  the  Opican  na-  isolated  hill  of  Castel  Giubileo,  which  rises  im- 
tions  were  rather  roused  than  daunted  by  the  mediately  above  the  Tiber.  Westphal  says  that 
fall  of  Veii,  and  were  carrying  on  the  war  with  some  inscriptions  have  been  found  which  iden- 
Rome  with  unabated  vigor,  down  to  the  very  tify  the  spot.  If  so,  and  if  I  recognize  his  de- 
time  of  the  Gaulish  invasion.  See  Diodorus,  scription,  the  excavations  in  the  rock  behind  the 
XIV.  102,  106.  Villa  Spada,  resembling  those  at  Snenton,  near 

28  See  chapter  XII.  Nottingham,  would  be,  probably,  the  tombs  of 

18  Westphal  places  Fidenas  at  the  site  of  the  the  citizens  of  Fidenae. 


148  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XVIIi 

of  the  ridge,  separated  from  it  by  a  valley,  and  rising  immediately  above  the  river. 
Fidenoe  is  described  as  an  old  Roman  colony,  established  as  early  as  the  time  of 
Romulus  ;30  other  accounts  call  it  an  Alban  or  Latin  colony,31  while  it  is  repre- 
sented as  having  been  originally  a  city  of  the  Etruscans.32  It  is  said  also  to  have 
twice  revolted  from  Rome  since  the  expulsion  of  the  kings,  and  to  have  been  twice 
reduced,  the  last  time  in  the  year  256,33  and  to  have  forfeited  the  half  of  its  ter- 
ritory to  the  Roman  garrison  or  colonists  who  occupied  its  citadel.  All  that  can 
be  gathered  from  these  stories  is,  that  the  subject  population  in  Fidenae  consisted 
chiefly  of  Etruscans  ;  and  that  the  ruling  part  of  the  inhabitants,  the  citizens  of  the 
colony,  were  Romans.  In  the  year  317,34  from  some  causes,  of  which  we  know 
nothing,  the  old  Etruscan  population  rose  against  the  Roman  colonists,  expelled 
them,  and  then  put  themselves  under  the  protection  of  Veii.  It  is  added  that 
four  Romans,  sent  to  remonstrate  with  them  upon  their  revolt,  Avere  murdered  by 
them  at  the  command  of  the  Veientian  king,  who  was  become  their  new  sovereign ; 
and  statues  of  the  men  thus  slain  were  afterwards  set  up  in  the  rostra  ;  an  honor 
that  was  paid  two  centuries  later  to  the  ambassadors  murdered  by  the  Illyrian 
queen  Teuta.  This  revolt  of  Fidenae,  and  the  protection  afforded  to  the  revolters 
by  the  Veientians,  led  to  a  renewal  of  war  between  Rome  and  Veii ;  and  the  seat 
of  the  war  was  removed  not  only  from  the  right  to  the  left  bank  of  the  Tiber, 
but  even,  on  more  than  one  occasion,  to  the  left  bank  of  the  Anio,  that  is  to  say, 
within  three  miles  of  Rome.  In  320,  however,  Q.  Servilius  Priscus,35  who  was 
appointed  dictator,  is  said  to  have  taken  Fidense,  and  new  colonists  were  again 
sent  to  occupy  the  place;  but  in  329  we  read  of  another  revolt,  accompanied  by 
a  massacre36  of  the  colonists,  and  Mamercus  ^Emilius  was  named  dictator  to  meet 
this  new  danger.  He  gained  a  great  victory  over  the  Yeientians  and  Fidenatians, 
and  again  took  Fidense ;  but  this  time  the  work  was  done  effectually  :37  the  Etrus- 
can population  were  either  massacred  or  sold  for  slaves,  and  the  town  and  its  ter- 
ritory remained  from  henceforth  in  the  undisturbed  possession  of  the  Romans.  At 
the  same  time  a  peace  was  concluded  with  the  Veientians  for  twenty  years.38 
This  was  in  330 ;  but  in  the  year  348,  Livy  says  that  the  term  of  the  truce  had 
already  expired  ;39  so  that  Niebuhr  conjectures  that  in  this  instance 

War  with  Veii.  ,  J  '  .  ..       ,  J  f    , 

also  we  must  reckon  by  cyclical  years  of  ten  months,  and  that  the 
truce  was  only  concluded  for  sixteen  common  years  and  eight  months.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  this  were  so,  the  truce  must  have  expired  early  in  347,  for  there 
seems  no  foundation  for  Niebuhr's  conjecture,  that  it  had  not  begun  before  331  : 
it  was  surely  likely  that  it  would  have  been  solicited  immediately  after  the  taking 
of  Fidense,  and  concluded  early,  rather  than  late,  in  330,  much  less  can  we  sup- 
pose it  to  have  been  delayed  till  the  year  following.  Besides,  we  read  of  no  ac- 
tual hostilities  before  the  year  350,  that  is,  till  the  end  of  twenty  common  years  ; 
and  the  story  that  the  Romans  forbore  to  press  their  demands  on  Veii  during 

80  Compare  Livy,  I.  14  and  27.  M  Livy,  IV.  17.    He  speaks  as  if  the  Roman 

31  Dionysius,  II.  53,  says  that  Fidenso,  No-  colonists  had    revolted ;   but  Niebubr    seems 
rnentum,  and  Crustumeria  were  all  of  them  Al-  right  in  supposing,  that  when  we  read  of  the 
ban  colonies,  founded  at  the  same  time  by  three  revolt  of  a  colony  iii  these  early  times,  we  should 
brothers.     Virgil  names  Fidenoe  along  with  No-  understand  it  not  properly  speaking  of  the  colo- 
mentum  and  Gabii,  and  also  speaks  of  it  as  an  nists,  but  of  the  subject  population  who  arose 
Alban  colony.     ^En.  VI.  73.  and  drove  them  out,  and  then  asserted  their 

32  Livy,  I.  15.     Strabo,  V.  2,  §  9,  p.  226.   Plu-  own  independence,  or  _  connected  themselves 
tarch  makes  Fidenae,  Crustumeria,  and  Antem-  with  some  people  of  their  own  race. 

nae  to  have  been  Sabine  towns,  Romulus,  17.  *  Livy,  IV.  21.      The  c;mmon  editions  oi 

Muller  well  remarks  that  in  Fidense  and  Crus-  Livy,  including  Bekker's,  call  him  A.  Servilius, 

tumeria,  as  in  Rome,  we  find  traces  of  these  following  in  this  most  of  our  present  MSS.    But 

same  three  elements  of  the  population,  Latins,  Glareanus  says  that  most  of  the  MSS.    had 

Sabines,  and  Etruscans.     But  at  Fidenae,  the  "Quintus,"  and  that  "Aulus"  was  the  reading 

close  connection  of  the  place  with  Veii  (to  which  of  Aldus'  MS.,  which  he  followed  in  his  edition, 

place  it  seems  to  have  been  subject  or  depend-  Sigonius,  Glareanus,  Pighius,  andDxikenborch 

ent,  as  was  also  Capena),  seems  to  show,  that  all  prefer  the  reading  "  Quintus." 

previously  to  its  final  conquest  by  the  Romans,  *  Livy,  IV.  31. 

the  Etruscan  element  was  predominant.     See  "  Livy,  IV.  34. 

Mailer's  Etrusker,  Vol.  I.  p.  113,  361.  8  Livy,  IV.  35. 

**  Dionysius,  V.  60.  "  Livy,  IV.  58.   Tempus  induciarurn  exierat. 


!HAP.  XVIIL]  SIEGE  OF  VEIL  14$, 


the  year  348  out  of  magnanimity,  because  the  Vuentians  were  distracted  by 
internal  factions,  is  suspicious  enough  to  throw  discredit  upon  the  whole  narra- 
tive which  involves  it.  It  is  far  more  probable  that,  as  the  expiration  of  the  truce 
;-cw  near,  both  parties  tried  what  could  be  gained  by  negotiation.40  The  Ro- 
ans were  engaged  in  war  with  the  ^Equians  and  Volscians,  and  although  successful 
in  the  campaign  of  347,  yet  they  had  obtained  no  decided  advantage.  Thus  the 
Veientians  tried  to  spin  out  the  negotiation  till  they  should  see  the  event  of  the 
next  campaign,  but  as  that  was  unfavorable  to  the  Romans,  the  garrison  at  Ver- 
rugo  being  surprised  and  cut  to  pieces  by  the  Volscians,  the  Veientians  took  cour- 
age, and  refused  to  grant  the  Roman  demands.  The  next  year,  however,  greatly 
altered  the  face  of  affairs ;  the  Romans  were  completely  successful  against  the 
Volscians,  and  took  the  important  city  of  Anxur :  war  with  Veil  was  now  looked 
forward  to  with  delight,  the  commons  were  conciliated  by  the  grant  of  pay  to  the 
soldiers,  and  thus,  at  the  close  of  the  twentieth  year  of  the  truce,  apparently  in 
the  spring  of  350,  the  Roman  people  voted  for  instant  war  with  the  Veientians; 
and  the  military  tribunes  of  that  year41  commenced  the  invasion  of  the  Veientian 
territory,  and  the  occupation  of  fortified  posts  in  the  neighborhood  of  Veii. 

Again,  in  the  year  following,  351,  the  Roman  arms  were  called  off  from  Veii 
»y  the  Volscian  war,42  and  nothing  was  attempted  against  the  city.  The  siege  of  Y^U  fonn- 
*ut  in  the  next  year  the  Volscians  were  quiet,  and  the  siege  of  ed- 
eii  was  commenced  in  earnest.     Livy's  expressions43  convey  the  notion  that  a 
ouble  line  of  walls  was  carried  all  round  the  city,  as  at  Plataea,  A  u  c  35J    A.  c. 
e  inner  wall  to  blockade  the  besieged,  the  outer  one  to  shelter  40°- 
e  besiegers  from  any  attempt  to  raise  the  siege  on  the  part  of  the  other  states 
Etruria.     But  the  circuit  of  the  walls  of  Veii,  according  to  Sir  W.  Gell's  meas- 
ments,44  was  above  five  miles ;  the  besiegers'  line,  therefore,  must  have  em- 
,ced  a  still  larger  space,  and  the  deep  valleys  with  rocky  sides,  between  which 
e  small  streams  of  this  district  always  flow,  would   have  offered  formidable 
interruptions  to  the  work.     Besides,  it  is  manifest  that  if  such  a  circumvallation 
had  been  completed,  Veii  must  have  been  starved  out  within  a  year,  instead  of 
resisting  for  seven  years,  and  not  being  even  at  last  reduced  by  famine.     It  ap- 
pears rather  that  the  two  Roman  armies  employed  in  the  siege  established  them- 
selves in  two  separate  camps,  and  secured  the  communication  between  them  as  well 
as  they  could  by  detached    forts,  intending  to  carry  on  their  circumvallation 
on  each  side  from  their  camps,  as  the  Athenians  did  at  Syracuse,  till  it  should 
meet  and  effectually  inclose  the  city.     And  as  it  was  necessary  that  the  lines 
should  be  maintained  through  the  winter,  the  Romans  now,  for  the  first  time, 
came  acquainted  with  war  on  a  greater  scale,  and,  instead  of  returning  home 
ter  a  few  days'  service,  a  considerable  portion,  at  least,  of  the  soldiers  were  to 
main  before  Veii  during  the  whole  year.     This  was  as  strange  and  unwelcome 
the  Romans  as  it  would  have  been  to  the  Peloponnesians,  but  the  national 
ling  was  interested  in  the  war,  and  the  lines,  after  having  been  once  taken  by. 
sally  of  the  besieged,  were  recovered  and  maintained  by  an  army  of  volunteers. 
Still  there  was  no  complete  circumvallation :  Veii  was  open  and  accessible  to 
relief;  and  the  people  of  the  two  neighboring  cities  of  Capena  and 


A.  U.  C.  353.     A.  C. 


Falerii,  being  at  length  aroused  to  a  sense  of  their  own  danger  if  399.  'Attacks' made  on 
Veii  fell,  exerted  all  their  power  to  deliver  it.     They  attacked  the  th 
~  >man  lines,45  stormed  one  of  the  two  camps  which  formed  the  strongholds  of 
e  besieging  army,  and  for  the  remainder  of  the  year  the  communications  of 
Veii  with  the  surrounding  country  were  carried  on  in  freedom. 

40  See  note  48  of  the  last  chapter.  description  of  the  Peloponnesian  lines  round 

**.  Livy,  IV.  61.     Ab  his  primum  circumsessi  Platea :  TO  TCIX°S  £*X£  M°  T°*>s  ircpt/JjAou?,  irp6f  rt 

Veii  sunt.  IlAaraiwK,  Kal  £«  rtj  efaQtv  a*'  'Afl^i/tDv  inioi. '  III. 

8  Livy,  IV.  61.  21. 

11  Livy,  V.  1.    Ita  muniebant  ut  ancipitia  mu-  *4  See  the  conclusion  of  the  article  "  Veii,"  in 

imenta  essent,  alia  in  urbem — versa,  aliis  frons  his  work  on  the  topography  of  7£orue  and  its 

Etruriam  spectans  auxiliis,  si  qua  forte  inde  vicinity, 

jnirent,  ol>struobatur.    Compare  Thucydides'  45  Liv/,  V.  8. 


150  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XV1H 

For  five  years  after  this,  the  siege,  if  so  it  may  be  called,  made  but  little  prog- 
ress. The  Romans  retained  their  camps  before  Veii,  as  the  Veien- 
•utoi  wfu»  tiwir  aid  tians  had  once  held  the  Janiculum;  they  plundered  the  Veientian 
territory,  and  by  their  advanced  position  protected  their  own.  The 
Oapenatians  and  Faliscans  could  not  again  succeed  in  carrying  the  Roman  camps, 
and  the  Tarquinensians,  who  took  part  in  the  contest  in  the  year  358,46  and  ven- 
tured to  invade  the  Roman  territory,  were  repelled  with  loss.  But  this  interfer- 
ence of  the  people  of  Tarquinii,  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  influential  of  the 
Etruscan  cities,  and  not  the  immediate  neighbor  of  Veii,  was  probably  a  symp- 
tom of  the  dispositions  of  the  whole  Etruscan  confederacy.  A  great  council  of 
the  whole  nation  met  at  the  temple  of  Voltumna,47  the  Pamonium  of  Etruria ;  the 
question  of  aiding  Veii  with  the  united  force  of  the  twelve  cities  was  debated : 
but  at  this  critical  moment  the  attention  of  the  northern  states  of  the  league  was 
drawn  off  to  another  and  a  more  imminent  danger.  The  Gauls  had  crossed  the 
Alps,  and  were  overrunning  the  country  of  the  twelve  cities  of  northern  Etruria, 
between  the  Alps  and  the  Apennines.  With  such  an  enemy  so  near  them,  the 
northern  states  of  Etruria  proper,  Volterae,  Faesulse,  Cortona,  and  Clusium,  were 
not  disposed  to  march  their  forces  away  to  a  contest  on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber, 
and  to  leave  their  own  homes  open  to  the  inroads  of  the  Gauls.  Accordingly, 
the  southern  cities  were  left  to  their  fate  ;  and  only  Capena  and  Falerii  took  any 
part  in  the  final  struggle  between  Veii  and  Rome. 

But  the  events  of  the  last  year  of  this  struggle  plainly  showed  what  Rome 
would  have  had  to  fear  from  a  coalition  of  all  the  twelve  cities  of 
'  ie-  Etruria.  Two  of  the  Roman  military  tribunes48  were  defeated  by 
i"-  the  Faliscans  and  Capernatians ;  one  of  them  was  killed  in  the 
battle  ;  and  the  panic  spread  to  the  lines  before  Veii,  and  even  to 
Rome  itself,  where  the  rumor  prevailed,  that  the  whole  force  of  Etruria  was  on 
its  march,  that  the  lines  before  Veii  were  actually  assailed  by  the  enemy,  and 
that  his  victorious  bands  might  be  expected  every  moment  to  advance  upon 
Rome.  So  great  was  the  alarm,  that  the  matrons  crowded  to  the  temples  to 
avert,  by  prayers  and  sacrifices,  their  country's  peril ;  and  the  senate  resolved 
to  appoint  a  dictator.49  The  dictator  thus  chosen  was  the  famous  M.  Furius 
Camillus. 

During  thirty  years  from  this  period  Camillus  was  undoubtedly  the  most  emi- 
Tho  history  of  the  fail  nent  man  in  Rome,  and  the  favorite  leader  of  the  aristocracy,  who 
pUted  by 8theepoeucai  twice  made  him  their  champion  in  the  hour  of  their  greatest  need, 
itory'  once  to  put  down  M.  Manlius,  and  again  to  prevent,  if  possible, 

the  passing  of  the  Licinian  laws.  Nor  was  the  distinction  of  his  family  confined 
to  him  alone ;  one  of  his  sons  was  the  first  praetor,  and  another  was  twice  dicta- 
tor, and  twice  consul,  and  gained  a  memorable  victory  over  the  Gauls.  But  in 
proportion  to  this  high  eminence  of  the  Furian  family,  was  the  exaggeration  of 
which  they  were  the  subject.  The  stories  told  of  them  were  so  popular,  that 
they  were  not  merely  engrafted  upon  the  brief  notices  contained  in  the  genuine 
records  of  the  time,  but  took  the  place  of  these  altogether  ;  so  that  it  is  through 

48  Livy,  V.  16.  point  supplant  the  real  history,  that  Livy  does 

47  Livy,  V.  17.    The  situation  of  this  temple  not  so  much  as  mention  the  resolution  of  the 
is  unknown,  as  well  as  the  attributes  of  the  senate  to  appoint  a  dictator,  but  after  describ- 
goddess  to  whom  it  was  dedicated.     The  as-  ing  the  alarm  at  Koine,  and  the  prayers  of  the 
fcemblies  held  at  the  temple  were  composed  only  matrons,  he  passes  abruptly  to  the  legend,  and 
of  the  ruling  caste,  the  Principes  or  Lucumones  merely  says,  "iatalis  dux  ad  excidium  illiua 
of  Etruria:  but  they  were  connected  with  a  re-  urbis  servandseque  patrise  M.  Furius  Camillua 
ligious  festival,  with  games  of  various  sorts,  and  dictator  dictus  magistrum  equitum  P.  Corne- 
especially  with  dramatic  entertainments;  so  that  Hum  Scipionem  dixit."    V.   19.     It   appears, 
people  of  all  ranks  came  together  on  these  so-  however,  that  the  master  of  the  horse,  accord- 
lemnities,  and  the  concourse  attracted  traders  ing  to  the  Fasti  Capitolini,  was  not  P.  Come- 
from  foreign  countries,  as  to  a  favorable  oppor-  lius  Scipio,   but    P.   Cornelius    Maluginensis 
tunity  of  carrying  on  their  traffic.  Sec  the   "Frammenti  nuovi,"  published    by 

48  Livy,  V.I  8.  Borghesi. 

49  So  strangely  does  the  poetical  story  at  this 


CIIAP.  XVIII]  LEGEND  OF  THE  FALL  OF  VEII  151 

the  Greek  writers  only  that  we  can  learn  the  real  issue  of  the  Gaulic  invasion, 
and  the  history  of  the  taking  of  Veii  has  not  been  preserved  at  all.  That  the 
beautiful  and  romantic  story  of  the  fall  of  Veii  belongs  entirely  to  the  traditions 
and  funeral  orations  of  the  Furian  family,  is  plain  from  this,  that  the  events,  even 
of  the  very  last  year  of  the  war,  are  related  historically  down  to  the  very  time 
of  the  appointment  of  Camillus  to  the  dictatorship  ;  but  then  the  history  sud- 
denly vanishes,  and  a  mere  romance  succeeds  in  its  place  wherever  the  actions 
of  Camillus  are  the  subject,  interspersed  here  and  there  with  fragments  of  au- 
thentic history,  where  the  story  relates  to  the  actions  of  other  persons.  Thus 
we  do  not  really  know  how  Veii  fell,  or  by  what  means  a  contest  .which,  in  the 
beginning  of  the  year  359,  wore  so  unpromising  an  aspect,  was,  before  the  end 
of  that  same  year,  brought  to  a  triumphant  conclusion.  It  is  mentioned50  that 
the  Latins  and  Hernicans,  who  seem  hitherto  to  have  taken  no  part  in  the  war, 
joined  the  Romans  with  their  whole  force  as  soon  as  Camillus  was  made  dictator. 
Probably  the  defeat  sustained  in  the  early  part  af  the  year,  and  the  fear  lest  all 
Etruria  should  combine  to  relieve  Veii,  if  any  accident  "should  turn  the  stream  of 
the  Gaulish  invasion  upon  other  countries,  convinced  tbe  Romans  that  they  must 
make  the  most  of  the  present  moment,  whilst  the  Etruscans  still  stood  aloof. 
An  overpowering  army  of  the  Romans  and  their  allies  was  brought  against  Veii ; 
the  siege  of  Platasa  shows  what  great  works  for  the  reduction  of  a  town  could  be 
completed  within  a  short  time  by  the  united  labor  of  a  multitude  of  hands :  a  mound 
might  be  carried  to  the  top  of  the  loftiest  walls  ;  or  their  foundations  might  be  un- 
dermined, and  a  breach  opened  in  an  instant ;  or,  in  the  wide  extent  of  Veii,  some 
ill-guarded  spot  might  be  found,  by  which  the  enemy  might  effect  an  entrance 
without  opposition.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  manner  of  the  real  capture  of  the 
place  is  irrecoverably  lost ;  but  it  is  certain  that  in  the  year  359,  after  a  war  of 
nine  years,  this  old  antagonist  of  Rome,  the  large,  the  wealthy,  and  powerful 
city  of  Veii,  was  taken  by  the  Romans,  and  the  political  existence  of  its  people 
destroyed  forever. 

But  before  we  finally  quit  the  poetical  legends  of  the  early  Roman  history,  the 
last  of  them,  and  not  the  least  beautiful,  that  which  relates  to  the  Difference  between  tho 
fall  of  Veii,  must  find  its  place  in  this  narrative.  In  the  life  of  ?ffi£^5.aSSJ 
Camillus  there  meet  two  distinct  kinds  of  fiction,  equally  remote  fcmiiymemoi™. 
from  historical  truth,  but  in  all  other  respects  most  opposite  to  one  another  :  the 
one  imaginative,  but  honest,  playing,  it  is  true,  with  the  facts  of  history,  and  con- 
verting them  into  a  wholly  different  form,  but  addressing  itself  also  to  a  different 
part  of  the  mind  ;  not  professing  to  impart  exact  knowledge,  but  to  delight,  to 
quicken,  and  to  raise  the  perception  of  what  is  beautiful  and  noble  ;  the  other, 
tame  and  fraudulent,  deliberately  corrupting  truth  in  order  to  minister  to  national 
or  individual  vanity,  pretending  to  describe  actual  events,  but  substituting  in  the 
place  of  reality  the  representations  of  interested  or  servile  falsehood.  To  the 
former  of  these  classes  belongs  the  legend  of  the  fall  of  Veii ;  to  the  latter  the 
interpolation  of  the  pretended  victory  of  Camillus  over  the  Gauls.  The  stories 
of  the  former  kind,  as  innocent  as  they  are  delightful,  I  have  thought  it  an  irrev- 
erence to  neglect ;  the  fabrications  of  the  latter  sort,  which  are  the  peculiar  dis- 
grace of  Roman  history,  it  is  best  to  pass  over  in  total  silence,  that  they  may,  if 
possible,  be  consigned  to  perpetual  oblivion. 

The  poetical  story  of  the  fall  of  Veii  is  as  follows  : 

For  seven  years  and  more  the  Romans  had  been  besieging  Veii.  Now  the 
summer  was  far  advanced,51  and  all  the  springs  and  rivers  were  Pooticai  8tory  of  th* 
very  low  ;  when  on  a  sudden  the  waters  of  the  lake  of  Alba  be-  y^'H^SSfti 
gan  to  rise ;  and  they  rose  above  its  banks,  and  covered  the  banks- 
Uelds  and  houses  by  the  water-side  ;  and  still  they  rose  higher  and  higher,  till 
they  reached  the  top  of  the  hills  which  surrounded  the  lake  as  with  a  wall,  and 

w  Livy,  V.  19.  "  Dionysius,  XII.  11.    Fragm.  Mai. 


£52  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP  XVIH 

they  overflowed  where  the  hills  were  lowest ;  and  behold,  the  water  of  the  lake 
poured  down  -in  a  mighty  torrent  into  the  plain  beyond.  When  the  Romans 
found  that  the  sacrifices52  which  they  offered  to  the  gods  and  powers  of  the 
place  were  of  no  avail,  and  their  prophets  knew  not  what  counsel  to  give  them, 
and  the  lake  still  continued  to  overflow  the  hills  and  to  pour  down  into  the  plain 
below,  then  they  sent  over  the  sea,  to  Delphi,  to  ask  counsel  of  the  oracle  of 
Apollo,  which  was  famous  in  every  land. 

So  the  messengers  were  sent  to  Delphi.     And  meanwhile  the  report  of  the 

TO  bet  of  veii  de  overn<owmg  °^  tne  la^c  was  much  talked  of ;  so  that  the  people 
neauebg  of  of  Veil  heard  of  it.  Now  there  was  an  old  Veientian,53  who  was 
skilled  in  the  secrets  of  the  Fates,  and  it  chanced  that  he  was 
talking  from  the  walls  with  a  Roman  centurion  whom  he  had  known  before  in  the 
days  of  peace ;  and  the  Roman  spoke  of  the  ruin  that  was  coming  upon  Veii, 
and  was  sorry  for  the  old  man  his  friend  ;  but  the  old  man  laughed  and  said  : 
"  Ah !  ye  think  to  take  Veii ;  but  ye  shall  not  take  it  till  the  waters  of  the  lake 
of  Alba  are  all  spent,  and  flow  out  into  the  sea  no  more."  WLm  the  Roman 
heard  this  he  was  much  moved  by  it,  for  he  knew  that  the  eld  man  was  a 
prophet ;  and  the  next  day  he  came  again  to  talk  with  the  old  man,  and  he  en- 
ticed him  to  come  out  of  the  city,  and  to  go  aside  with  him  to  a  lonely  place, 
saying  that  he  had  a  certain  matter  of  his  own,  concerning  which  he  desired  to 
know  the  secrets  of  fate.  And  while  they  were  talking  together,  he  seized  the 
old  man,  and  carried  him  off  to  the  Roman  camp,  and  brought  him  before  the 
generals  ;  and  the  generals  sent  him  to  Rome  to  the  senate.  Then  the  old  man 
declared  all  that  was  in  the  Fates  concerning  the  overflow  of  the  lake  of  Alba ; 
and  he  told  the  senate  what  they  were  to  do  with  the  water,  that  it  might  cease 
to  flow  into  the  sea :  "  If  the  lake  overflow,  and  its  waters  run  out  into  the  sea, 
woe  unto  Rome ;  but  if  it  be  drawn  off,  and  the  waters  reach  the  sea  no  longer, 
then  it  is  woe  unto  Veii."  But  the  senate  would  not  listen  to  the  old  man's 
words,  till  the  messengers  should  come  back  from  Delphi. 

After  a  time  the  messengers  came  back,  and  the  answer  of  the  god  agreed  in 
The  Romans  dig  all  things  with  the  words  of  the  old  man  of  Veii.  For  it  said,54 
SrSi^t/SSlSfe  "See  that  the  waters  be  not  confined  within  the  basin  of  the 
lake  :  see  that  they  take  not  their  own  course  and  ran  into  the 
sea.  Thou  shalt  let  the  water  out  of  the  lake,  and  thou  shalt  turn  it  to  the  wa- 
tering of  thy  fields,  and  thou  shalt  make  courses  for  it  till  it  be  spent  and  come 
to  nothing."  Then  the  Romans  believed  the  oracle,  and  they  sent  workmen,  and 
began  to  bore  through  the  side  of  the  hills  to  make  a  passage  for  the  water.  And 
the  water  flowed  out  through  this  passage  under  ground  ;  and  it  ceased  to  flow 
over  the  hills  ;  and  when  it  came  out  from  the  passage  into  the  plain  below,  it 
was  received  into  many  courses  which  had  been  dug  for  it,  and  it  watered  the 
fields,  and  became  obedient  to  the  Romans,  and  was  all  spent  in  doing  them  ser- 
vice, and  flowed  to  the  sea  no  more.  And  the  Romans  knew  that  it  was  the  will 
of  the  gods  that  they  should  conquer  Veii. 

So  Marcus  Furius  Camillus  was  made  dictator ;  and  the  Veientians  sent  to 
The  Romans  refuse  Rome  to  beg  for  peace,55  but  the  Romans  would  not  grant  it. 
pe*e.  t»  a*  veientian..  ^Ow  the  Etruscans  are  skilled  in  the  secrets  of  fate  above  all  other 
nations ;  and  one  of  the  chief  men  of  Veii,  who  had  gone  with  the  embassy, 
turned  round  as  he  was  going  out  of  the  senate-house,  and  looked  upon  the  sen- 
ators, and  said  :  "  A  goodly  answer  truly  have  ye  given  us,  and  a  generous ;  for 
though  we  humble  ourselves  before  you,  ye  will  show  us  no  mercy,  but  threaten 
to  destroy  us  utterly.  Ye  heed  neither  the  wrath  of  the  gods  nor  the  vengeance 
of  men.  Yet  the  gods  shall  requite  you  for  your  pride  ;  and,  as  ye  destroy  our 
country,  so  ye  shall  shortly  after  lose  your  own." 

82  Dionysius,  XII.  12.  M  Livy,  V.  16. 

63  Dionysius,  XII.  13.    Livy,  V.  15.     Plu-        55  Dionysius,  XII.  17. 
larch,  Camillus,  4. 


CHAP.  XV ITT.]  LEGEND  OE  THE  FALL  OF  VEIL  ]53 

Meanwhile  Marcus  Furius56  pressed  the  city  on  every  side  ;  and  he  was  at  the 

head  of  a  mighty  army ;  for  the  Latins  and  the  Hernicans  had   , 

,       ,    .    &. , J          r  ,  TIT-  T  A  mino  flus  int:>  tbe 

brought  their  aids;  and  he  commanded  his  men  to  dig  away  un-  heart  of  the  citajei  of 

der  ground,  which  should  pass  beneath  the  walls,  and  come  out 
again  to  the  light  within  the  precinct  of  the  temple  of  Juno,  in  the  citadel  of 
Veii.  The  men  worked  on  by  night  and  by  day  ;  for  they  were  divided  into  six 
bands ;  and  each  band  worked  in  turn  and  rested  in  turn  ;  and  the  secret  pas- 
sage was  carried  up  into  the  precinct  of  the  temple  of  Juno  ;  but  it  had  not 
broken  through  the  surface  of  the  ground ;  so  that  the  Veientians  knew  not 
of  it. 

Then  every  man57  who  desired  to  have  a  share  of  the  spoil  hastened  from 
Rome  to  the  camp  at  Veii.  And  Marcus,  the  dictator,  made  a 
vow,  and  promised  to  give  the  tenth  part  of  all  the  spoil  to  Apollo, 
the  god  of  Delphi ;  and  he  prayed  also  to  Juno,  the  goddess  of  the  Veientians, 
that  she  would  be  pleased  to  depart  from  Veii,  and  to  follow  the  Romans  home 
to  their  city,  which  from  henceforth  should  be  hers,  and  where  a  temple  worthy 
of  her  majesty  should  be  given  her  for  her  abode.  After  this,  he  ordered  the 
Romans  to  assault  the  city  on  every  side  ;  and  the  Veientians  ran  to  the  wall  to 
meet  them  ;  and  the  shout  of  the  battle  arose,  and  the  fight  was  carried  on 
fiercely.58  But  the  king  of  the  Veientians  was  in  the  temple  of  Juno  in  the  cita- 
del, offering  a  sacrifice  for  the  deliverance  of  the  city ;  and  the  prophet  who 
stood  by,  when  he  saw  the  sacrifice,  cried  aloud,  "  This  is  an  accepted  offering  ; 
for  there  is  victory  for  him  who  offers  its  entrails  upon  the  altar  !"  Now  the 
Romans  were  in  the  secret  passage,  and  heard  the  words  of  the  prophet.  So 
they  burst  forth  into  the  temple,  and  they  snatched  away  the  entrails  from  those 
who  were  sacrificing,  and  Marcus,  the  Roman  dictator,  and  not  the  king  of  the 
Veientians,  offered  them  upon  the  altar.  Then  the  Romans  rushed  down  from 
the  citadel,  and  ran  to  the  gates  of  the  city,  and  let  in  their  comrades  ;  and  all 
the  army  broke  into  the  town,  and  they  sacked  and  took  Veii. 

While  they  were  sacking  the  city,  Marcus  looked  down  upon  the  havoc  from 
the  top  of  the  citadel,  and  when  he  saw  the  greatness  of  the  city  Cemmm  v?irat,  him. 
and  the  richness  of  the  spoil,  his  heart  swelled  within  him,59  and  eelfol'ljis  victory- 
he  said,  "  What  man's  fortune  was  ever  so  great  as  mine  ?"  But  then  in  a  mo- 
ment there  came  the  thought,  how  little  a  thing  and  how  short  a  time  can  bring 
the  greatest  fortune  down  to  the  lowest,  and  his  pride  was  turned  into  fear,  and 
he  prayed,  if  it  must  be  that  in  return  for  such  great  glory  and  victory,  some 
evil  should  befall  himself  or  his  country,  yet  that  it  might  be  light  and  recover- 
able. Whilst  he  prayed  he  veiled  his  head,60  as  is  the  custom  of  the  Romans  in 
prayer,  and  turned  round  towards  the  right.  But  as  he  turned,  his  foot  slipped, 
arid  he  fell  upon  his  back  upon  the  ground.  Yet  he  was  comforted  rather  than 
dismayed  by  his  fall,  for  he  said,  "  The  gods  have  heard  my  prayer,  and  for  the 
great  fortune  of  my  victory  over  Veii  they  have  sent  me  only  this  little  evil." 

Then  he  ordered  some  young  men,61  chosen  out  from  all  his  army,  to  approach 
to  the  temple  of  Juno ;  and  they  had  washed  themselves  in  pure  The  gtetue  of  Juno  fa 
water,  and  were  clothed  in  white,  so  that  there  was  on  them  no  ™med  from  veu  to 
sign  or  stain  of  blood  and  of  slaughter ;  and  they  bowed  low  as 
they  came  to  the  temple,  but  were  afraid  to  touch  the  image  of  the  goddess,  for 
no  hand  might  touch  it  except  the  priest's  who  was  born  of  the  house  that  had. 
the  priesthood.  So  they  asked  the  goddess  whether  it  was  her  pleasure  to  go 
with  them  to  Rome.  And  then  there  happened  a  wonder  ;  for  the  image  spake, 
and  answered,  "  I  will  go ;"  and  when  they  touched  it,  it  moved  from  its  place 
of  its  own  accord,  and  it  was  carried  to  Rome.  Thus  Juno  left  her  abode  in  the 

»  Livy,  V.  19.  *  Dionysius,  XII.  22,  23.    I  utarcli,  Camil 

67  Livy,  V.  20,  21.  lus,  5. 

58  Livy,  V.  21.    Plutarch,  Camillas,  5.  ei  Livy,  V.  22. 

M  Dionysius,  XII.  19. 


154  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XVIII 

citadel  of  Veil,  and  she  dwelt  in  her  temple  at  Rome,,  on  the  hill  Aventinus, 
which  the  Romans  built  and  dedicated  to  her  honor. 

After  this62  there  were  rejoicings  at  Rome  greater  than  had  ever  been  known 

cnmiiius  triumphs  before ;  and  there  were  thanksgivings  for  four  days,  and  all  the 
Proud'y-  temples  were  filled  with  those  who  came  to  offer  their  thank- 

offerings.  And  Marcus  entered  the  city  in  triumph,  and  he  rode  up  to  the  Cap- 
itol in  a  chariot  drawn  by  four  white  horses,  like  the  horses  of  Jupiter  and  like 
the  horses  of  the  sun.  But  wise  men  thought  that  it  was  done  too  proudly ; 
and  they  said,  "  Marcus  makes  himself  equal  to  the  blessed  gods  ;  see  if  ven- 
geance come  not  on  him,  and  he  be  not  made  lower  than  other  men." 

To  return  from  this  famous  legend  to  our  imperfect  history  of  the  times,  the 
increase  of  the  Roman  ^omans'  ty"  ^ie  *'all  of  Veii,  acquired  a  considerable  addition  to 
twatonr  bv  the  Ton"  their  territory.  The  inhabitants  of  several  districts  subject  to  the 
Veientians  had  revolted  to  the  Romans  during  the  war,  or  rather, 
to  escape  the  ravage  of  the  Roman  armies,  had  surrendered  themselves  and  their 
lands  at  discretion.  The  rest  of  the  country,  if  any  remained  so  long  independ- 
ent, must  have  fallen  with  the  capital ;  and  thus  the  Romans  now  extended 
their  dominion  along  the  right  bank  of  the  Tiber  from  its  mouth  to  a  distance  of 
about  thirteen  miles  above  Rome,63  whilst  it  stretched  northwards  from  the  Tiber 
as  far  as  the  Lago  di  Bracciano,  Lacus  Sabatinus,64  and  the  edge  of  the  actual 
Campagna  at  Monterosi ;  passing  thence,  in  a  line  including  the  remarkable  emi- 
nence of  Monte  Musino,65  to  the  Tiber  opposite  the  Ager  Crustumerinus.  But 
in  the  years  immediately  following  the  conquest  of  Veii,  the  Romans  penetrated 
still  deeper  into  Etruria.  Capenia,  which  had  stood  by  the  Veientians  to  the 
last,  fell  in  the  very  next  year  after  its  ally  ;66  and  its  conquest  put  the  Romans 
in  possession  of  an  additional  portion  of  the  right  bank  of  the  Tiber,  above  the 
territory  just  won  from  the  Veientians.  In  the  year  after,  we  hear  of  the  submis- 
sion of  Fulerii,  the  sole  remaining  member  of  the  alliance,  situated  either  on  or  near 
the  site  of  the  modern  town  of  Civita  Castellana.67  Camillus  was  the  military 
tribune  who  reduced  Falerii,  and  accordingly  we  have  another  tale  in  the  place 
cf  history.  A  schoolmaster,68  who  had  the  care  of  the  sons  of  the  principal  citi- 
zens, took  an  opportunity,  when  walking  with  his  boys  without  the  walls,  to  lead 
them  to  the  Roman  camp,  and  throw  them  into  the  power  of  the  enemy.  But 
Camillus,  indignant  at  this  treason,  bade  the  boys  to  drive  their  master  back  into 
the  town  again,  flogging  him  all  the  way  thither,  for  the  Romans,  he  said,  made 
no  war  with  children.  Upon  this  the  Faliscans,  won  by  his  magnanimity,  sur- 
rendered to  him  at  discretion,  themselves,  their  city,  and  their  country.  Whether 
the  city,  however,  was  really  surrendered  at  this  time,  may  seem  very  doubtful ; 
that  it  sued  for  and  obtained  peace  is  likely :  it  lost,  also,  a  portion  of  its  territo- 
ry, for  we  read  of  a  number  of  Faliscans  as  forming  a  part  of  the  four  new 
tribes69  of  Roman  citizens,  which  were  created  immediately  after  the  Gaulish  in- 
vasion. 

In  the  same  year,  or  in  the  following  year,  may  be  placed  also  the  submission 
submission  of  Nepete  °f  Nepete  and  Sutrium,10  which  appear  immediately  after  the  re- 
audsutrium.  treat  of  the  Gauls  as  the  dependent  allies  of  Rome.  They  did  not 

82  Livy,  V.  23.  Musino,  in  Sir  W.  Gell's  work  on  the  neigh- 

63  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  III.  9.  borhood  of  Rome,  under  the  title  "  Ara  Mu- 

64  This  may  be  concluded,  not  only  from  the    tiae." 

short  distance  between  Veii  and  the  Lacus  Sa-  66  Livy,  V.  24. 

batinus,  and  from  there  being  no  independent  6T  Westphal  and  Nibby  place  the  Etruscan 

city,  so  fur  as  we  know,  between  them  ;  but  it  Falerii  at  Civita  Castellana,  and  the  later  Roman 

beems  to  follow,  also,  from  the  name  of  one  of  colony  at  S.  Maria  di  Falari,  about  halfway  be- 

tho  new  tribes  which  w_ere  formed  immediately  tween  Civita  Castellana  and  Ronciglione.     Sir 

after  the  Gaulish  invasion,  the  tribus  Sabatina.  W.  Gell  places  the  Etruscan  city  at  S.  Maria  di 

The  lands  of  this  tribe  must  have  been  situated  Falari. 

near  the  lake  ;  and  from  whom  could  the  Ro-  M  Livy,  V.  27. 

mans  have  conquered  J:hem  at  that  period,  ex-  B9  Livy,  VI.  4. 

cept  from  the  Veientians  ?  70  Diodorus  places  in  the  same  year  the  peace 

*  See  the  description  and  sketch  of  Monte  with  the  Faliscans,  and  something  in  conneo- 


CHAP.  XVIII.]  THE  CIMINIAN  MOUNTAINS.  155 

surrender  themselves,  "  dediderunt  se,"  but  obtained  a  treaty  of  alliance,  such 
as  we  find  so  often  between  the  weaker  and  the  stronger  states  in  Greece.  Ne- 
pete  still  exists,  with  almost  the  same  name,  and  is  a  well-known  town  on  the 
Perugia  road  to  Rome,  standing  in  a  beautiful  country  between  the  edge  of  the 
Campagna  and  the  valley  of  the  Tiber,  a  little  to  the  north  of  Monterosi.  Su- 
trium  also  exists  in  the  modern  town  of  Sutri,  a  little  to  the  west  of  the  present 
road  from  Monterosi  to  Ronciglione. 

The  Romans  had  now  reached  what  may  be  called  the  extreme  natural  bount 
dary  of  the  basin  of  the  Tiber  on  the  side  of  Etruria.     Sutrium  m 

/  _  .  .  ••    ,    i  IT^-I/.    The  Romans  reach  the 

••ind  Nepete  looked  up  immediately  to  the  great  and  lofty  ridge  of  ridge  of  the  cimini*a 
the  Ciminian  mountains,  that  ridge  which  the  traveller  ascends  as 
soon  as  he  leaves  Viterbo,  while  from  its  summit  he  catches  his  first  view  of  the 
neighborhood  of  Rome,  of  the  line  of  the  Apennines  skirting  the  Campagna  to 
the  northeast,  and  of  the  Alban  hills  in  the  farthest  distance,  and,  although  the 
particular  objects  cannot  be  distinguished,  of  that  ever  memorable  plain  in  which 
stands  Rome.  This  ridge,  in  short,  separates  the  streams  which  feed  the  Tiber 
from  the  valley  of  Viterbo  and  the  basin  of  the  lake  of  Bolsena,  or,  to  speak  the 
language  of  the  fourth  century  of  Rome,  it  separated  the  territories  of  Veii  and 
Falerii,  the  advanced  posts,  as  it  were,  of  the  Etruscan  confederacy,  from  those 
of  Vulsinii  and  Tarquinii,  two  of  the  greatest  and  most  distinguished  states  of  the 
whole  nation. 

Eighty  yeaiii  after  this  period,  the  passage  of  the  Ciminian  mountains  was  re- 
garded as  a  memorable  event,  as  little  less  than  the  entrance  into  They  crosg  theni|  and 
an  unknown  world.71  But  now,  emboldened  by  their  victories  ?heeK*«d?fwv»wi2 
over  the  nearer  Etruscan  cities,  and  aware,  no  doubt,  that  the  and  the  *»V1™*™- 
dread  of  the  Gauls  on  the  northern  frontier  would  render  a  general  gathering  of 
the  whole  nation  impossible,  the  Romans  seemed  anxious  to  cross  their  natural 
boundary,  and  to  penetrate  into  the  heart  of  Etruria.  A  war  broke  out,  we 
know  not  on  what  grounds,  between  Rome  and  Vulsinii  ;72  but  in  the  first  year 
the  Romans  were  crippled,  according  to  their  own  account,  by  a  famine  and  pes- 
tilence ;  and  the  Vulsinians,  aided  by  the  Salpinatians,  a  neighboring  people 
wholly  unknown  to  us,  invaded  the  Roman  territory  without  op-  A.  u.  c.  364.  A.  c 
position.  In  the  next  year,  however,  the  Romans  were  able  to  3S8< 
act  on  the  offensive  ;  a  great  victory  was  gained  over  the  Vulsinians ;  the  Salpi- 
natians did  not  risk  a  battle  ;  and,  after  the  lands  of  either  people  had  been  laid 
waste  by  the  conquerors,  the  Vulsinians  sued  for  and  obtained  a  truce  for  twenty 
years,73  on  the  condition  of  giving  satisfaction  to  the  Romans  to  the  extent  of 
their  demands,  and  furnishing  a  year's  pay  for  the  army  employed  against  them. 
Of  the  Salpinatians  we  hear  no  further  mention,  either  now  or  at  any  future 
period. 

Thus  Rome  was. gaining  ground  rapidly  in  Etruria,  while  in  Latium  she  could 
not  yet  dislodge  her  old  enemies  the  JEquians,  even  from  the  Al-  Conclusion 
ban  hills.  With  so  stubborn,  so  active,  and  so  powerful  an  ad- 
versary on  the  south,  any  attempt  to  make  extensive  conquests  on  the  north 
must  ever  have  been  full  of  danger ;  and  an  alliance  between  the  Etruscan  con- 
federacy and  the  Opican  nations,  at  this  period  of  the  Roman  history,  would 
probably  have  effected  what  the  league  between  the  Etruscan  and  Sabellian  na- 
tions, ninety  years  afterwards,  attempted  in  vain.  But  Providence,  which  de- 
signed that  Rome  should  win  the  empire  of  the  world,  altered  the  course  oi 
events  by  turning  the  torrent  of  a  Gaulish  invasion  upon  Latium.  This  it  was 
which  crushed  the  ^Equians  forever ;  and  which  obliged  the  Romans,  by  its 

tion  with  Sutrium.     The  present  text  is  cor-        71  Livy,  IX.  36. 
xupt:  ZovTptov  fjitv  fbpfjiTfaav.     Niebuhr  proposes        7U  Livy,  V.  31. 
to  supply  ixt,  but  the  corruption  lies,  I  think,        ™  Livy,  V.  82. 
in  the  verb,  and  in  the  preceding  conjunction, 
See  Uiodorus,  XIV.  98. 


1 56  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XIX 

consequences,  to  confine  their  attention  again  for  a  long  period  to  the  left  bank 
of  the  Tiber.  There,  in  many  years  of  patient  and  arduous  struggles,  they  laid 
deeper  and  firmer  the  foundations  of  their  after  greatness,  by  effectually  subdu- 
ing the  remnant  of  their  Opican  enemies,  and  obtaining  a  more  complete  com- 
mand than  ever  over  the  resources  of  the  cities  of  the  Latins.  Thus  the  Gaulish 
invasion  and  conquest  of  Rome  was  but  the  instrument  of  her  greater  and  surer 
advance  to  the  dominion  of  Italy. 


CHAPTER  XIX, 

INTERNAL  HISTORY  FROM  350  TO  364r-PLEBEIAN  MILITARY  TRIBUNES— BAN- 
ISHMENT  OF  CAMILLUS. 


"  SICINIUS. — He's  a  disease  that  must  be  cut  away. 
MENENIUS. — Oh,  he's  a  limb  that  has  but  a  disease : 
Mortal  to  cut  it  off;  to  cure  it  easy." 

SHAKSPEARE,  Coriolanus. 

CS    yap  avrov  ol  jroXXot  TO  ///ys3oj  rrjs   re    Kara    ri    IOVTOV    aSpa    irapavofjilas  h  T*)V  lianav 
wf  Tvpavvldos  IxtSvuovvTi  iroXfptot  KaSiaraaav. — TlIUCYDIDES,  VI.  15. 


IN  the  fourteen  years  which  elapsed  between  the  beginning  of  the  last  war 
Advance  of  the  piebe-  with  Veil  and  the  invasion  of  the  Gauls,  the  plebeian  leaders  reaped 
the  fruit  of  the  seed  which  their  predecessors  had  sown  so  perse- 
veringly.  Now,  for  the  first  time,  we  find  plebeians  not  only  admitted  into  the 
college  of  military  tribunes,  but  forming  in  it  the  majority.  Yet  even  this  was, 
as  it  were,  only  the  first-fruits  of  the  harvest ;  many  years  elapsed  before  the 
full  crop  was  brought  to  the  sickle. 

In  the  year  352,  the  third  year  of  the  war  with  Veii,  the  Romans  intending, 
The  atriciang  interfe  e  as  s  ^een  mentioned,  to  blockade  the  city,  were  obliged  to  keep 
with  the  election  of  truf-  a  part  of  their  forces  on  duty  during  the  winter.  This  was  doubly 
unpopular,  both  as  it  obliged  so  many  citizens  to  be  absent  from 
their  homes  for  several  months  together,  a  term  of  service  ill  endured  by  an  army 
of  householders  and  agriculturists ;  and  also  as  it  increased  the  expense  of  the 
war,  for  the  soldiers  received  pay  only  for  those  months  in  which  they  were  ac- 
tually under  arms.  Thus  the  tribunes  began  to  complain  of  the  burden  of  the 
siege,  and  the  indecisive  character  of  the  war  hitherto  was  likely  to  make  it  un- 
popular ;  but  when  news  came  that  the  Roman  lines  had  been  destroyed  by  a 
sally  of  the  besieged,1  national  pride  prevailed,  and  all  ranks  united  in  supporting 
A.  u.  c.  353.  A.  c.  the  contest  zealously.  But  the  next  year  only  brought  fresh  dis- 
asters :2  Anxur  was  surprised  by  the  Volscians,  and  the  armies  be- 
fore Veii  were  completely  defeated,  and  the  blockade  entirely  raised.  Then  feel- 
ings of  irritation  revived ;  and  these  were  so  far  shared  by  the  senate,  that  they 
obliged  all  the  military  tribunes  of  the  year  to  go  out  of  office  on  the  first  of  Oc- 
tober,3 two  months  and  a  half  before  the  expiration  of  their  year.  The  commons, 
however,  were  not  satisfied ;  for  the  first  act  of  the  new  military  tribunes  was  to 
call  out  to  military  service,  not  only  the  citizens  within  the  usual  age,4  but  the 
older  men  also,  who  were  to  form  a  force  for  the  defence  of  the  city.  Such  a 

1  Livy,  V.  7.  «  Livy,  V.  8.  Livy,  V.  9.  *  Livy,  V.  10. 


PLEBEIAN"  MILITARY  TRIBUNES.  157 

call,  just  as  winter  was  coming  on,  was  most  unwelcome ;  besides,  every  addi- 
tional soldier  rendered  a  heavier  taxation  necessary  ;  and  as  the  patricians  were 
continually  evading  the  payment  of  the  vectigal  for  their  occupation  of  the  pub- 
lic land,  so  the  tributum  or  property  tax  necessarily  increased  in  amount.  In 
this  state  of  things,  the  patricians  were  so  afraid  of  the  possible  effects  of  the 
tribunician  power,  that  they  ventured  on  the  unusual  step  of  tampering  with  the 
elections  for  new  tribunes,  which  took  place  in  December.  The  tribune  who  pre- 
sided at  the  comitia  must  have  been  gained  over  to  betray  his  trust ;  he  refused 
votes,  we  must  suppose,  when  given  in  favor  of  the  most  popular,  and  therefore 
the  most  obnoxious  candidates,  whilst  others  could  not  gain  from  the  tribes  them- 
selves the  requisite  majority  of  suffrages.  The  consequence  was  that,  in  defiance 
of  the  Trebonian  law,  only  eight  tribunes  were  returned  ;5  and  these,  by  a  second 
violation  of  the  law,  filled  up  the  vacant  places  by  choosing  two  colleagues  for 
themselves. 

But  this  overstraining  broke  the  bow.     One  honest  tribune  of  the  college,  Cn. 
Trebonius,  was  enough,  where  the  cause  was  so  manifestly  iust,  to 

1  ,-,         .      ,.  , P  c  ,-.  rn,  ,.      ,  J,  J  .,         Plebeians  for  the  first 

awanen  the  indignation  of  the  commons.  Three  of  the  other  tnb-  time  elected  as  tribune* 
unes,6  men,  as  it  seems,  of  those  base  natures  which  always  follow 

'the  stream,  now  strove  to  avert  their  own  unpopularity  by  impeaching  the  two 
unfortunate  military  tribunes  who  had  been  defeated  before  Veii.  These  were 
condemned  and  fined,  but  their  punishment  did  not  abate  the  storm.  The  trib- 
unes then  proposed  an  agrarian  law ;  and  when  this  was  resisted,  they  positively 
refused  to  allow  the  tribute  to  be  collected1  for  the  benefit  of  the  army  at  Veii. 
This  stoppage  of  the  supplies  brought  the  soldiers  almost  to  a  state  of  mutiny. 
We  have  seen8  that  a  custom,  so  old  as  to  be  held  equivalent  to  law,  authorized 
the  soldier  to  practise  a  summary  process  of  distress  upon  the  paymaster,  if  his 
pay  was  not  regularly  issued.  Thus  the  law  itself  seemed  to  sanction  insubor- 
dination, if  the  soldier's  right  was  denied  him  :  so  that  if  the  tribunes  persisted  in 
forbidding  the  tribute  to  be  levied,  the  siege  of  Veii  was  inevitably  at  an  end. 
Then  at  last,  after  an  interval  of  more  than  forty  years,  the  con-  A.  Vm  c.  355-  A.  c. 
stitution  of  the  year  312  was  fully  carried  into  effect ;  the  elections  397< 
of  military  tribunes  were  left  really  free,  and  four  out  of  six9  of  the  members  of 
the  college  were  chosen  from  among  the  plebeians.  A  similar  re-  A.  u.  c.  356.  A.  c. 
suit  attended  the  elections  of  the  year  following ;  four  out  of  six  396> 
of  the  tribunes  of  the  soldiers  were  again  chosen  from  the  commons. 

Such  a  choice,  continued  for  two  years  successively,  proves  how  deep  was  the 
indignation  excited  by  the  attempt  of  the  patricians  to  tamper  with  Endeavors  of  the  paw- 
the  tribuneship  of  the  commons.     But  the  influence  of  an  aristoc-  ft4fpSS3ai«f8!i 
racy  acts  through  the  relations  of  private  life,  which  are  in  their  military  tnbuneahip. 
very  nature  permanent,  whilst  it  is  opposed  only  by  a  strong  feeling  of  anger,  or 

1  Livy,  V.  10.  examine  the  so  verm  names,  we  find  a  M.  Titin- 
Livy,  V.  11.  ius  elected  tribune  of  the  commons  in  the  yeai 
Cum  tributum  conferri  per  tribunos  non  306,  and  a  Sex.  Titinius  tribune  in  the  year "316. 
posset.    Livy,  V.  12.  And  the  fragments  of  the  Fasti  Capitolini  de 
Pignoris  capio.    See  Gaius,  IV.  §  27.  scribe  P.  Maelius  as  the  son  of  Sp.  Mselius,  and 
The  names,  as  given  by  Livy,  are.  P.  Licin-  give  him  the  surname  of  Capitolinus  ;  so  that 
ius  Calvurf,  P.  Manlius  (Msenius  being  a  mere  there  is  every  reason  to  regard  him  as  the  son 
correction  by  Sigonius),  L.  Titinius,  P.  Mselius,  of  that  Mselius  who  was  murdered  by  Servilius 
L.  Furius  Medullinus,  and  L.  Publilius  Volscus.  Ahala  in  316,  and  whose  house,  as  "we  know, 
lie  calls  them  all  patricians,  except  Licinius ;  stood  sufficiently  within  the  precincts  of  the 
vet  it  is  certain  that  all,  except  L.  Furius  and  P.  Capitoline  Hill  to  entitle  him  to  the  name  Cap- 
Manlius,  were  plebeians.    The  names  are  all  itolinus.    Lastly,  Publilius  Volscus  is  described 
plebeian ;  which,  although  not  a  decisive  argu-  in  the  Fasti  as  "  Voleronis  Nepos,"  and  as  bear- 
ment  with  respect  to  the  very  early  times  of  the  ing  the  surname  of  Philo ;  so  that  there  can  be 
commonwealth,  yet  becomes  a  circumstance  of  no  doubt  that  he  was  a  descendant  of  the  fa- 
great  weight  in  the  middle  of  the  fourth  cen-  mous  tribune  who  carried  the  Publilian  law  in 
tury  of  Home.      Again,  the  reappointment  of  the  year  283,  and  of  the  family  of  the  no  less 
many  of  the  tribunes  of  this  year,  four  years  famous  plebeian  dictator  who  passed  the  Pnblil- 
afterwards,  as  colleagues  of  P.  Licinius,  is  a  con-  ian  laws  of  the  year  416. 
firrnation  of  their  being  plebeians.     And  if  we 


158  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLX, 

an  urgent  sense  of  public  interest,  both  of  which  exist  only  in  seasons  of  excite* 
ment,  and  wear  out  by  the  mere  lapse  of  time.  It  happened  also  that  in  the 
last  two  years  Rome  had  been  visited  by  a  winter  of  such  unusual  severity,  as  to 
appear  preternatural,  and  afterwards,  by  a  pestilence ;  and  such  calamities  have 
a  well-known  tendency  to  engross  men's  minds  with  their  own  domestic  affairs, 
and  to  make  them  regard  political  questions  with  indifference.  Nor  did  the  pa- 
tricians fail  to  represent  these  visitations  as  proofs  of  the  displeasure  of  the  gods, 
who  were  offended  that  plebeians10  had  been  elected  even  in  the  comitia  of  cen- 
turies, which  professed  to  be  regulated  according  to  the  divine  will  as  observed 
and  declared  by  the  augurs.  And  still  further  to  secure  their  object,  when  the 
election  of  military  tribunes  came  on,  the  most  eminent  individuals  of  the  noblest 
families  of  the  patricians  appeared  as  candidates.  Accordingly,  every  place  in 
the  college  for  the  year  35  711  was  once  more  filled  by  a  patrician ;  and  the  elec- 
tion of  the  following  year  presented  the  same  result. 

The  tribunes  of  the  year  358  appear,  however,  to  have  been  moderate  men ; 
The  commons  resist  a^d  there  was  a  danger  lest  they  should  hold  the  comitia  fairly, 
them  mtu success.  an(j  jegj.  some  plebeians  might  thus  again  be  elected  as  their  suc- 
cessors. Accordingly  the  senate  obliged  them  all,  on  religious  pretences,12  to 
resign  before  their  year  was  expired ;  and  an  interrex  was  named  to  hold  the 
comitia.  But  the  discontent  of  the  commons  had  been  again  growing  ;  even  in 
this  very  year  the  tribunes  had  opposed  the  enlistment  of  soldiers  to  meet  a  new 
enemy,  the  people  of  Tarquinii ;  and  now,  when  the  object  of  the  patricians  in 
appointing  an  interrex  could  not  be  mistaken,  they  interfered,  and  would  not 
allow  the  comitia  to  be  held.  The  dispute  went  on  for  some  time,  and  lasted 
till  a  third  interrex  had  been  appointed,  the  famous  M.  Camillus.  But  even  he, 
though  one  of  the  bitterest- enemies  of  the  commons,  was,  on  this  occasion, 
obliged  to  yield ;  either  Veii  must  be  relinquished,  or  the  commons  must  have 
justice ;  and  accordingly  it  was  agreed  that  the  elections  should  be  held  freely, 
so  as  to  allow  a  majority  in  the  college  to  the  plebeians,13  and  four  out  of  six  of 
the  military  tribunes  were  again  chosen  from  the  plebeians. 

The  defeat  of  two  of  these  tribunes  by  the  Faliscans  and  Capenatians  led  to 
the  appointment  of  M.  Camillus  as  dictator,  and  in  this  year  Veii 

But  after  the  fall  cf  Veil  .       ff..  .    .  '.  J 

the  patricians  again  pro-  fell,  ihus  the  patricians  were  no  longer  obliged  to  conciliate  the 
commons  ;  the  opposition  of  the  tribunes  to  the  levying  of  the  trib- 
ute was  henceforward  of  no  importance  ;  and  we  hear  no  more  of  plebeian  military 
tribunes.  The  entire  college  was  composed  of  patricians  in  the  years  360,  361, 
and  364;  and  in  the  years  362  and  363,  the  senate  decreed  that  consuls  should 
be  created,  instead  of  military  tribunes  ;  so  that  from  the  fall  of  Veii  to  the 
Gaulish  invasion  the  patricians  appear  to  have  recovered  their  old  exclusive  pos- 
session of  the  highest  magistracies. 

-  Yet  this  period  was  by  no  means  one  of  hopeless  submission  on  the  part  of  the 
mantes  aim*  the  mhe  commons  ;  nor  were  there  wanting  subjects  of  dispute,  which  the 
or  tte  plunder  of  Veii.  tribunes  followed  up  with  vigor.  Camillus  had  vowed  to  offer  to 
Apollo  the  tithe  of  the  spoil  won  at  Veii ;  but  the  town  had  been  plundered  be- 
fore Apollo's  portion  had  been  set  apart  for  him ;  and  the  soldiers  having  dis- 
posed of  all  that  they  had  gained,  were  unwilling  to  refund  it  afterwards.14  The 

10  Livy,  V.  14.  consul,  and  afterwards  decemvir,  with  Appius 

11  Livy,  V.  14,  16.  Claudius,  in  the  year  303.    Thus  the  plebeians 

12  Livy,  V.  17!  were  fcur  to  two'in  the  college  of  359,  and  not 

13  Livy,  V.  18,  Fasti  Capitolini.     Frammenti  five  to  one ;  and  this  agrees  with  the  stipula- 
nuovi,  Borghesi.    According  to  Livy,  the  trib-  tion  made  previously  to  the  election,  "ut  major 
lines  were  P.  Licinius,  the  son  of  the  tribune  pars  tribunorum  militum  ex  plebe  crearetur." 
of  355,  L.  Titinius,  P.  Mrcnius,  P.  Mrclius,  On.  Livy,  V.  17. 

Gcnucius,  and  L.  Atilius.    But  the  fragments  "  Livy,  V.  23.    The  practice  of  devoting  a 

of  the  Fasti  show  that  for  P.  MoDnius  we  should  tithe  of  the  spoil  to  some  god  was   adopted 

here  also  read  Q.  Manlius ;  and  the  cognomen  sometimes,  in  order  to  prevent  an  indiscnmi- 

of  On.  Genueiis,  as  appears  from  the  Fasti  for  nate  plunder  :  the  spoil  was  first  to  be  brought 

856,  was  Avir'.rmus;   so  that  he  belonged  to  to  the  general,  that  the  tithe  might  be  duly  sep- 

Ihe  patrician  Ocnucii,  one  of  whom  was  elected  arated  from,it,  and  the  remainder  was  then  to 


CHAP.  XIX.]          INFLUENCE  EXERCISED  BY  THE  PATRICIANS.  159 

pontificcs,  however,  declared  that  the  vow  must  be  performed  ;  and  an  appeal 
was  made  to  the  conscience  of  every  individual,  calling  upon  him  to  value  his 
share  of  the  plunder,  and  bring  the  price  of  the  tithe  of  it  into  the  treasury  for 
the  purchase  of  an  offering  of  gold  to  Apollo.  This  call  was  slowly  obeyed,  and 
Camillus  complained  loudly  of  the  profane  neglect  of  the  people  :  he  urged  fur- 
ther, that  his  vow  had  included  the  tithe,  not  only  of  the  movable  property  of 
Veii,  but  also  of  the  city  and  territory.15  The  pontifices  decided  that  this  too 
must  be  paid ;  and  the  money  was  accordingly  advanced  out  of  the  treasury-fox 
this  purpose.  The  money  of  the  Romans  at  this  period  was  all  of  copper  ;  gold 
was  dear,  and  could  not  readily  be  procured.  Accordingly  the  Romnn  matrons 
are  said  to  have  brought  to  the  treasury  all  their  ornaments  of  gold  ;16  and  the 
senate  showed  its  sense  of  their  zeal  by  giving  them  permission  to  be  drawn  in  a 
carriage  about  Rome  on  all  occasions,  and  to  use  a  peculiar  and  more  luxurious 
sort  of  carriage  at  the  games  and  solemn  sacrifices.  Yet,  after  all,  the  gold  was 
not  accepted  as  a  gift ;  the  senate  ordered  every  matron's  contribution  to  be 
valued,  and  the  full  price  paid  to  her. 

This  transaction  irritated  the  minds  of  men  against  Camillus,  as  if  his  vow  had 
been  a  mere  pretence,  in  order  to  defraud  the  people  of  the  spoil  The  Comm0n8  desire  to 
which  they  had  so  hardly  won.  But  the  conquest  of  Veii  gave  inovetoVeii- 
occasion  to  another  dispute  of  a  more  serious  character.  T.  Sicinius,"  one  of  the 
tribunes,  proposed  a  law  for  removing  a  portion  of  the  patricians  and  commons 
to  Veii,  and  for  allotting  to  them  the  whole,  or  a  considerable  part,  of  the  Veien- 
tian  territory ;  so  that  the  Roman  commonwealth  should  consist  of  two  cities, 
Rome  and  Veii,  The  peculiarity  of  this  proposal,  according  to  Roman  notions, 
consisted  in  making  Veii  a  co-ordinate  state  with  Rome,  instead  of  a  colony. 
The  unity  of  the  commonwealth  was  in  no  way  injured  by  the  foundation  of  new 
colonies,  because  these  became  its  subjects,  and  not  its  equals ;  whereas,  if  a 
portion  of  the  Roman  people  lived  in  Veii,  a  city  equal  to  Rome  in  extent  and 
magnificence,  the  commonwealth  must  either  be  reduced  to  a  mere  confederacy, 
like  that  of  the  cities  of  the  Latins,  or  else  it  would  be  a  matter  of  dispute  at 
which  of  the  two  cities  the  assemblies  of  the  united  people  should  be  held,  and 
which  of  them  should  be  the  home  of  the  national  gods.  Accordingly  the  pro- 
ject was  strenuously  resisted  by  the  patricians,  who  saw  how  fatal  it  would 
prove  to  the  greatness  of  Rome,  and  they  persuaded  two  of  the  tribunes  to  op- 
pose it.18  Thus  the  measure  was  resisted  for  that  year,  and  it  met  with  the  same 
fate  the  year  following,  361  ;  both  parties  having  obtained  the  re-election  of  the 
same,  tribunes,  so  that  T.  Sicinius  and  his  friends  again  brought  forward  the  law, 
and  A.  Virginius  and  Q.  Pomponius,  the  two  tribunes  who  sided  with  the  patri- 
cians, were  again  ready  to  meet  it  with  their  negative. 

But  in  the  year  362,  Virginius  and  Pomponius  were  no  longer  re-elected  trib- 
unes, but  were,  on  the  contrary,  impeached  for  their  betrayal  of 
their  constituents'  interests  during  the  time  of  their  magistracy.  tThrou"hRthe8  intL^o 
They  were  tried,  and  condemned  to  pay  a  heavy  fine,19  and  the  oi 
tribunes  again  brought  forward  their  law,  with  a  confidence  that  it  would  meet 
with  no  opposition.  But  the  patricians  now  resolved  to  exert  their  influence  in 
a  fair  and  constitutional  manner,  and  they  exerted  it  with  success.  Leaving  the 
decision  of  the  question  to  the  votes  of  the  tribes,20  and  being  prepared  them- 
selves to  attend  at  the  comitia  and  give  their  votes  like  the  rest  of  their  fellow- 
citizens,  they  endeavored,  by  their  individual  authority,  to  win  the  suffrages  of 
their  tribesmen,  entreating  and  reasoning  by  turns,  and  imploring  them  not  to 
pass  a  law  which  would  put  the  conquered  city  of  Veii  on  a  level  with  its  con- 
queror. Their  arguments  and  solicitations  were  listened  to  with  respect,  and 

'oe  equitably  divided.     See  the  advice  given  by  "  Livy,  V.  24. 

Croesus  to  Cyrus  after  the  taking  of  Sardis.  K  Livy,  V.  25,  29, 

Herodotus,  I.'  89.  w  Livy,  V.  29. 

16  Livy,  V.  25.  »  Livy,  V.  30. 

16  Livy,  V.  25. 


160  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XIX, 

"when  the  question  was  brought  forward,  it  was  negatived  by  the  votes  of  eleven 
tribes  out  of  twenty-one. 

A  victory  thus  fairly  and  honorably  obtained,  was  likely  to  dispose  the  patri- 
cians to  placable  and  kindly  feelings.     Immediately  after  the  re- 

A  grant  of  1  find  in  the     ...  £   ,1         i  ,1  /        i  i  ,.     .    .  <•    ,1         «c-r   •  '        « 

territory  of  veil  made  iection  or  the  law,  the  senate  decreed  a  division  of  the  Veientian 

to  the  commons.  .  2,  ,  i  c  -i     TI  ->• 

territory"  amongst  the  commons  on  a  scale  of  unusual  liberality. 
Each  lot  consisted  of  seven  jugera ;  and  not  only  fathers  of  families  were  con- 
sidered in  this  grant,  but  they  received  an  additional  allotment  of  seven  jugera 
for  each  free  person  in  their  household.  Thus  the  dispute  was,  for  the  time, 
peaceably  and  advantageously  settled. 

The  year  363  is  remarkable,  as  introducing  another  change  in  the  time  ai 
Alteration  of  the  time  which  the  curule  magistrates  entered  on  their  office.  The  consuls, 
of  tSdiera  entered  one  of  whom  was  M.  Manlius,  afterwards  so  famous,  were  obliged 
on  their  office.  ^y  ^IQ  senate22  to  resign  three  months  before  the  end  of  their 

year,  so  that  their  successors,  the  military  tribunes  of  the  year  364,  came  into 
office  on  the  first  of  July.  But  why  they  were  required  to  resign  is  doubtful. 
The  ostensible  reason  was  the  state  of  their  health  ;  a  dry  and  exceedingly  hot 
season  had  ruined  the  crops,  and  given  birth  to  a  violent  epidemic  disorder,  which 
attacked  both  of  the  consuls,  and  prevented  them  from  taking  the  field  against 
the  Vulsiniensians.  On  the  other  hand,  Niebuhr  thinks  that  the  real  cause  of 
their  deposition  was  their  having  neglected  to  aid  the  people  of  Caere,  the  allies 
of  Rome,  when  their  harbor  of  Pyrgi  was  taken  and  sacked  by  Dionysius  of 
Syracuse.  Perhaps,  too,  personal  feelings  were  concerned,  for  immediately  on 
the  resignation  of  the  consuls,  M.  Camillus  was  appointed  interrex,  who  was 
afterwards  so  strongly  opposed  to  M.  Manlius,  and  whose  enmity  may  have 
already  begun  before  this  period.  It  should  be  observed  that  the  six  military 
tribunes  elected  for  the  following  year  were  all  patricians. 

If  Camillus  had  any  undue  share  in  effecting  the  resignation  of  the  late  con- 
suls, he  did  not  long  enjoy  his  triumph.     L.  Appuleius,23  one  of 

Charge     of    corruption       .  .  .  '        i     i   •  f          t          ' 

agmnst  Camiiius.   He  the  tribunes,  impeached  him  for  having  appropriated  secretly  to 

retires  from  Rome.  ,   .  -1  /»      i  i          i  «•  TT    ••          t  •  101      i 

his  own  use  a  portion  ot  the  plunder  ot  Yen.  It  was  said  that 
some  doors  of  brass,  the  bullion  of  a  country  which  at  this  time  used  only  brass  mon- 
ey, were  found  in  his  house  ;  and  that  his  numerous  clients  and  friends  told  him 
plainly,25  when  he  applied  to  them  for  their  aid,  that  they  were  ready  to  pay  his 
fine  for  him,  but  that  they  could  not  acquit  him.  We  are  startled  at  finding  the 
great  Camillus  brought  to  trial  on  a  charge  of  personal  corruption  ;  but  that 
strict  integrity  which  Polybius  ascribes  to  the  Romans  seems  not  always  to  have 
reached  as  high  as  the  leaders  of  the  aristocracy,  for  the  great  Scipio  Africanus 
was  impeached  on  a  similar  charge,  and  his  brother,  the  conqueror  of  Antiochus, 
was  not  only  accused,  but  condemned.  Nor  were  the  eminent  men  of  the  Spar- 
tan aristocracy  free  from  the  same  reproach ;  the  suspicion  attached  itself  to 
Leotychides,  the  immediate  predecessor  of  Archidamus ;  to  Pleistoanax,  the  son 
of  Pausanias  ;  and  just  before  the  banishment  of  Camillus,  the  famous  Gylippus, 
the  conqueror  of  the  Athenians  at  Syracuse,  had  been  driven  from  his  country 
for  a  similar  act  of  baseness.  Other  accounts,26  as  was  natural,  ascribed  the  con- 
demnation of  Camillus  solely  to  the  envy  and  hatred  of  the  commons  ;  while, 
according  to  others,27  his  punishment  was  a  sort  of  ostracism,  because  the  arro- 
gance of  his  triumph,  after  the  conquest  of  Veii,  seemed  inconsistent  with  the 
conduct  of  a  citizen  in  a  free  commonwealth.  It  seems  allowed  by  all,  that  no 
party  in  the  state  attempted  to  save  him ;  and  it  is  clear,  also,  that  he  incurred 
the  forfeiture  of  all  his  civil  rights  in  consequence  of  his  not  appearing  to  stand 
his  trial,  either  as  an  outlawry,  or  because  his  withdrawal  was  held  equivalent  to 

21  Livy,  V.  30.  25  Livy,  V.  32. 

83  Livy,  V.  81.  2G  Dionysius.  XIII.  5.     Fragm.  Mai. 

83  Livy,  V.  32.  *  Diodorus,  XIV.  117. 

84  Plutarch,  Camillus,  12. 


Cnxr.  XX.]  CONDITION  OF  THE  ETRUSCAN"  STATES.  16) 

a  confession  of  guilt,  and  a  man  convicted  of  furtum,  incurred  thereby  perpetual 
ignominy,  and  lost  all  his  political  franchise.  Perhaps  his  case  was  like  that  of 
the  Spartan  Pausanias ;  and  the  treasure  which  he  secreted  may  have  been  in- 
tended to  furnish  means  for  making  him  tyrant  of  Rome.  But  at  any  rate,  he 
withdrew  from  Rome  before  his  trial  came  on,  and  retired  to  Ardea.  The  an- 
nalists reported28  that  as  he  went  out  of  the  gates,  he  turned  round,  and  prayed 
to  the  gods  of  his  country,  that  if  he  were  unjustly  driven  into  exile,  some  griev- 
ous calamity  might  speedily  befall  the  Romans,  and  force  them  to  call  him  back 
again.  They  who  recorded  such  a  prayer  must  have  believed  him  innocent,  and 
therefore  forgave  him  for  it ;  they  even  thought  that  the  gods  heard  it  with  fa- 
vor, and  fulfilled  its  petition  by  sending  the  Gauls,  in  the  very  next  year,  to  be 
ministers  of  vengeance  on  his  ungrateful  country. 


CHAPTER  XX, 

STATE  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS  AT  THE  PERIOD  OF  THE  GAULISH  INVASION- 
ITALY,  SARDINIA,  CORSICA. 


Td  rtjs  f/neTtpas  irpaynarciag  ititov  ....  rovr6  tariv  '  ort  KaSdirsp  ft  r^xi  axt&bv  airavra  rcL  Tijf 
Kovufvris  •RQaynara  Ttpbg  ?v  (K\ivs  pfpos,  ....  ovrw  Kal  Siii  rrjg  iaropiaS  iiJtb  /jiiav  avvoipiv  ayayeif 
TOV  j^£ipiffjj.bv  ~?i$  TV^S,  u>  Kf\f>rfrai  irpbs  TTJV  r&v  6'Awv  irpayndrtov  ffwriXeiav. 

PoLTBIUS,  I.  4. 


THE  farthest  point  hitherto  reached  by  the  soldiers  of  any  Roman  army  was 
scarcely  more  than  fifty  miles  distant  from  Rome.     The  southern 

»••     .1        I   T»  r-iii  4  •  i  TT     i       Introduction  to  the  view 

limit  or  Koman  warfare  had  been  Anxur ;  its  northern  was  V  ul-  of  the  state  of  foreign 
sinii.  Nor  do  we  read  of  any  treaties  or  commercial  intercourse 
by  which  Rome  was  connected  with  foreign  powers,  since  the  famous  treaty  with 
Carthage,  concluded  in  the  first  year  of  the  commonwealth.  Still  the  nations  of 
the  ancient  world  knew  more  of  one  another  than  we  are  inclined  to  allow :  for 
we  do  not  enough  consider  how  small  a  portion  of  their  records  has  come  down 
to  us ;  how  much  must  have  been  done  of  which  mere  accident  has  hindered  us 
from  hearing.  About  thirty1  years  later  than  the  Gaulish  invasion,  the  author  of 
that  most  curious  survey  of  the  coasts  of  the  Mediterranean,  known  by  the  name 
of  the  Periplus  of  Scylax,  mentions  Rome  and  Ancona  alone  of  all  the  cities  of  Italy, 
with  the  exception  of  the  Greek  colonies ;  and  this  notice  is  the  more  remarkable, 
as  Rome  is  not  immediately  on  the  coast,  and  the  survey  rarely  extends  to  any 
place  far  inland.  Aristotle  also  was  not  only  acquainted  with  the  fact  that  Rome 
was  taken  by  the  Gauls,  but  named  an  individual  whom  he  called  Lucius,2  as  its 

*  Livy,  V.  32.   Plutarch,  Camillus,  12.   Dio-  ony,  but  Scylax  does  not  describe  it  as  such ; 

nysius,  A  III.  fi.  whereas,  in  speaking  of  the  cities  on  the  Luca- 

1  For  the  date  of  the  Peri  plus  of  Scylax,  see  man  and  lapygian  coast,  he  expressly  notices 

Niebuhrs  essay  in  the   first  volume  of  his  their  Greek  origin. 

'  Kleine  Historische  Schriftcn,"  Bonn,  1828,  p.  a  Plutarch,  Camillus,  22.    It  need  not  be  said, 

105;  or,  as  translated  by  Mr.  Hare,  in  the  second  that  in  the  old  times  men  were  designated  by 

number  of  the  Philological  Museum.     I  have  their  praenomen  rather  than  by  their  iiomen  or 

said  that  Sevlax  mentions  no  other  Italian  cities  cognomen;   and  thus  Aristotle  would  call  L. 


but  Rome  and  Ancona,  with  the  exception  of  Furius   "Lucius,"  rather  than   "  Furius." 

the  Greek  colonies.    It  is  true  that,  according  "  Camillus,"  just  as  Polybius  calls  Scipio  "Pi 

to  other  writers,  Ancona  itself  was  a  Greek  col-  lius,"  and  Regulus  "  Marcus." 
11 


or 
ub- 


162  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XX 

deliverer.  Heraclides  Ponticus3  even  spoke  of  Rome  as  a  Greek  city,  which,  while 
it  shows  the  shallowness  of  his  knowledge  concerning  it,  proves  also,  that  it  was 
sufficiently  famous  in  Greece,  to  make  the  Greeks  think  it  worthy  of  belonging 
to  their  race  and  name ;  and  we  see,  besides,  that  a  wide  distinction  was  drawn 
between  the  Latins  and  the  Etruscans,  the  latter  of  whom  they  always  regarded 
as  foreigners,  while  in  the  former  they  did  but  exaggerate  the  degree  of  connec- 
tion really  subsisting  between  the  two  nations,  whose  kindred  is  proved  by  the 
resemblance  of  their  languages.  But  the  fame  of  the  Gaulish  invasion,  the  first 
great  movement  of  barbarians  breaking  down  upon  the  civilized  countries  of  Europe 
from  the  north,  which  had  occurred  within  historical  memory,  drew  the  attention 
of  the  Greeks  more  than  ever  towards  Italy.  And  as  this  invasion  led  to  a  more 
general  mixture  of  nation  and  nation,  for  less  than  twenty  years  afterwards  we 
read  of  Gaulish  cavalry  in  the  service  of  Dionysius  of  Syracuse,  and  of  their  being 
sent  by  him  to  Peloponnesus  to  help  the  Lacedaemonians  against  Epaminondas ; 
so  I  may  at  this  period  draw  up  the  curtain  which  has  hitherto  veiled  from  our 
view  all  countries  and  people  beyond  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the  Tiber, 
and  look  as  widely  over  the  face  of  the  world  as  the  fullest  knowledge  of  Greeks 
or  Carthaginians  enabled  them  at  this  time  to  see  either  eastward  or  westward. 

The  fall  of  Veii,  and  the  submission  of  Capena  and  Falerii,  have  shown  us  that 
^  Etrug  the  greatness  of  the  Etruscans  was  on  the  wane.  In  the  days  of 

their  highest  prosperity  they  had  spread  their  dominion  widely 
over  Italy.  The  confederacy  of  their  twelve  cities,  each  of  which  was  again  the 
head  of  a  smaller  confederacy  of  the  neighboring  towns,  occupied  the  whole  coun- 
try between  the  Tiber,  the  Macro,  the  Apennines,  and  the  sea.  But  they  were 
also  to  be  found  on  the  north  of  the  Apennines,4  and  another  Etruscan  confeder- 
acy, consisting  also  of  their  favorite  number  of  twelve  cities,  extended  to  the 
shores  of  the  Adriatic,  and  possessed  the  plain  of  the  Po,  and  of  its  tributary 
rivers  to  the  north  and  south,  from  the  sea  as  high  as  the  Trebia.  Bononia, 
under  its  older  name  of  Felsina,  Melpum,  Mantua,  and  Atria,  with  Cupra  on  the 
coast  of  the  Adriatic,  were  Etruscan  towns.  Nor  had  their  dominion  been  con- 
fined to  the  north  of  the  Tiber ;  a  third  confederacy  of  twelve  cities  had  occupied 
Campania;5  and  amongst  these  were  Capua,  Nola,  Surrentum,  and  Salernum. 

8  Plutarch,  Camillas,  22.     Heraclides  noticed  endless  question  of  the  origin  of  the  Etruscans. 

Rome  in  his  treatise,  ritpi  ^NX*?*  5  an(i  said  that  or  of  the  comparative  antiquity  of  their  several 

a  report  had  come  from  the  west,  telling  how  a  settlements,  I  have  thought  it  sufficient  merely 

host  had  come  from  the  land  of  the  Hyperbo-  to  notice  the  limits  which  their  nation  reached 

reans,  without  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  and  had  at  the  time  of  its  greatest  power. 
taken  a  Greek  city  called  Rome,  which  was  situ-        &  It  is  well  known  that  Niebuhr  doubts  the 

ated  somewhere  in  those  parts  about  the  great  existence  of  this  Campanian  Dodecapolis ;  and 

sea.  he  thinks  that  the  whole  statement  of  Etruscan 

4  This  is  the  positive  statement  of  the  ancient  settlements  in  Campania  is  a  mere  mistake,  aris- 
writers;  as  Livy,  V.  33,  Strabo,  V.  p.  21G,  and  ir.j  out  of  the  common  confusion  between  the 
Verrius  Flaccus  and  Csecina,  quoted  by  the  in-  Tyrrhenians  and  the  Etruscans.  He  says  that 
terpreters  of  Virgil,  JEn.  X.  198,  in  the  Verona  neither  in  the  inscriptions  found  in  Campania, 
MS.  Niebuhr,  agreeably  to  his  notion  that  the  noi*in  the  works  of  art,  is  there  to  be  observed 
Etruscans  came  into  Italy  over  the  Alps,  from  any  trace  of  an  Etruscan  population  ;  and  he 
the  north,  and  not  by  sea  from  Asia,  considers  thinks  that  in  the  days  of  the  Etruscan  grcat- 
their  settlements  in  the  valley  of  the  Po  to  have  ness,  that  is,  in  the  third  century  of  Rome,  we 
been  older  than  those  in  Etruria.  Miiller  be-  cannot  conceive  the  possibility  of  Etruscan  c'olo- 
licves  them  to  have  been  of  equal  antiquity  with  nies  being  settled  in  Campania,  while  the  inter- 
each  other ;  the  Etruscans,  or  Rasena,  he  holds  vening  country  between  the  Tiber  and  the  Liri? 
to  have  been  an  aboriginal  people  of  Italy,  set-  was  occupied  by  the  Romans  and  the  Opicai)  na- 

j.l  _    1     j» ,•          _      *  •     -i      i         ,  i  ,1  ii  .•  n       _    fr.-i      T      .-      fr  A      >Ti»       rr1,^  ,-      A, 1  TVT'-TI 


tied  from  time  immemorial  both  on  the  north    tions.   See  Vol.  I.  p.  74, 76,  Eng.  transl.    Miiller. 


the  mountains  which  exten 


id  from  the  high  point  possessed  the  Phlegwean  plains  round  Capua 

of  La  Falterona,  above  the  valley  of  the  Sieve,  or  and  Nola,  at  the  time  when  they  were  also  in  pos- 

ofMugello.    (Storiadegliantichi  popoli  Italian!,  session  of  the  plains  round  the  Po,  11.  17.    And 

Vol.  1.  p.  106.)    From  thence  they  descended  there  were  writers  whom  Vcllcius  Patcrculus 

first  into  Etruria,  and  afterwards,  having  become  quotes  as  saying  that  Capua  arid  Nola  were 

a  civilized  people,  they  sent  out  their  colonies  founded  by  the  Etruscans,  about  forty-eight 

into  northern  Italy.    Without  entering  on  the  years  before  the  common  date  of  the  foundation 


CHAP.  XX.]  CONDITION  OF  THE  ETRUSCAN  STATES.  163 

Nay,  there  are  traditions  and  names  which  have  preserved  a  record  of  a  still  more 
extended  Etruscan  sovereignty :  there  was  a  time  when  their  settlements  in  Cam- 
pania must  have  been  connected  with  those  in  Etruria  by  an  uninterrupted  line  of 
conquered  countries ;  the  Volscians6  were  once  subject  to  the  Etruscans ;  the 
name  of  Tusculum  seems  to  show  that  their  power  had  penetrated  into  Latium  ; 
and  it  is  stated  generally  that  they  had  possessed  nearly  the  whole  of  Italy.7  But 
from  this  their  height  of  greatness  they  had  long  since  fallen.  Within  historical 
memory  they  were  only  to  be  found  in  Etruria,  on  the  Po,  and  in  Campania  ;  but 
about  half  a  century  before  the  period  at  which  we  are  now  arrived,  the  Sam- 
nites  had  broken  up  their  southern  confederacy,  and  had  wrested8  from  them 
Capua,  and  most  of  their  other  cities  in  that  quarter ;  while  more  recently,  in  the 
last  year  of  the  siege  of  Veii,9  the  conquest  of  their  northern  confederacy  was 
completed  by  the  Gauls.  Thus  there  only  remained  the  central  confederacy  of 
Etruria  Proper,  and  even  this  had  been  broken  in  upon,  as  we  have  seen,  by  the 
loss  of  Veii.  Still  there  were  left  to  them  the  powerful  cities  of  Tarquinii,  Vetu- 
lonium,  Volaterrse,  and  Pisa,  on  or  near  the  coast ;  and  in  the  interior  Vulsinii, 
Clusium,  Perusia,  Cortona,  and  Arretium. 

We  are  told  that  in  early  times10  the  Etruscans  had  enjoyed  the  dominion  of 
the  neighboring  seas,  as  well  as  the  land  of  Italy.  About  one  hun-  Their  relations  with  the 
dred  and  fifty  years  before  the  fall  of  Veii,  the  Etruscans  and  Car-  Greeka- 
thaginians  in  the  western  part  of  the  Mediterranean  stood  in  nearly  the  same 
relation  to  the  Greeks  who  ventured  into  those  seas,  as  the  Spaniards  in  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  centuries  did  to  the  English  in  the  West  Indies  and  in 
South  America.  The  Greeks  were  treated  as  interlopers,  and  they  in  their  turn 
seem  to  have  held,  that  there  was  no  peace  beyond  the  Straits  of  Messina.  Dio- 
nysius  of  Phocaea,  when  he  fled  from  the  ruin  of  the  Ionian  cause  in  Asia  Minor, 
after  the  sea-fight  off  Miletus,  considered  the  Etruscans11  and  Carthaginians  as  his 
natural  prey,  just  as  Raleigh  regarded  the  Spaniards  ;  and  those  treaties  of  com- 
merce between  Etruria  and  Carthage,  of  which  Aristotle12  has  preserved  the  mem- 
ory, provided,  it  is  likely,  not  only  for  their  relations  with  one  another,  but  for  their 
mutual  defence  against  a  nation  whom  both  looked  upon  as  their  common  enemy. 
But  with  the  growth  of  the  Greek  cities  in  Sicily  the  maritime  dominion  of  the 
Etruscans  began  to  fall ;  and  after  the  great  naval  victory  gained  over  them  at 
Cuma  by  Gelon's  brother  and  successor,  Hiero,  they  sank  from  sovereigns  of  the 
sea  to  pirates;  and  a  few  years  afterwards,  a  very  short  time  before  the  decem- 
virate  at  Rome,  the  Syracusans13  sent  a  fleet  to  the  coast  of  Etruria,  with  the 


ofKome.  "When  Patcrculus  farther  quotes  Cato,     of  the  Oscan  inhabitants :  iust  as  Mastarna  and 

•  „  „   j.v  _  A    /"i v  _  .1     1 j* -1  _  _i    T j-».  i    *  _     _t>    n  *       -i     -i-k 


not  very^easy  to  bo  have  been  founded  undoubtedly  at  an  earlier 

explained  ;  for  this  would  place  the  foundation  period;  and  yet  \ve  need  not  conceive  it  much 

of  the  Etruscan  Capua,   or  Vulturnum,   only  earlier  than  the  beginning  of  the  commonwealth 

about  fifty  years  earlier  than  its  conquest  by  the  of  Rome. 

Samnites,  and  in  the  year  of  Rome  281,  a  period  6  Servius,  JEn.  XT.  v.  567. 

at  which  it  is  indeed 'difficult  to  conceive  of  the  7  Servius,  ./En.  XI.  v.  5G7. 

Etruscans  as  establishing  themselves  for  the  first  8  Livy,  IV.  37. 

time  in  Campania.     The  solution  of  the  whole  9  Melpum,  one  of  the  richest  cities  in  the  coun- 

question  is,  probably,  to  be  found  in  what  Vir-  try  north  of  the  Po,  was  said  by  Cornelius  Ne- 

pl  says  of  Mantua:  _"  Gens  illi  triplex:  .  .  .  .  pos  [Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.  III.  if]  to  have  been 

Tusco  de  sanguine  vires."     The  ruling  portion  destroyed  by  the  Gauls  on  the  very  dav  on  which 

of  these  Campanian  cities  was  Etruscan,  but  the  Camillus  took  Veii.     What  gave  occasion  to  this 

bulk  of  the  population  was  Oscan.     Thus,  when  story,  representing  the  coincidence  as  so  \ery 

they  were  conquered  by  the  Samnites,  the  marks  exact,  it  is  hard  to  guess  ;  but  that  generally  tho 

of  the  Etruscan  dominion  speedily  vanished,  fall  of  the  northern  Etruscan  confederacy  was 

and  the  inscriptions  which  have  reached  our  contemporary  with  the  siege  of  Veii,  is  rendered 

times  are  naturally  Oscan,  as  that  continued  to  sufficiently  probable  by  the  appearance  of  tho 

be  the  language  of  the  mass  of  the  people.    The  Gauls  in  Etruria  Proper  so  soon  afterwards, 

foundation  of  Capua  and  Nola  by  the  Etruscans  I0  Livy,  V.  33. 

may,  in  fact,  have  been  no  more  than  their  oc-  "  Herodotus,  VI.  17. 

cupation  by  some  bands  of  Etruscan  adventu-  12  Politic.  III.  9. 

rers,  who  may  have  been  engaged  in  the  service  I3  Diodorus,  XI.  88. 


1(34  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XX 

avowed  object  of  putting  down  their  piracies.  And  yet  we  know  there  was  an 
active  commerce14  carried  on  between  Etruria  and  the  cities  of  old  Greece,  so 
advantageous  to  both  nations,  that  we  can  scarcely  conceive  how  either  of  them 
could  have  allowed  the  robberies  of  its  own  people  to  hazard  its  interruption.  It 
is  possible,  however,  that  what  the  Greeks  call  piracy  was  a  system  of  vexations 
and  violence  carried  on  against  Greek  vessels  in  the  Etruscan  seas,  with  the  view 
of  keeping  the  trade  exclusively  in  Etruscan  hands ;  and  the  robberies  of  which 
the  Greeks  complained  were  committed  by  the  people  of  the  small  towns  along 
the  coast,  who,  not  possessing  natural  advantages  or  wealth  enough  to  engage  on 
a  large  scale  in  commerce,  turned  their  seamanship  and  enterprise  to  account  in 
another  way,  and  fitted  out  small  vessels  for  piracy  instead  of  the  large  ships 
employed  for  trading  voyages.  Thus  it  is  expressly  mentioned  that  the  people 
of  Caere,15  which  was  a  large  and  wealthy  city,  possessing  its  harbor  on  the  coast 
for  the  convenience  of  its  trade,  were  wholly  free  from  the  reproach  of  piratical 
practices  thrown  by  the  Greeks  upon  the  mass  of  their  countrymen. 

Nothing  can  be  more  unequal  than  the  fate  of  the  three  sister  islands  of  Sicily, 
Sardinia,  and  Corsica.  Whilst  the  first  of  them  has  rivalled  in  its 
fame  the  most  distinguished  countries  of  Europe,  the  two  latter 
have  remained  in  obscurity  from  the  earliest  times  down  to  the  present  hour.  They 
seemed  to  repel  that  kindling  spark  of  Greek  civilization,  which  found  so  con- 
genial an  element  in  Sicily ;  and,  therefore,  as  they  did  not  receive  what  was  the 
great  principle  of  life  in  the  ancient  world,  they  were  condemned  to  perpetual 
inactivity  and  helplessness.  Of  what  race  were  the  earliest  inhabitants  of  Sar- 
dinia, we  have  no  records  to  inform  us.  Settlers  from  Africa,  not  Carthaginians, 
but  native  Lybians,16  are  said  to  have  crossed  over  to  the  island  at  a  very  remote 
period.  They  were  followed  at  intervals,  such  was  the  Greek  tradition,  by  some 
adventurers  or  fugitives  from  Greece  and  Asia  Minor ;  but  these  all  belong  to 
the  mythic  period,  and  the  Greek  settlements  are  said  to  have  been  afterwards 
utterly  extirpated,  whilst  those  from  Asia,  described  as  fugitives  from  Troy,  were 
driven  to  the  mountains  and  became  barbarized.  A  more  probable  statement  men- 
tions a  colony  of  Iberians  from  Spain,  the  founders  of  Nora,17  the  oldest  city  in  the 
island ;  and  during  the  height  of  the  Etruscan  dominion,  the  Etruscan  colonists 
brought  in  a  new  element  to  the  already  mingled  population.  When  the  power 
of  the  Carthaginians  began  to  grow,  Sardinia  soon  attracted  their  notice ;  already, 
in  the  first  year  of  the  Roman  commonwealth,  eight-and-twenty  years  before  the 
expedition  of  Xerxes,  it  is  spoken  of  as  belonging  exclusively  to  their  dominion, 
in  their  famous  commercial  treaty  with  Rome  ;  and  at  the  period  bf  the  great  Per- 
sian invasion  of  Greece,  Sardinia  is  mentioned,  together  with  Corsica,  as  furnishing 
mercenary  soldiers18  to  that  great  host  with  which  Hamilcar  invaded  Sicily,  and 
which  was  destroyed  by  Gelon  at  Himera.  Yet  a  few  years  before,  when  the 
Persians  were  overpowering  the  Greek  commonwealths  in  Asia  Minor,  Sardinia 
was  more  than  once  looked  to  by  the  lonions,19  as  offering  them  a  desirable  refuge 
from  the  conquerors'  dominion,  and  as  affording  every  facility  for  a  flourishing 
Greek  colony.  But  it  was  to  the  lonians  of  Asia  like  an  unknown  world  ;  and 
no  sufficient  number  of  colonists  could  be  induced  to  join  in  the  enterprise,  while 
a  small  body  would  have  been  utterly  unable  to  maintain  its  ground  against  the 
Carthaginians.  Thus  Sardinia  remained  subject  to  Carthage;  and  as  the  Car- 
thaginians wanted  it  chiefly  to  supply  their  armies  with  soldiers,  and  to  provide 
harbors  for  their  ships  engaged  in  the  trade  with  Etruria,  they  took  no  pains  to 
improve  its  natural  resources,  but  are  said  to  have  purposely  kept  waste90  some 

M  We  know  this  by  the    surest  evidence,  w  Strabo,  V.  2,  §  3,  p.  220. 

namely,  by  the  vast  quantities  of  Greek,  and  in  '  Pausanias,  X.  17. 

particular  of  Athenian  pottery,  found  in  the  re-  "  Pausanias,  X.  17. 

cent  excavations  at  Vulci  and  Tarquinii.      See  18  Herodotus,  VII.  165. 

the  "  Discours  de  M.  Bunsen,"  in  the  sixth  vol-  la  Herodotus,  I.  170,  V.  124. 

tune  of  the  "  Annali  dell'  Institute  di  corrispon-  20  Aristotle,  De  rnirabil.  100. 
denza  archeologica,"  p.  40,  et  seq/i. 


ha 


CHAP.  XX.]  CORSICA— CAMPANIA.  16fi 

of  its  most  fertile  districts,  that  no  reports  of  its  fertility  might  tempt  thither  what 
they  above  all  things  dreaded,  a  colony  of  Greeks. 

Corsica  had  undergone  nearly  the  same  course  of  events  as  Sardinia.  It8 
oldest  inhabitants  were  Iberians  and  Ligurians;  it  was  then  occu- 
pied  by  the  Etruscans,  who  after  having,  by  the  aid  of  the  Cartha- 
ginians, effected  the  ruin  of  the  Greek  settlement  of  Aleria  or  Alalia,21  and  having 
shared  the  dominion  of  the  island  with  their  Carthaginian  allies  down  to  the  time 
of  the  decemvirate  at  Rome,  were  now,  in  the  general  decline  of  their  nation, 
leaving  it  entirely  to  the  Carthaginians.  Corsica  was  valuable  for  its  timber  and 
its  mines,  but  its  agriculture  was  of  no  account,  and  its  native  inhabitants  were 
reckoned  among  the  most  untamable  of  barbarians.22 

These  were  the  countries  which  bounded  the  horizon  of  Rome  to  the  north  and 
west.  Southward  and  eastward,  beyond  that  belt  of  mountain 
country  held  by  the  Opican  nations,  the  ^Equians  and  Volscians, 
which  girt  in  Latiuni  from  the  Anio  to  the  sea,  there  lay  a  country,  destined  ere 
long  to  be  the  favorite  battle-field  of  the  Romans,  but  a  stranger  to  them  as  yet 
both  in  the  relations  of  peace  and  of  war.  Campania,  inhabited  in  the  most  re- 
mote times  by  the  Sikelians,23  then  wrested  from  them  by  the  Opicans,  receiving 
at  a  very  early  period  the  first  germ  of  Greek  civilization,  in  the  Chalcidian  colony 
of  Cuma,  and  afterwards  subjected,  like  so  many  other  parts  of  Italy,  to  the 
wide-spreading  dominion  of  the  Etruscans,  had  lately,  as  we  have  seen,  submitted 
to  a  new  invader,  the  nation  of  the  Samnites.  The  Samnites,  a  people  of  the  Sa- 
bellian  or  Sabine  race,  had  descended  from  their  high  valleys  amidst  the  ranges 
of  the  divided  line  of  the  Apennines,  and  were  now  the  ruling  nation  in  Campa- 
nia, although  they  had  by  no  means  extirpated  the  older  races  of  its  inhabitants 
On  the  contrary,  they  seem  themselves  to  have  almost  melted  away  into  the  gen- 
eral mass  of  their  mixed  subjects  ;  the  conquered  did  not  become  Samnites,  but 
the  conquerors  became  Campanians,  the  Opican  or  Oscan  being  the  prevailing  lan- 
guage, but  the  influence  of  the  Greek  colonies,  Cuma  and  Neapolis,  spreading 
powerfully  around  them,  as  usual,  the  arts  and  the  manners  of  Greece.  But  the 
Samnite  invasion,  and  the  revolution  which  followed  it,  produced  great  disorder ; 
the  old  inhabitants,  whom  the  conquerors  despoiled  of  their  property,  were  driven 
to  maintain  themselves  by  their  swords  ;  the  conquerors  themselves  had  many  ad- 
venturers amongst  them,  who  preferred  war  with  the  prospect  of  fresh  plunder, 
to  a  peaceful  life  in  the  country  which  they  had  won ;  and  thus  for  more  than  a 
century  we  read  of  numerous  bands  of  Campanian  or  Opican  mercenaries,  partly 
Samnite  and  partly  Oscan,  employed  in  the  wars  of  Sicily,  as  if  foreign  service 
had  been  one  of  the  principal  resources  of  the  nation.  It  is  mentioned  that  eight 
hundred  of  them  were  engaged  by  the  Chalcidian  Greeks  of  Cuma  or  Neapolis,2'1 
to  serve  in  the  Athenian  armament  against  Syracuse ;  but  that  arriving  in  Sicily 
after  the  destruction  of  the  Athenians,  they  were  hired  by  the  Carthaginians. 

As  a  new  people  had  thus  arisen  in  Campania,  so  new  names  and  a  new  power 

.d  lately  come  into  notice  in  the  south  of  Italy.  From  Thurii  to  invas;0nofthe.outhof 
Rhegium,  on  the  shore  of  the  Ionian  sea,  from  Rhegium  to  Posi-  **y*v&n»***> 
donia  on  the  Tyrrhenian  sea,  the  numerous  Greek  colonies  which  lined  both 
coasts  were  settled  in  a  country  known  to  the  early  Greek  writers  by  the  names 
of  Italia  and  (Enotria.25  The  natives  of  the  interior,  QEnotrians  and  Chonians, 
ad  for  many  years  past  wanted  either  the  will  or  the  power  to  offer  serious  an- 
noyance to  the  Greeks ;  and  when  Sybaris  was  destroyed  by  its  neighbor  city 
Croton,  the  natives  took  no  advantage  of  these  internal  quarrels,  and  a  new 
Greek  colony,  Thurii,  arose  in  the  place  of  Sybaris,  without  any  opposition  on 
their  part.  But  the  latter  part  of  the  fifth  century  before  the  Christian  sera,  in 
ther  words,  the  early  part  of  the  fourth  century  of  Rome,  and  the  period  of  the 

21  Herodotus,  I.  166.  a«  Diodorus,  XIII.  44. 

w  Strabo,  V.  2,  6,  7,  p.  224.  *  Aristotle,  Politica,  VII.  10.    Herodotus,  L 

93  Thucydides,  VI.  2.  167. 


160  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XX 

Peloponnesian  war,  was  a  time  marked  by  natural  as  well  as  political  calamities 
beyond  all  remembered  example.  The  pestilences,  which  we  have  already  no- 
ticed as  causing  such  havoc  at  Rome  and  throughout  Latium,  travelled,  we  ma) 
be  sure,  into  Samnium  also ;  their  visitations  are  often  accompanied  by  unfavor- 
able seasons,  which  cause  scarcity  or  famine  ;  and  the  distress  occasioned  by  one 
or  both  of  these  scourges,  may  have  led  to  those  movements  amongst  the  Sam- 
nites,  which  at  this  period  so  greatly  changed  the  face  of  Italy.  On  one  side,  as 
we  have  seen,  they  broke  in  upon  the  Opicans  of  the  valley  of  the  Yulturnus  and 
the  country  round  Vesuvius ;  on  another  they  overwhelmed  the  (Enotrians  and 
Chonians,^  and  spread  themselves  as  far  as  the  Ionian  sea.  The  tribe  or  mixed 
multitude  which  moved  on  this  expedition  southwards,  was  afterwards  known  by 
the  name  of  Lucanians.  It  does  not  follow  that  they  were  numerous,  far  less 
are  we  to  suppose  that  they  extirpated  the  older  inhabitants  ;  but  as  conquerors 
they  gave  their  name  to  the  country,  and  till  they  gradually  became  a  settled 
people,  they  were  the  terror  of  the  Greek  colonies.  It  is  probable  that  many  of 
the  CEnotrians  became  barbarized  by  the  oppressions  and  example  of  t'heir  con- 
querors, and  that  the  whole  population  of  the  interior,  known  under  one  common 
name  of  Lucanians,  carried  on  a  restless  plundering  warfare  against  the  Greek 
cities  on  both  coasts  of  the  peninsula.  Posidonia  fell  into  their  hands,  and  the 
Greek  inhabitants,  like  the  Opicans  of  Capua,  became  a  subject  people  in  their 
own  city  ;  and  so  general  was  the  terror  excited  by  the  Lucanian  inroads,  that 
the  Greeks  formed  a  league27  amongst  themselves  for  their  mutual  defence,  and 
if  any  city  was  backward  in  coming  to  the  rescue,  when  summoned  to  aid  against 
the  Lucanians,  its  generals  were  to  be  put  to  death.  But  whilst  the  barbarians 
were  thus  driving  them  to  the  sea,  another  enemy  drove  them  back  from  the  sea 
to  the  barbarians.  Dionysius  of  Syracuse  had  formed  an  alliance  with  the  Lu- 
canians, hoping,  with  their  aid,  to  obtain  possession  of  the  Greek  cities ;  he  re- 
peatedly invaded  Italy,  destroyed  Caulon  and  Hipponium,  and  made  himself 
master  of  Rhegium. 

When  the  Lucanians  first  became  formidable  to  the  Italian  Greeks,  they  were 
character  of  ae  Luca-  stigmatized  as  a  horde  of  the  lowest  barbarians,23  a  mixed  band 
of  robbers,  swelled  by  fugitive  slaves,  and  desperate  adventurers 
of  every  description.  But  when  time  had  converted  the  invaders  and  plunderers 
of  CEnotria  into  its  regular  inhabitants  and  masters,  when  the  Lucanians  had  an 
opportunity  of  displaying  the  better  points  of  their  character,  then  the  contrast 
between  their  simple  and  severe  manners,  and  the  extreme  profligacy  of  the 
Greek  colonies,  could  not  fail  to  attract  attention.  "The  Lucanians,"  says  Her- 
aclides  Ponticus,29  "  are  a  hospitable  and  an  upright  people."  And  another  tes- 
timony30 declares  that  "  amongst  the  Lucanians,  extravagance  and  idleness  are 
punishable  crimes  ;  and  if  any  man  lends  money  to  a  notorious  spendthrift,  the 
law  will  no6  enable  him  to  recover  it."  We  find  similar  praises  bestowed  loy 
Scymnus  of  Chios  on  the  Illyrians,  who  a  century  before  his  time  had  been  infa- 
mous for  their  piracies.  But  when  a  rude  people  have  lost  somewhat  of  their 
ferocity,  and  have  not  yet  acquired  the  vices  of  a  later  stage  of  civilization,  their 
character  really  exhibits  much  that  is  noble  and  excellent,  and  both  in  its  good 
and  bad  points  it  so  captivates  the  imagination,  that  it  has  always  been  regarded 
by  the  writers  of  a  more  advanced  state  of  society  with  an  admiration  even  be- 
yond its  merits. 

The  extreme  southeastern  point,  the  heel  of  Italy,  was  the  country  of  the 

86  Strabo,  VI.  1,  §  2,  3,  p.  253,  254.  latter  part  of  the  fourth  century  before  tho 

37  Diodorus,  XIV.  101.  Christian  sera :  he  was  a  disciple  oi  Plato,  Speu- 

28  We  Athenians,  says  Isocrates,  paov  utratt-    sippus,  and  Aristotle.    See  Fyncs  Clinton,  Fasti 

lonev  rots  jSovAo/^ois  ratm  rf,S  tlycvtius  rj  TpjflaA-     Hellcn.  Vol.  III.  Appendix^XlI. 

Xoi  KO.I  ACVKUVOI  ->jc  UVTIOV  SvoXtvtias.    l>e  Pace,  ^  Nicolas  Damascenus,  de  moribus  gentium. 

§62,  p.  169.  Artie.  "Lucani."     He  lived  in  the  Augustau 

29  De  Politiis  sive  rebuspublicis.   Artie.  "Lu-  age. 
tani."    Heraclides  Ponticus  flourished  in  the 


CHAP.  XX.]  DIONYSIUS  OF  SICILY.  107 

lapygians  or  Apulians,  the  one  being  the  Greek  and  the  other  the 

Latin  form  of  the  same  name.31     They  stretched  round  the  lapy- 

gian  cape,  and  were  to  be  found  along  the  coast  of  the  Adriatic,  as  far  as  the 

headland  of  Garganus.     But  neither  these  nor  the  Sabellian  nations  immediately 

beyond  them,  nor  the  Umbrians,  who  lived  again  still  further  to  the  northwest, 

and  joined  the  Etruscan  settlements  on  the  shores  of  the  Adriatic,  were,  as  yet, 

become  famous  in  history. 

There  was,  however,  a  movement  beginning  about  this  period  on  the  east  of 
Italy,  which   threatened  to  lead  to  the  most  important  conse- 

T-V.  .  f    f*  j.'    i?    -j         •   i      i   •      rr    •!•  i  Interference  of  Dionyt- 

quences.     JDionysms  ot  byracuse,  unsatisiiea  with  his  oicilian  do-  '"«  of  symeuse  m  ih« 

.     .  j    i        i  •  in  •.       IP  .1.1  .•  f    i  i       r    affairs  of  uouth  Italy, 

minion,  and  looking  to  Greece  itself  as  the  most  tempting  neld  of 
ambition  to  every  Greek,  was  desirous  of  getting  a  footing  on  the  coast  of  Epi- 
rus,  and  of  establishing  a  naval  power  in  the  Ionian  sea  and  the  Adriatic.  Ac- 
cordingly he  entered  into  an  alliance  with  the  Illyrians,32  and,  unless  there  is  a 
confusion  between  the  two  names,  he  occupied  both  the  island  of  Issa,33  the  mod- 
ern Lissa,  and  the  town  of  Lissus34  on  the  main  land,  a  little  to  the  north  of  Epi- 
damnus,  and  kept  a  fleet  regularly  stationed  at  this  latter  settlement,  to  uphold 
the  reputation  of  his  power.  But  there  is  a  statement  in  Pliny35  and  other  wri- 
ters, that  Ancona,  Mumana,  and  Adria,  on  the  coast  of  Italy,  were  also  Sicilian 
settlements.  Adria  is  expressly  said  to  have  been  founded  by  Dionysius,  and 
his  intercourse  with  these  countries  is  further  shown  by  the  fact,  that  he  was  in 
the  habit  of  importing  the  Venetian  horses,35  as  the  best  breed  for  racing  ;  the 
great  games  of  Greece  being  to  him,  as  they  had  been  to  Alcibiades,  an  object 
of  peculiar  interest  and  ambition.  Strabo  also  calls  Ancona  a  Syracusan  colony,37  , 
but  ascribes  its  foundation  to  some  exiles  who  fled  from  the  tyranny  of  Dionys- 
ius. That  there  was  a  Greek  population  there,  and  that  the  Greek  language 
was  prevalent,  is  proved  by  its  coins  ;  yet  on  the  other  hand,  Scylax,  though  he 
names  Ancona,  does  not  call  it  a  Greek  city,  a  circumstance  which  he  rarely  or 
never  admits,  when  he  is  speaking  of  Greek  cities  built  on  a  foreign  coast.  The 
probability  is,  that  the  death  of  Dionysius,  and  the  subsequent  decline  of  his 
power,  left  these  remote  colonies  to  themselves  ;  that  their  communication  with 
Greece  and  Sicily  was-  greatly  checked  by  the  growing  piracies  of  the  Illyrians, 
and  that  they  admitted,  either  willingly  or  by  necessity,  an  intermixture  of  bar- 
barian citizens  from  the  surrounding  nations,  which  destroyed  or  greatly  impaired 
their  Greek  character.  But  it  marks  the  power  of  Dionysius,  that  at  one  and 
the  same  time  he  should  have  been  founding  colonies  on  the  coast  of  the  Adri- 
atic, and  that  on  the  other  side  of  Italy  he  should  have  been  master  of  the  sea 
without  opposition,  insomuch  that,  under  pretence  of  restraining  the  piracies  of 

81  See  Niebuhr,  Vol.  I.  p.  151.    Ed.  1827.  ness  of  so  famous  a  man.    But  Diodorus  must 

32  Diodorus,  XV.  13.  have  left  out  something  in  the  middle  of  tha 

33  Scymnus  Chius,  V.  413.     Scylax  also  calls  passage,  and  joined  the  end  with  the  beginning 
Issa  a  Greek  city.  with  most  extraordinary  carelessness  ;  IK  -raiir^ 

34  Diodorus,  XV.  13,  14.    It  is  hard  to  account  never  could  have  referred  to  ri\v  ir6\tv  rfiv  tvopa- 
for  the  strange  state  of  the  actual  text  of  Diodo-  $o/u  vqv  Atavdv,  but,  as  I  should  suppose,  to  Syr- 
rus,  in  which,  after  mentioning  the  foundation  of  acuse,  such  as  it  was  when  Dionysius  first  be- 
Lissus,  it  goes  on,  IK  ravnr;  olv  6^u>/*£i>os  Atovu'ff-  came  tyrant.    Some  mention  of  Syracuse  must 
tog  KaT£ffKtta<re  vwpia.  K.  r.  A.  describing,  in  three  have  preceded  the  description  of  the  docks  and 
.lines,  the  great  works  of  Dionysius  at  Syracuse,  walls,  and  the  expression,  TJJ  TrdAa,  as  at  present 
which    Dfodorus    had    already  mentioned    at  the  sentence  is  either  wholly  ungrammatical,  01 
length  in  the  preceding  book,  and  which  have  is  mere  nonsense.     Mitford  really  supposes  thai 
no  intelligible  connection  with  the  foundation  IK  raitrrig  refers  to  Lissus,  and  talks  of  the  ad- 
of  Lissus.   It  is  a  curious  specimen  of  the  patch-  vantages  derived  from  this  colony  giving  Dio- 
work  of  so  many  of  the  ancient  histories  ;  for  nysius  the  means  of  building  docks,  &c.,  at  Syr- 
the  whole  passage,  beginning  at  Udpioi  Kara  riva  acuse  ;   an  interpretation  equally  at  variance 

v,  and  going  down  to  the  end  of  the  chap-    with  grammar  and  with  history. 


ter,   is  taken  apparently  from   some  account  S5  Hist.  Natural.  III.  18.    Numana  a  Siculia 

either  of  Paros,  or  of  the  Greek  settlements  in  condita  ;  ab  iisdem  colonia  Ancona.    Etymolo- 

the  western  seas,  where  the  writer  having  been  gic.  Magn.  in  "ASpias. 

led  accidentally  to  mention  Dionysius,  avuirpd]--  36  Strabo,  V.  1,  §  4,  p.  212. 

OITOS  ai)ro?s  Aiovvcriov  rov  rvpdvvov,  took  the  op-  37  V.  4,  §  2,  p.  241. 

portunity  to  give  a  brief  sketch  of  the  great- 


168  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXI 

the  Etruscans,  he  appeared  with  a  fleet  of  sixty  triremes38  on  the  coast  of  Etruria. 
passed  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber  almost  within  sight  of  Rome,  landed  on  the  terri- 
tory of  Caere,  defeated  the  inhabitants  who  came  out  to  resist  him,  sacked  their 
sea-port  of  Pyrgi,  and  carried  off  from  the  plunder  of  the  temple  of  Leucothea,81 
or  Mater  Matuta,  a  sum  computed  at  no  less  than  a  thousand  talents. 

The  mention  of  this  eminent  man  leads  me  naturally  to  Sicily,  to  take  some 
notice  of  the  heart  and  root  of  that  mighty  dominion  which  spread  out  its  arms 
so  widely  and  so  vigorously.  Besides,  the  Roman  history  has  hitherto  presented 
us  with  nothing  but  general  pictures,  or  sketches  rather,  of  the  state  of  the  com- 
monwealth as  a  whole :  individuals  liave  been  as  little  prominent  as  the  figures 
in  a  landscape :  they  have  been  too  subordinate,  and  occupied  too  small  a  space 
in  the  picture,  to  enable  us  to  form  any  distinct  notion  of  their  several  features. 
But  Dionysius  outtopped  by  his  personal  renown  the  greatness  of  the  events  it 
which  he  was  an  actor ;  he  stood  far  above  all  his  contemporaries,  as  the  most 
remarkable  man  in  the  western  part  of  the  civilized  world.  We  may  be  allowed, 
then,  to  overstep  the  limits  of  Italy,  and  to  consider  the  fortunes  and  character 
of  a  man  who  was  the  ruler  of  Syracuse  and  of  Sicily,  during  a  period  cf  nearly 
'orty  years  in  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century  of  Rome. 


CHAPTER  XXL 

DIONYSIUS  THE  ELDER,  TYRANT  OF  SYRACUSE. 


.Kiitiwvd  <j>affi    pttnpfrrw,  rivas  viro\a^^dvei  KpayfiariKUTdTovs  avtipas  ytyovivai   «ra:  criiv  v& 
iif,  tire'tv,  rous  irepl  'Aya-$o*A:u  Kal  &IOVVGIOV  TOV$  DiKsAtwray. — Kit   trtpl  fitv  T&V  rotoiirw 
uh' of  iirisTaaiv  aytiv  rovg  avayiv&ffKovris  ....  Kal  KaSdXov  irpoaTtSivai  rbv  £7:sKki&daKovTa  X6yov — 
.— POLYBIUS,  XV.  35. 


THE  history  of  colonies  seldom  offers  the  noblest  specimens  of  national  char- 
acter.    The  Syracusan  people,  made  up,  in  the  course  of  a  Ions: 

State   of  Syracuse  be-  •/  r        f      '  .  ' 

fore  the  tyranny  of  alternation  ot  tyrannies  and  factions,  out  01  the  most  various  ele- 
ments, had  been  bound  together  by  no  comprehensive  code  of 
laws,  and,  from  their  very  circumstances,  they  could  not  find  a  substitute  for 
such  a  code  in  the  authority  of  ancient  and  inherited  rites  of  religion,  and  of  the 
manners  and  customs  of  their  fathers. 

The  richer  citizens,  who  often  possessed  very  large  fortunes,  were  always  sus- 
Htnnocntet  and  Dio-  pected,  and  probably  not  without  reason,  of  aiming  at  making 
themselves  tyrants ;  whilst  the  people,  possessing  actual  power, 
yet  feeling  that  its  tenure  was  precarious,  were  disposed  to  be  suspicious,  even 
beyond  measure,  and  were  prone  to  violence  and  cruelty.  The  Athenian  inva- 
sion, by  obliging  the  Syracusans  to  fit  out  a  great  naval  force,  had  increased,  as 
usual,  the  power  of  the  poorer  classes,1  who  always  formed  the  great  mass  of 
the  seamen  in  the  Greek  commonwealths  :  while,  on  the  other  hand,  although 
Hermocrates,  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  the  aristocratical  leaders,  had  person- 
ally displayed  great  courage  and  ability,  and  although  the  cavalry  in  which  the 

"  Diodorus,  XV.  14.  Pseudo- Aristotle,  (Eco-    Aristotle.     "  Leucothee  Grsecis,  Matuta  voca- 
noin.  II.  p.  1349.'   Ed.  Bekker.  bere  nostris."     Ovid,  Fasti,  VI.  545. 

w  'EXa^ev  IK  TOV  r§f  A.tvKoOias  hpov.    Pseudo-        1  Aristotle,  Politic.  V.  4. 


CHAT.  XXL]  CODE  OF  DIOCLES. 


nine  cre( 

«racuse 
engtlu 
re  ban 


richest  citizens  served  had  always  acquitted  itself  well,  yet  the  heavy-armed  in- 
fantry, which  contained  the  greatest  proportion  of  the  upper  classes,  had  gained 
little  credit ;  and  the  victory  over  the  invaders  had  been  won  by  the  seamen  of 
^"racuse  for  more  than  by  its  soldiers.  Thus  the  popular  party  became  greatly 
•engthened  by  the  issue  of  the  invasion :  Hermocrates  and  some  of  his  friends 
ere  banished,2  while  Diocles,  the  head  of  the  popular  party,  a  man  somewhat 
resembling  the  tribune  Rienzi,  a  sincere  and  stern  reformer,  but  whose  zealous 
imagination  conceived  schemes  beyond  his  power  to  compass,  endeavored  at 
once  to  give  to  his  countrymen3  a  pure  democracy,  and  to  establish  it  on  its  only 
sure  foundation,  by  building  it  upon  a  comprehensive  system  of  national  law. 

Of  the  details  of  this  code  we  know  nothing.    Diodorus  ascribes  to  it  the  high 
merits  of  conciseness  and  precision,  and  while  he  speaks  of  it  as 

.      ...         V         ....  ."    .  Code  of  Diocleg. 

severe,  he  praises  it  lor  its  discrimination  in  proportioning  its  pun- 
ishments to  the  magnitude  of  the  crime.  But  its  best  praise  is,  that  it  continued 
to  enjoy  the  respect,  not  only  of  the  Syracusans,  but  of  other  Sicilian  states 
also,  till  the  Roman  law  superseded  it.  This  was  the  law  of  Syracuse,  and  Dio- 
cles was  the  lawgiver :  while  others,  who  in  the  time  of  Timoleon,  and  again  in 
the  reign  of  Hiero,  either  added  to  it,  or  modified  it,  were  called  by  no  other 
title  than  expounders  of  the  law  ;4  as  if  the  only  allowed  object  for  succeeding 
legislators  was  to  ascertain  the  real  meaning  of  the  code  of  Diocles,  and  not  to 
alter  it. 

But  democracy  and  law,  when  first  introduced  amongst  a  corrupt  and  turbu- 
lent people,  require  to  be  fostered  under  the  shelter  of  profound  E(fortg of the arigtocrat. 
peace.  Unluckily  for  Diocles,  his  new  constitution  was  born  to  '^v^y^i^n. 
stormy  times  ;  its  promulgation  was  coincident  with  the  renewal  of  the  Cartha- 
ginian invasions  of  Sicily,  after  an  interval  of  nearly  a  century.  "  War,"  says 
Thucydides,5  "  makes  men's  tempers  as  hard  as  their  circumstances."  The 
Syracusan  government  was  engaged  in  an  arduous  struggle  ;  the  power  of  its 
enemy  was  overwhelming,  while  every  failure  in  military  operations  bred  an  in- 
crease of  suspicion  and  disaffection  at  home.  Then  the  aristocratical  party  be- 
gan, as  they  are  wont  to  do,  to  use  popular  language,  in  order  to  excite  the 
passions  of  the  multitude,  and  thus  make  them  the  instruments  of  their  own 
ruin.  They  encouraged  the  cry  of  treason  and  corruption  against  the  generals 
of  the  commonwealth ;  and  personal  profligacy  was  united  with  party  zeal. 
Hipparinus  was  a  member  of  the  aristocratical  party  ;  he  was  also  a  desperate 
man,  because  he  had  ruined  himself  by  his  extravagance  ;6  both  these  causes 
united  made  him  anxious  to  overthrow  the  popular  government ;  and  looking 
about  for  a  fit  instrument  to  accomplish  his  purpose,  he  found  and  brought  for- 
ward Dionysius. 

There  must  have  been  no  ordinary  promise  of  character  in  Dionysius  to  lead  to 
such  a  choice.  He  was  a  young  man  under  five-and-twenty,7  not  Eariy  character  of  KO- 
distinguished  for  his  birth  or  fortune,  and  his  personal  condition  nysius- 
was  humble ;  he  was  a  clerk8  in  some  one  of  the  departments  of  the  public  busi- 
ness. But  he  had  been  a  follower  of  Hermocrates,  and  had  accompanied  him  in 
his  attempt  to  effect  his  return  from  exile  by  force,  and  had  been  wounded'  in 
the  conflict  which  took  place  on  that  occasion,  and  in  which  Hermocrates  was 
killed.  He  was  brave,  active,  and  eloquent ;  the  wealth10  and  influence  of  a 

8  Xenopli.  Hellenic.  I.  i.  §  27.    Thucydides,  w  It  is  said  that  at  the  beginning  of  his  career, 

VIII.  85.  when  he  was  fined,  on  one  occasion,  by  the  mag- 

Diodorus,  XIII.  34,  35.  istrates  for  addressing  the  people  irregularly, 

*Efayr}Tfiv  TOV  vopodtrov.    Diod.  XIII.  35.  Philistus,  the  historian,  a  man  of  large  property, 

111.  82.     Buuoj  oi<5a'ffKaXoj,  xal  irpbs  TU  Trapoi/ra  paid  the  fine  for  him,  and  told  him  to  go  on 

•a  <Jpyuj  TWV  TfoAAwi/  bfaoiol.  sneaking  as  much  as  he  pleased,  and  that  aa 

Aristotle,  Politicti,  V.  6.  often  as  the  magistrates  fined  him,  so  often 

Cicero,  Tusculan.     pisputat.  V.  20.  would  ho  continue  to  discharge  the  fine  for  him. 

Demosthenes,  Leptines,  prope  finem.  Diodorus,  XIII.  91. 
Diodorus,  X11I.  75. 


170  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXI 

powerful  party  supported  him,  and  he  came  forward  when  men's  minds  were 
wrought  up  to  the  highest  pitch  of  alarm  and  irritation  ;  for  Agrigentum,  after 
a  seven  months'  siege,  had  been  taken  and  sacked  by  the  Carthaginians,  and  the 
fugitives  who  fled  to  Syracuse  for  shelter,  ascribed  the  loss  of  their  city  to  the 
misconduct  of  the  Syracusan  generals,  who  had  been  sent  to  its  relief,  and  had 
allowed  it  to  fall  unprotected. 

The  popular  party  was  no  longer  headed  by  Diocles.  We  do  not  know  the 
Death  of  Diodes  exact  time  or  occasion  of  his  death,  but  the  circumstances  attend- 
ing it  are  most  remarkable.  One  of  the  laws  of  his  code  had  de- 
nounced the  penalty  of  death  against  any  man  who  came  into  the  market-place 
armed.  This  was  especially  directed,  no  doubt,  against  the  aristocratical  party, 
who  were  apt  to  resort  to  violence,11  in  order  to  break  up  or  intimidate  the  as- 
semblies of  the  people,  or  to  revenge  themselves  on  any  of  the  more  obnoxious 
popular  leaders.  It  happened  that  Diocles  had  marched  out  of  the  city  on  an 
alarm  of  some  hostile  inroad,  perhaps  that  very  attempt12  of  Hermocrates  to  get 
back  to  Syracuse  by  force,  which  has  been  already  noticed.  But  he  was  sud- 
denly recalled  by  the  news  that  the  enemy  were  in  the  city,  and,  armed  as  he 
was,  he  hastened  back  to  meet  them,  and  found  them  already  in  possession  ot 
the  market-place.  A  private  citizen,  most  probably  after  the  fray  was  over, 
when  the  death  of  so  eminent  a  citizen  as  Hermocrates  would  be  deeply  felt, 
even  by  many  of  his  political  adversaries,  called  out  to  Diocles,  in  allusion  to  his 
having  appeared  in. arms  in  the  market-place,  "Ah,  Diocles,  thou  art  making 
void  thine  own  laws  !"  "  Nay  rather,"  was  his  reply,  "  I  will  ratify  them  thus  ;" 
and  he  instantly  stabbed  himself  to  the  heart.  Such  a  spirit,  so  sincere,  and  so 
self-devoted,  might  well  have  been  the  founder  of  freedom  and  of  legal  order  for 
his  country,  and  saved  her,  had  his  life  been  prolonged,  from  the  selfish  ambi- 
tion of  Dionysius. 

His  place  at  the  head  of  the  government  was  supplied,  inadequately,  as  it  ap- 
Restoratkm  of  the  am-  pears,  by  Daplmseus  and  Demarchus.13  Dionysius  played  the 
demagogue  ably ;  inveighing  against  the  incapacity  of  the  gen- 
erals, representing  them  as  men  of  overweening  influence,14  and  urging  that  the 
people  would  do  well  to  choose  in  their  place  men  of  humbler  means,  whom  they 
would  be  able  more  effectually  to  control.  Accordingly  the  assembly  deposed 
their  actual  generals,  and  elected  others  in  their  room,  and  amongst  these  was 
Dionysius.  Thus  far  successful,  he  ventured  on  a  more  decisive  measure,  a  gen- 
eral recall  of  exiled  citizens.15  It  should  be  remembered,  that  in  the  continual 
struggles  between  the  aristocratical  and  popular  parties  throughout  Greece,  the 
triumph  of  one  side  was  accompanied  by  the  banishment  of  the  most  forward 
supporters  of  the  other.  Every  state  had  thus  always  its  exiles,  like  the  fuo- 
rusciti  of  the  Italian  republics,  whose  absence16  was  essential  to  the  maintenance 
of  the  existing  order  of  things,  and  whose  recall  was  equivalent  to  a  revolution. 

11  As  the  aristocrats  at  Corcyra  broke  into  the  M  Diodorus,  XIII.  96.    Daphnseus  had  com- 
council-house  with  daggers,  and  murdered  the  manded  the  Syracusan  troops  which  had  been- 
heads  of  the  popular  party  to  the  number  of  sent  ineffectually  to  the  relief  of  Agrigentum. 
about  sixty,  partly  to  escape  from  the  payment  Diodorus,  XIII.  86.    Demarchus  was  one  of  the 
of  a  fine  which  they  had  lawfully  incurred,  and  generals  sent  to  supersede  Hermocrates  in  the 
partly  to  prevent  the  passing  of  a  decree  for  an  command  of  the  auxiliary  force  which  was  co- 
ulliance  with  Athens.     Thucyd.  III.  70.  operating  with  thePeloponnesians,  on  the  coast 

12  It  is  true  that,  according  to  Diodorus,  Dio-  of  Asia  Minor,  against  the  Athenians.    Thucyd. 
clcs  had  been  banished  some  time  before  [XIII.  VIII.  85. 

75] ;  but  his  account  of  the  affairs  of  Syracuse,  14  Diodorus,  XIII.  91.     Aristotle,  Politica,  V. 

between  the  Athenian  expedition  and  the  tyr-  5.     Atovuo-ioj  Karriyop&v  Aatyvaiov  Kal  T&V  nAova/uy 

anny  of  Dionysius,  is  exceedingly  fragmentary,  »/|<w0>7  r^j  rvpawl&os,  Sid  ™>  e^Opav  ntaTtvQcis  us 

and  observes  no  chronological  order.    It  may  &r/tortfri£  &v. 

be,  then,  that  Diocles  had  been  recalled  pro-  J5  Diodorus,  XIII.  92. 

viously  to  the  final  attempt  of  Hermocrates ;  at  w  Thus  it  was  one  of  the  clauses  in  the  oath 

least  the  circumstances  of  that  attempt,  and  of  taken  by  every  member  of  the  court  of  Heliaea, 

the  affray  which  led  to  the  death  of  Diocles,  bear  at  Athens,  "  that  he  would  not  recall  those  citi- 

a  remarkable  resemblance  to  each  other.    See  zens  who  were  in  exile."    Demosthenes,  Timoo 

Diodorus,  XIII.  33  and  75.  rates,  p.  746. 


CHAP.  XXL]  GENERAL  POLICY  OF  DIONYSIUS.  171 

The  Syracusan  exiles  were  the  youth  of  the  aristocratical  party,  the  friends  and 
comrades  of  Hermocrates,  bold  and  enterprising,  proud  and  licentious,  the  coun- 
terparts of  Keeso  Quinctius  and  of  the  supporters  of  the  decemvir  Appius  ;  men 
whose  natural  hatred-  and  scorn  of  the  popular  party  was  embittered  by  the 
recollection  of  their  exile.  An  obdurate  spirit  is  not  the  vice  cf  a  democracy  ; 
the  kindly  feelings  of  the  people,  their  sympathies  with  youth  and  high  birth, 
their  hopes  and  their  fears  were  alike  appealed  to  ;  the  tide  was  already  setting 
towards  aristocracy ;  the  assembly  decreed  a  general  recall  of  the  exiles,  and  the 
revolution  from  that  moment  became  inevitable. 

The  overthrow  of  the  constitution  of  Diocles  and  of  the  popular  party  was 
sure  ;  but  it  was  owing  to  the  terror  of  the  Carthaginian  arms,  and  ^^  g.uj  ^  .nted 
the  personal  ascendency  of  Dionysius,  that  there  was  set  up  in  its  cap"mumgenerK"u» 

•£  .  J  .  IP  •    ,  "  commonwealth. 

place  the  despotism  of  a  single  man,  instead  of  an  aristocracy. 
Dionysius  continued  to  attack  his  colleagues,17  no  less  than  the  generals  who  had 
preceded  them ;  "  they  were  selling  Syracuse  to  the  Carthaginians,"  he  said  ; 
"  they  were  withholding  the  soldiers'  pay,  and  appropriating  the  public  money  to 
themselves ;  he  could  not  endure  to  act  with  such  associates,  and  was  resolved 
therefore  to  lay  down  his  office."  A  dictatorship  is  the  most  natural  government 
for  seasons  of  extraordinary  peril,  when  there  appears  a  man  fit  to  wield  it.  The 
terror  of  the  coalition  drove  the  French,  amidst  the  full  freshness  of  their  enthu- 
siasm for  liberty,  to  submit  to  the  despotism  of  the  committee  of  public  safety ; 
and  Dionysius,  bowing  all  minds  to  his  ascendency  by  the  mighty  charm  of  supe- 
rior genius,  was  elected  sovereign  commander  of  the  commonwealth.13  It  is  said 
that  Hipparinus,  who  first  brought  him  forward,  was  appointed  as  his  nominal 
colleague  ;  with  as  much  of  real  equality  of  power  as  was  enjoyed  by  Lebrun  and 
Cambaceies  when  they  were  elected  consuls  along  with  Napoleon. 

From  this  time  forward  Dionysius  retained  the  supreme  power  in  Syracuse  till 
his  death,  a  period  of  nearly  forty  years.  When  he  first  assumed 

,V  V^  -      f    J  J     J  i    Length  of  Lia  reign. 

the  government,  the  Jreloponnesian  war  was  not  yet  ended  :  and 
one  of  his  latest  measures  was  to  send  aid  to  his  allies  the  Lacedaemonians,  when 
Sparta  itself  was  threatened  with  conquest  by  an  army  of  the  Theban  confeder- 
acy, headed  by  Epaminondas.  In  the  course  of  this  long  reign  he  had  to  contend 
more  than  once  with  domestic  enemies,  and  was  always  more  or  less  engaged  in 
hostility  with  Carthage.  The  first  he  crushed,  and  from  the  last,  although  re- 
duced on  one  occasion  to  the  extremest  jeopardy,  he  came  forth  at  last  triumph- 
ant. Without  entering  into  a  regular  account  of  his  life  and  actions,  it  will  be 
enough  to  take  a  general  view  of  his  government  in  some  of  its  most  important 
relations  at  home  and  abroad. 

Dicnysius  owed  his  elevation,  as  we  have  seen,  to  the  ascendency  of  his  own 
genius  acting  upon  minds  agitated  by  suspicion  of  their  own  gov-  Jntern&i  flflmirt.  stat« 
ernment,  and  by  intense  fear  of  the  progress  of  the  Carthaginians.  ofpanies- 
The  recall  of  the  exiles  gave  him  a  number  of  devoted  partisans,  and  the  war  led 
to  the  employment  of  a  large  body  of  mercenary  soldiers,  who  both  from  inclina- 
tion and  interest  would  be  disposed  to  support  an  able  and  active  general.  These 
remained  faithful  to  him19  when  his  ill  success  against  the  Carthaginians,  in  the 

17  Diodorus,  XIII.  94.  also  should  be  invested  with  these  f?ll  powers, 

18  ZrpaT^yo?  a&roKpdrup.    It  is  not  to  be  sup-  and  that  the  people  should  take  the  oath  which, 
posed  that  this  title  conferred  that  unconstitu-  in  fact,  conveyed  them,   namely,  "  that  they 
tional  and  absolute  power  which  the  Greeks  would  let  their  generals  exercise  their  command 
called  "  tyranny."     It  implied  merely  an  unre-  at  their  discretion."    See  Thucydides,  VI.  26, 
stricted  power  of  conducting  the  operations  of  72.     But  as  the  perpetual  dictatorship  at  Rome 
the  war,  and  released  the  general  from  the  ne-  was  equivalent  to  a  tyranny,  so  Dionysius,  by 
cessity  of  consulting  the  government  at  home  retaining  his  command  for  an  unlimited  time, 
as  to  his  measures,  and  of  communicating  his  and  abusing  the  military  power  which  it  gave 
plans  to  them.     It  was  the  title  conferred  on  Ni-  him  for  purposes  wholly  foreign  to  its  proper 
cias  and  his  colleagues  by  the  Athenians,  when  objects,  did,  in  fact,  convert  it  into  a  political 
they  sent  their  great  expedition  to  Sicily ;  and  despotism. 

after  the  Syracusans  had  sustained  their  first        19  Diodorus,  XIII.  112, 113. 
defeat,  Herniocrates  urged  that  their  generals 


172  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXI 

very  first  year  of  his  government,  had  shaken  his  popularity  amongst  the  Syr- 
acusans,  and  encouraged  them  to  attempt  an  insurrection.  Nor  was  it  the  old 
popular  party  to  whom  he  was  most  obnoxious,  but  the  citizens  of  the  richer 
classes,  who  as  they  would  have  rejoiced  in  the  overthrow  of  the  democracy,  so 
were  no  way  pleased  to  see  it  succeed  by  the  despotism  of  a  single  man,  under 
which  they  were  sure  to  be  the  greatest  sufferers.  And  partly,  perhaps,  from 
this  very  reason  the  poorer  classes  began  to  be  better  affected  to  his  government, 
and  he  showed  a  desire  to  win  their  attachment.  The  knights,  or  richest  class, 
fled  from  Syracuse  in  great  numbers,  or  were  banished,  or  put  to  death  ;20  a  great 
mass  of  landed  property  was  thus  placed  at  his  disposal ;  and  there  was,  besides, 
as  in  every  state  of  the  ancient  world,  a  considerable  amount  also  of  public  land, 
of  which  wealthy  individuals  had  ordinarily  a  beneficial  occupation.  With  all 
these  means  in  his  power,  he  put  in  practice  the  two  grand  expedients  of  revolu- 
tionary leaders,  a  large  admission  of  new  citizens,  and  a  division  of  the  public  and 
confiscated  land  amongst  them.  The  new  citizens  were  many  of  them  enfranchised 
slaves,  to  whom  he  assigned  houses  in  Syracuse,  as  well  as  portions  of  land  in  the 
country.  Thus  the  state  of  parties  had  assumed  a  new  form  ;  the  better  part  of 
both  the  old  aristocratical  and  popular  interests  were  drawn  together  by  their 
common  danger,  while  Dionysius  was  supported  by  a  few  individuals  of  the  rich- 
est class  who  shared  in  the  advantages  of  the  tyranny,  by  the  mercenary  soldiers, 
and  by  the  lowest  portion  of  the  whole  population,  who  owed  to  him  their  polit- 
ical existence. 

Accordingly,  as  the  knights  had  shown  their  hostility  to  his  government,  so 
also  did  that  large  body  of  citizens  of  the  middle  classes,  who  in 

attempt     to       .  J.   ,  111  i    • '    p 

the  power  of  the  ancient  commonwealths  composed  the  heavy-armed  infantry. 
When  Dionysius  led  them  into  the  field  to  make  war  against  the 
Sikelians  (the  old  inhabitants  of  Sicily,  whom  the  Greek  colonies  had  driven  from 
the  coast  into  the  interior  of  the  island),  they  openly  rose  against  his  authority,81 
and  invited  the  exiled  knights  to  join  them.  This  was  one  of  the  greatest  dangers 
of  his  life  ;  he  fled  to  Syracuse,  and  was  there  besieged  ;  but  the  strength  of  the 
walls  protracted  the  siege,  and  time  led  to  divisions  and  quarrels  amongst  the 
besiegers.  Meantime  Dionysius  engaged  the  services  of  a  body  of  those  Cam- 
panian  mercenaries,22  whose  reputation  for  valor  was  so  high  at  this  period  in 
Sicily,  and  by  their  aid  he  defeated  his  antagonists.  But,  wishing  to  break  effect- 
ually so  formidable  a  combination,  he  offered  an  amnesty23  to  all  who  would  re- 
turn and  live  quietly  in  Syracuse  ;  and  finding  that  few  on  f  of  the  exiled  knights 
accepted  this  offer,  and  feeling  that  the  class  of  heavy-armed  citizens  was  no  less 
hostile  to  him,  he  took  advantage  of  the  ensuing  harvest,  when  the  citizens  were 
engaged  in  getting  in  their  corn  in  the  country,  and  sent  parties  of  soldiers24  to 
their  houses  in  Syracuse  to  carry  off  their  arms.  After  this  he  began  to  increase 
his  navy,  the  seamen  being  now  the  class  of  citizens  on  whom  he  could  most  rely, 
and  further  strengthened  himself  by  raising  an  additional  force  of  mercenaries. 
From  this  time  till  his  death,  a  period  of  nearly  thirty-seven  years,  the  govern- 
ment of  Dionysius  met  with  no  further  disturbance  from  any  do- 

Causcs  of  the    perma-  .  .   *  _,.     ,  .  -i-i-ii  i 

Hence  of  kin  govern-  mestic  enemies.  Eigpt  years  afterwards,  indeed,  when  the  great 
Carthaginian  armament  under  Imilcon  was  besieging  Syracuse,  an 
attempt  was  made25  by  some  of  the  knights  to  excite  the  people  against  him,  and 
Theodoras  is  said  to  have  attacked  him  in  the  public  assembly  as  the  author  of 
all  the  calamities  of  his  country.  But  the  influence  of  the  commander  of  a  Lace- 
daemonian auxiliary  force26  then  at  Syracuse  was  exerted  strongly  in  his  favor;  his 

90  Diodorus,  XIII.  113,  XIV.  7.  known  expedients  of  the  Greek  tyrants  to  ob- 

81  Diodorus,  XIV.  7.  tain  or  to  secure  their  power.    Tij»  irapalocirit 

82  Diodorus,  XIV.  8.  votovvrat  TWV  o;rAu)j/  (scil.  ol  rvpavvoi).  says  Aris- 
**  Diodorus,  XIV.  9.  totle,  implying  that  it  was  their  ordinary  mail- 
94  Diodorus,  XIV.  10.    This  is  the  irapalpeais  ner  of  proceeding.    Politica,  V.  10. 

rfiv  fcrAui',  the  disarming  of  these  classes  which        ^  Diodorus,  XIV.  64,  65. 
asually  possessed  arms,  one  of  the  most  well-        26  Diodorus,  XIV.  70. 


?.  XXL] 


TYRANNY  OF  HIS  GOVERNMENT. 


173 


m  mercenaries  were  formidable ;  and  in  a  season  of  such  imminent  danger  from 
foreign  enemy,  many  even  of  those  who  disliked  his  government  would  think 
inexpedient  to  molest  it.     On  this  occasion  he  tried  all  means  to  win  popularity, 
lixing  familiarly  with  the  poorer  citizens,  gratifying  some  by  presents,  and  ad- 
litting  others  to  those  common  tables  or  messes  of  the  soldiers,  which  were  kept 
the  public  expense.27     But  the  permanent  security  of  his  dominion  rested  on 
mercenary  troops,  who  were  ever  ready  to  crush  the  beginnings  of  a  tumult, 
his  own  suspicious  vigilance,  on  the  ascendency  of  his  firm  and  active  charac- 
3r,  and  on  the  mutual  jealousies  and  common  weakness  of  the  old  aristocratical 
and  popular  parties,  among  whom  there  seems  to  have  been  no  eminent  man  ca- 
pable of  opposing  so  able  a  tyrant  as  Dionysius.     It  should  be  remembered  that 
the  far  weaker  government  of  the  second  Dionysius  was  only  overthrown,  in  the 
first  instance,  by  the  defection  of  a  member  of  his  own  family ;  and  when  he  was 
expelled  a  second  time,  the  Syracusans  could  find  no  competent  leader  amongst 
themselves ;  they  were  obliged  to  invite  Timoleon  from  Corinth. 

All  the  ancient  writers,  without  exception,  call  the  government  of  Dionysius  a 
cranny.23  This,  as  is  well  known,  was  with  them  no  vague  and  His  p0vernment  VM  a 
lisputable  term,  resting  on  party  impressions  of  character,  and  thus  i*raimy- 
'  ible  to  be  bestowed  or  denied  according  to  the  political  opinions  of  the  speaker 
writer.  It  describes  a  particular  kind  of  government,  the  merits  of  which 
light  be  differently  estimated,  but  the  facts  of  its  existence  admitted  of  no  dis- 
ite.  Dionysius  was  not  a  king,  because  hereditary  monarchy  was  not  the  con- 
titution  of  Syracuse ;  he  was  not  the  head  of  the  aristocratical  party,  enjoying- 
ipreme  power,  inasmuch  as  they  were  in  possession  of  the  government,  and  he 
was  their  most  distinguished  member :  on  the  contrary,  the  richer  classes  were 
opposed  to  him,  and  he  found  his  safety  in  banishing  them  in  a  mass,  and  confis- 
cating their  property.  Nor  was  he  the  leader  of  a  democracy,  like  Pericles  and 
Demosthenes,  all  powerful,  inasmuch  as  the  free  love  and  admiration  of  the  peo- 
ple made  his  will  theirs ;  for  what  democratical  leader  ever  surrounded  himself 
with  foreign  mercenaries,  or  fixed  his  residence  in  the  citadel,29  or  kept  up  in  his 
style  of  living  and  in  the  society  which  surrounded  him  the  state  and  luxury  of  a 
king's  court  ?  He  was  not  an  hereditary  constitutional  king,  nor  the  leader  of 
one  of  the  great  divisions  of  the  commonwealth :  but  he  had  gained  sovereign 
power  by  fraud,  and  maintained  it  by  force  ;  he  represented  no  party,  he  sought 
to  uphold  no  ascendency  but  that  of  his  own  individual  self ;  and  standing  thus 
apart  from  the  sympathies  of  his  countrymen,  his  objects  were  essentially  selfish, 
his  own  safety,  his  own  enjoyments,  his  own  power,  and  his  own  glory.  Feeling 


27  Diodorus,  XIV.  70.  TWj  Si  fat  rH  avvvina 
7rap£,\a>#av£.  That  this  institution  of  syssitia, 
or  common  tables,  was  not  peculiar  to  the  La- 
cedflemonians,  is  well  known.  It  was  practised 
at  Carthage,  and  even  its  first  origin  was  as- 
cribed, not  to  any  Greek  people,  but  to  the 
CEnotrians  of  the  south  of  Italy.  See  Aristotle, 
Politic.  II.  11,  VII.  10.  Aristotle  blames  the 
Lacedaemonians  for  altering  the  character  of  the 
institution  by  making  each  individual  contrib- 
ute his  portion,  instead  of  causing  the  whole 
expense  to  be  defrayed  by  the  public.  The  ob- 
ject of  the  common  tables  was  to  promote  a  so- 
cial and  brotherly  feeling  amongst  those  who 
met  at  them  ;  and  especially  with  a  view  to  their 
becoming  more  confident  in  each  other,  so  that 
iu  the  day  of  battle  they  might  stand  more  firmly 
together,  and  abide  by  one  another  to  the  death. 
With  Dionysius,  these  common  tables  would  be 
confined  to  his  guards,  or  to  such  of  the  sol- 
diers as  he  could  most  rely  on ;  they  would  be 
maintained  at  his  expense,  and  would  be  used 
as  a  means  of  keeping  up  a  high  and  exclusive 
i:~g  amongst  their  members,  as  belonging  to 


feelin 


a  sort  of  privileged  order.  And  thus  the  offer 
of  admission  to  such  a  society  would  be  an  effect- 
ual bribe  to  many,  as  being  at  once  a  beneilt 
and  a  distinction. 

28  Even  Xenophon  calls  him  "  Dionysius  the 
tyrant."     (Hellenic.  II.  2,  §  24.)    It  is  remark- 
able, however,  and  confirms  Niebuhr's  opinion 
that  the  Hellenics  contain  two  distinct  works, 
and  that  the  five  last  books  were  written  many 
years  later  than  the  two  first,  when  Xcnophon'a 
feelings  were  become  more  completely  aristo- 
cratical or  antipopular,  that  in  the  latter  books 
Dionysius  is  not  called  tyrant,  but  is  spoken  01 
simply  as  "  Dionysius,"  or  as  "  the  first  Dionys- 
ius."   The  offensive  appellation  was  not  to*be 
bestowed  on  the  ally  of  Lacedosnion  and  Agesi- 
iaus, 

29  Mitford's  mistake  in  supposing  that  the 
island  at  Syracuse  was  not  the  citadel ;  and  ar- 
guing that  Dionysius  was  not  a  tyrant,  because 
he  resided  amongst  the  "  nautic  multitude," 
and  not  on  the  heights  of  Epipolos,  which  Mit- 
ford  imagines  to  have  been  the  citadel,  will  be 
shown  in  a  subsequent  note. 


174  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXI. 

that  he  had  no  right  to  be  where  he  was,  he  was  full  of  suspicion  and  jealousy, 
and  oppressed  his  subjects  with  taxes  at  once  heavy  and  capriciously  levied,  not 
only  that  he  might  enrich  himself,  but  that  he  might  impoverish  and  weaken  them, 
A  government  carried  on  thus  manifestly  for  the  good  of  one  single  governor; 
with  an  end  of  such  unmixed  selfishness,  and  resting  mainly  upon  the  fear,  not 
the  love,  of  its  people ;  with  whatever  brilliant  qualities  it  might  happen  to  be 
gilded,  and  however  free  it  might  be  from  acts  of  atrocious  cruelty,  was  yet  called 
by  the  Greeks  a  tyranny. 

It  was  no  part  of  the  policy  of  such  tyrants  to  encourage  trade  or  agriculture, 
H!S  taxes  and  spoiia-  that  their  own  wealth  might  be  the  legitimate  fruit  of  the  general 
wealth  of  their  people.  On  the  contrary,  their  financial  expedi- 
ents were  no  other  than  blind  and  brute  exactions,  which  satisfied  their  immediate 
wants ;  it  mattered  not  at  what  cost  of  future  embarrassment.  Aristotle  names 
Dionysius'  government,30  as  exemplifying  the  tyrant's  policy  cf  impoverishing  his 
people  by  an  excessive  taxation.  The  direct  taxes  were  at  one  time  so  heavy,31 
that  it  was  computed  that  in  the  course  of  five  years,  they  equalled  the  entire 
yearly  value  of  the  property  on  which  they  were  levied :  then  there  was  the  old 
fraud  of  debasing  the  coin,32  the  oppression  of  forced  loans,  which  he  paid  in  a 
depreciated  currency,  direct  robbery  of  his  people  under  the  pretence  of  orna- 
menting the  temples  of  the  gods,  and  an  unscrupulous  sacrilege,  which  appro- 
priated the  very  offerings  to  the  gods,  so  made,  to  his  own  individual  uses.  With 
such  a  system,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  plunder  should  have  been  one  of  his  fa- 
vorite resources.  The  sale  of  prisoners  taken  in  war,  one  of  the  most  important 
of  the  ways  and  means  of  the  first  Ceesar,  was  so  much  a  matter  of  ordinary 
usage  in  the  ancient  world,  that  it  brought  no  peculiar  obloquy  on  Dionysius. 
But  the  sack  of  the  wealthy  temple  of  the  Mater  Matuta  on  the  Etruscan  coast, 
was  considered  as  little  better  than  piracy,33  and  it  was  reported  that  his  settle- 
ment at  Lissus,  on  the  coast  of  Epirus,  was  mainly  intended  to  further  his  design 
of  plundering  the  very  temple  of  Apollo  at  Delphi.34  We  read  of  his  colonies  up 
the  Adriatic ;  but  the  only  notice  of  any  commerce  carried  on  with  those  coun- 
tries, mentions  merely  the  importation  of  horses35  from  the  country  of  the  Veneti, 
in  order  that  they  might  run  in  the  chariots  of  Dionysius  at  the  great  games  of 
Greece  and  of  Sicily. 

Every  strong  and  able  government,  however  oppressive,  is  yet  sure  to  accom- 
ne  fortifies  and  eniarg-  plish  some  works  at  once  magnificent  and  useful ;  and  thus  the  ex- 
tended walls  of  Syracuse,  which  included  the  whole  slope  of  Epi- 
polse  to  its  summit,  in  addition  to  the  older  city  which  the  Athenians  had  bo- 

30  Politica,  V.  11.  is  remarkable,  as  it  seems  to  indicate  that  trio 

31  Aristotle's  expression  is,  ev  irevrs  yap  sremv    official  valuation  of  property  at  Syracuse,  as  at 
fat  Aiovvctov   rtiv  olatav  airaaav  ciffevrjvoxfvai  <rv-    Rome,  took  place  every  five  years. 

viftaivE.  This  can  only  mean,  I  suppose,  one  of  32  This,  and  the  following  instance  of  Dionys- 
two  tilings  :  either,  as  I  have  explained  it  in  the  ins'  exactions,  are  taken  from  the  second  chap 
text,  that  Dionysius  imposed  a  property  tax  of  ter  of  the  second  book  of  the  (Economics,  corn- 
twenty  per  cent.,  so  that  in  five  years'  a  man  monly  ascribed  to  Aristotle.  This  chapter, 
might  be  said  to  have  paid  taxes  to  the  amount  however,  is  clearly  not  Aristotle's,  but,  as  Nic- 
of  his  whole  income,  or  else  that  a  man's  prop-  buhr  has  shown  (Kleine  Historische  Schriften, 
erty  was  valued  much  below  its  red  worth;  so  p.  412),  must  have  been  a  later  work,  written 
that  twenty  per  cent,  on  the  rated  amount  of  m  Asia  Minor,  and  is  a  collection  of  all  sorts  ol 
his  property,  not  of  his  income  merely,  would  financial  tricks  and  extortions,  which  are  recom- 
be  very  much  less  than  a  fifth  part  of  what  he  mended  to  the  imitation  of  the  satraps  and  offi- 
rcally  possessed.  It  might  be  thus  possible  cers  of  the  monarchies  of  Alexander's  succes- 
that  a  man  might  have  paid  in  five  years  a  sum  sors.  And  whoever  reads  the  whole  of  the  col 
equal  to  the  rated  amount  of  his  whole  prop-  lection  will  find  no  reason  to  doubt  the  truth  oi 
<jrly;  but  that  he  should  literally  have  paid  a  the  stories  about  Dionysius,  as  being  unprcce- 
sum  equal  to  his  whole  real  property  seems  to  dented  or  unworthy  of  him. 
me  an  absurdity.  To  notice  no  other  objections,  83  Diodorus,  XV.  14.  Strabo  calls  it  the  tern- 
was  it  ever  known  that  the  money  in  any  coun-  pie  of  llithyia,  or  Lucina;  and  adds,  that  Dio- 
try  bore  such  a  proportion  to  the  value  of  the  nysius  plundered  it  in  the  course  of  an  expedi- 
property  in  it  as  to  render  it  possible  in  five  tion  to  Corsica.  V.  2,  §  8,  p.  226. 
years  to  convert  all  property  into  cash?  For  24  Diodorus,  XV.  13. 
the  rest,  the  period  of  five  years  here  mentioned  **  Strubo,  V.  1,  §  4,  p.  212. 


KAP.  XXL]  WARS  WITH  CARTHAGE.  175 

ged,  were  the  work  of  Dionysius.  These  were  built36  undtr'tho  terror  of  a 
Carthaginian  invasion ;  and  his  docks  for  two  hundred  ships,  or,  according  to 
other  accounts,  for  a  far  greater  number,  were  constructed  at  once  for  defensive 
and  offensive  war  against  the  same  enemy.  His  works  in  the  island  of  Ortygia 
had  an  object  more  directly  selfish.  This  oldest  and  strongest  part  of  the  city 
of  Syracuse,  which  had  originally  constituted  the  whole  city,  was  now,  since  the 
town  had  spread  over  the  adjacent  parts  of  the  mainland  of  Sicily,  come  to  be 
regarded  as  the  citadel.  Here  Dionysius  fixed  his  residence,37  and  built  a  strong 
wall  to  cut  off  its  communication  with  the  rest  of  Syracuse  ;  he  also  appropriated 
it  exclusively  to  his  own  friends  and  his  mercenary  soldiers,  allowing  no  other 
Syracusan  to  live  in  it.  For  the  same  reasons  under  the  Roman  government,  the 
island  was  the  residence  of  the  Roman  prsetor  and  his  officers,38  and  the  Syracu- 
sans  were  still  forbidden  to  inhabit  it. 

Dionysius  had  owed  his  elevation  to  the  terror  inspired  by  the  arms  of  Car-i 
thage ;  and  the  great  service  which  he  rendered  to  Greece  and  to  n  Fore.  ^  ftffaiM 
the  world,  was  his  successful  resistance  to  the  Carthaginian  power,  w^™h  ^^^^2 
and  opposing  a  barrier  to  their  conquest  of  Sicily.  The  very  diffi- 
culty of  his  task,  and  the  varied  fortune  of  his  wars,  shows  plainly  that  had  Syr- 
acuse been  under  a  less  powerful  government,  it  must  have  shared  the  fate  of 
Selinus  and  of  Agrigentum.  We  do  not  know  the  causes  which  seem  to  have 
roused  the  Carthaginians  to  such  vigorous  activity  against  the  Sicilian  Greeks, 
immediately  after  the  destruction  of  the  Athenian  armament.  Had  that  great 
expedition  been  successful  at  Syracuse,  it  was  designed  to  attempt  the  conquest 
of  the  Carthaginian  dominions,39  and  even  of  Carthage  itself;  and  the  Carthagini- 
ans are  represented  by  Hermocrates40  as  living  in  constant  dread  of  the  power 
and  ambition  of  Athens.  Yet  four  or  five  years  afterwards  we  find  them  send- 
ing out  to  Sicily  so  large  a  force,  that  they  might  well  have  defied  the  hostility 
of  the  Athenians ;  and  the  conquest  of  Selinus,  Himera,  and  Agrigentum,  proved 
to  the  Syracusans  that  they  were  again  incurring  the  danger,  from  which  they 
had  been  delivered  about  eighty  years  before  by  Gelon's  great  victory  of  Himera. 

In  his  first  attempts  to  check  the  progress  of  the  Carthaginians,  Dionysius  was 
unsuccessful.  He  was  glad  to  conclude  a  peace  with  them,  by  First ,  treaty  of  r>iony» 
which  they  were  to  retain  possession  of  their  own  colonies,  and  of  ius  with  Cilrtlm£e- 
the  Sicanian  tribes  in  the  west  of  Sicily.  The  survivors41  of  the  people  whom 
they  had  recently  conquered,  of  Himera,  Selinus,  and  Agrigentum ;  as  also  the 
inhabitants  of  Gela  and  Camarina  who  had  abandoned  their  homes  during  the 
war,  and  had  fled  first  to  Syracuse,  and  afterwards  to  Leontini,  might  now,  it 
was  stipulated,  return  to  their  own  countries  and  live  in  peace ;  but  they  were  to 
pay  a  tribute  to  the  Carthaginians,  and  were  to  live  only  in  open  villages ;  their 
cities  were  to  remain  dismantled  and  desolate.  In  the  east  of  the  island,  Messana, 
Leontini,  and  all  the  Sikelian  tribes  were  to  be  independent ;  these  last  were  the 
old  enemies  of  the  Syracusans,  and  the  Carthaginians  naturally,  therefore,  made 
this  stipulation  in  their  favor.  Thus  Dionysius  was  left  master  of  Syracuse  alone  ; 
stripped  of  its  dominion  over  the  Sikelians,  stripped  of  its  old  allies,  the  other 
Dorian  cities  of  Sicily ;  while  the  dominion  of  Carthage,  which  a  few  years  be- 
fore had  been  confined  to  throi-  settlements  at  the  western  corner  of  the  island, 
was  now  advanced  almost  to  the  eastern  coast,  and  by  means  of  the  Sikelian 

38  Diodorus,  XIV.  18,  41,  42.  may  be  sure  that  it  was  at  no  time  the  residence 

87  Diodorus,  XIV.  7.     Those  who  understand  of  the  poorest  classes,  such  as  composed  the 

the  nature  of  the  Greek  citadels,  that  they  al-  seamen  of  the  state,  but  was  appropriated  to  the 

ways  contained  the  temples  of  the  peculiar  gods  oldest  and  wealthiest  families. 
of  the  people,  and.  therefore  were  always  the        **  Cicero,  Verrcs,  V.  32.     He  calls  the  island, 

oldest  part  of  the  city,  will  understand  that  Epi-  "  Locus  quern  vel  pauci  possint  defemlerc." 
poise  could  not  have  been,  according  to  Greek        39  So  Alcibiades  told  the  Spartans;  Thucyd. 

notions,  the  citadel  of  Syracuse.    On  the  other  VI.  90,  and  added,  roiatra  fjh>  Kiipa  TOV 

hand,  the  strength  of  the  island  of  Ortygia  well  arara  £t<5o'ro?,  01?  <5t£i'o?/0/7/ui>,  a.Kr)K&ar£. 
fitted  it  for  purposes  of  security,  and  although        40  Thucyd.  VI.  34. 
walls  were  washed  by  both  harbors,  yet  we        41  Diodorus,  XIII.  114. 


hai 

[      % 


176  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXI. 

tribes,  whose  independence  had  been  just  secured,  it  hemmed  in,  and  in  a  man- 
ner overhung,  the  scanty  territory  which  was  still  left  to  Syracuse. 

This  treaty  was  concluded  in  the  last  year  of  the  Peloponnesian  war,  according 
to  the  chronology  of  Diodorus.  It  was  virtually  no  more  than  a 
truce,  delaying  the  decision  of  the  quarrel  between  the  two  con- 
tracting parties,  till  one  of  them  should  be  in  a  better  condition  to  resume  it. 
Dionysius  had  been  crippled  by  his  military  disasters,  and  the  Carthaginians  were 
suffering  from  a  pestilence  which  was  at  this  time  fatally  raging  in  Africa.  No 
sooner,  then,  was  the  peace  concluded,  than  Dionysius  began  to  undo  its  work. 
It  had  declared  the  Sikelian  tribes  independent ;  he  found,  or  made  a  pretence 
for  attacking  them  :42  it  had  stipulated  for  the  independence  of  Leontini ;  he  com- 
pelled the  inhabitants  to  leave  their  city,43  and  to  come  and  dwell  as  citizens  in 
Syracuse.  He  also  destroyed  the  Chalcidian  cities  of  Naxos  and  Catana,44  and 
sold  their  inhabitants  for  slaves.  He  cultivated  the  friendship  of  Messana,  Rhe- 
gium,45  and  the  Greek  towns  of  Italy ;  with  Locri  in  particular  he  established  a 
right  of  intermarriage,  and  he  availed  himself  of  it  to  take  a  Locrian  lady  as  his 
own  wife.  He  was  busy  in  making  arms  and  artillery46  for  the  use  of  his  armies, 
and  in  building  ships,  and  arsenals  to  receive  and  fit  them  out  becomingly.  And 
after  all  his  preparations  were  completed,  finding  that  the  pestilence  was  still 
raging  in  Africa,47  he  determined  to  declare  war  against  Carthage.  This  was  in 
the  fourth  year  of  the  ninety-fifth  Olympiad,  about  eight  years  after  the  conclu- 
sion of  the  last  treaty. 

Dionysius  had  chosen  his  own  time  ;  the  plague  had  weakened  the  Carthagini- 
He  suddenly  declares  ans,  and  the  declaration  of  war  against  them,  unexpected  as  it 
Sfsr  and'Ta^egf "to  was>  was  preceded  by  a  general  plundering  of  their  property,43 
and  a  massacre  of  their  citizens  in  all  the  Greek  cities  of  Sicily. 
Dionysius  marched  immediately  towards  the  Carthaginian  territories ;  the  forces 
of  the  several  Greek  cities  joined  him  as  he  advanced ;  and  he  laid  siege  to  the 
city  and  island  of  Motya,49  one  of  the  three  settlements  which  Carthage  possessed 
in  Sicily50  before  her  conquest  of  Selinus.  Motya  was  one  of  a  group  of  small 
islands  which  lie  off  the  western  coast  of  Sicily,  immediately  to  the  north  of  Mar- 
sala or  Lilybaeum.  It  is  about  a  mile  and  a  half  in  circumference,51  and  about 
three-quarters  of  a  mile  from  the  main  land,  with  which  it  was  connected  by  a 
narrow  artificial  causeway.  Like  Tyre  and  Aradus  in  point  of  situation,  it  was 
like  them  flourishing  and  populous :  and  its  inhabitants,  being  themselves  ot 
Phoenician  blood,  were  zealous  in  their  resistance  to  the  Greek  invader.  Attacked 
by  an  overwhelming  force,52  and  seeing  their  walls  breached,  and  their  ramparts 
swept,  by  engines  and  an  artillery  such  as  had  never  before  been  equalled,  they 
did  not  yield  even  when  the  enemy  had  forced  his  way  into  their  city,  but  availed 
themselves  of  their  narrow  streets  and  lofty  houses  to  dispute  every  inch  of  his 
progress.  The  Greeks  then  brought  up  their  movable  towers,  which  had  been 
built  to  match  the  height  of  the  houses,  and  from  these  they  threw  out  bridges 
to  the  roofs,  and  thus  endeavored  to  board  the  enemy.  Day  after  day  this  bloody 
struggle  continued  ;  the  Greek  trumpets  regularly  sounding  a  retreat  when  night 
fell,  and  calling  off  their  combatants  ;  till  at  length  Dionysius  turned  this  practice 
to  his  account,  and  as  soon  as  the  trumpets  sounded  as  usual,  and  the  Phoenici- 
ans supposed  that  the  contest  was  at  an  end  till  the  next  day,  he  sent  in  a  party 
of  picked  men,  who,  before  the  enemy  suspected  their  design,  had  established 
themselves  in  a  commanding  situation  from  which  they  could  not  be  dislodged 
again.  Then  the  whole  Greek  army  poured  into  the  town  by  the  moles  or  dykes 


42  Diodorus,  XIV.  7,  14.  48  Diodorus,  XIV.  45. 

43  Diodorus,  XIV.  15.  49  Diodorus,  XIV.  47. 

44  Diodorus,  XIV.  15.  M  Thucydides,  VI.  2. 

45  Diodorus.  XIV.  44.  61  See  Captain  Smyth's  Memoir  on  Sicily. 

46  Diodorus',  XIV.  41.  w  Diodorus,  XIV.  48-53. 


CHAP.  XXL]  SIEGE  OF  SYRACUSE,  177 

which  they  had  thrown  across  from  the  main  land  to  the  shore  of  Motya,  and  the 
place  was  taken  by  storm.  Neither  age  nor  sex  were  spared  by  the  conquerors ; 
a  few  only  of  the  inhabitants  saved  their  lives  by  running  to  the  temples  of  those 
gods  whom  the  Greeks  honored  in  common  with  the  Carthaginians,  and  these 
were  afterwards  sold  for  slaves.  The  whole  plunder  of  the  town  was  given  to 
the  victorious  soldiers. 

While  the  siege  of  Motya  was  going  on,  Dionysius  had  employed  a  portion  of 
his  army  in  endeavoring  to  reduce  the  remaining  colonies  or  allies  Dionv8.ug  attftclu~Ve~ 
of  Carthage.  The  Sicanian  tribes,53  who  were  the  principal  inhab-  ^i^liL^ clr- 
itants  of  the  interior  in  the  west  of  Sicily,  submitted  without  oppo- 
sition. But  five  places  held  out  resolutely  :  Soloeis  and  Panormus,  both  of  them, 
as  well  as  Motya,  Phoenician  settlements ;  Egesta,  whose  quarrel  with  Selinus 
first  brought  the  Athenians  into  Sicily,  and  afterwards  the  Carthaginians ;  Entella, 
and  Halicyse.  It  was  in  vain  that  Dionysius  ravaged  their  lands,  destroyed  their 
fruit-trees,  and  attacked  their  towns  ;  they  remained  unmoved  in  their  fidelity ; 
and  even  after  the  fall  of  Motya,  when  the  Greek  power  seemed  so  irresistible 
that  the  people  of  Halicyse  then  at  last  submitted  to  it,  yet  the  other  fo.ir  still 
held  out ;  and  when  Dionysius  again  ventured  to  besiege  Egesta,  the  inhabitants 
sallied  by  night  and  set  fire  to  his  camp,  and  obliged  him  to  abandon  his.  enter- 
prise with  loss. 

Here  ended  the  circle  of  Dionysius'  glory.  The  Carthaginians,54  provoked  by 
the  suddenness  of  his  attack,  by  his  having  taken  advantage  of  their  Great  Carthaginian  ex. 
distressed  condition,  and  by  the  inveteracy  with  which  the  Greeks  Peditioa  to  sicily- 
were  pursuing  all  of  their  name  and  race,  were  roused  to  extraordinary  exertion. 
An  immense  army  was  raised  of  Africans  and  Spaniards  ;  but  the  Gauls,  so  con- 
stantly employed  in  the  Punic  wars,  had  not  yet  crossed  the  Alps,  or  become 
known  to  the  civilized  nations  of  the  south ;  so  that  there  were  none  of  them  in 
the  armament  now  collected  for  the  invasion  of  Sicily.  As  ic  was,  however,  the 
Carthaginian  force  was  estimated  by  Timseus  at  100,000  men,  and  it  was  com- 
manded by  Imilcon,  the  supreme  military  chief  of  the  commonwealth.  The  expe- 
dition landed  at  Panormus,  and  every  thing  gave  way  before  it.  Motya  was 
instantly  recovered ;  the  Sicanians  left  Dionysius  to  join  their  old  friends,  the  Car- 
thaginians ;  Dionysius  himself  retreated  upon  Syracuse  ;  and  the  seat  of  war  was 
removed  almost  instantaneously  from  the  western  to  the  eastern  extremity  of  the 
island,  from  Motya  and  Egesta  to  Syracuse. 

Imilcon  advanced55  along  the  northern  coast  towards  Messina,  being  anxious  to 
possess  that  important  place,  and  so  intercept  any  succors  which  -rhe  cartha-mian.  bo- 
might  be  sent  to  the  aid  of  Dionysius,  either  from  the  Greek  states  Biego  sJ'rac"8e- 
of  Italy,  or  from  Greece  itself.  He  took  Messina,  defeated  the  Syracusans  in  a 
sea  fight  off  Catana,  and  then,  being  completely  master  of  the  field,  he  proceeded 
to  lay  siege  to  Syracuse  by  sea  and  land  ;  his  ships  occupied  the  great  harbor, 
while  with  his  aivny  he  held  all  the  most  important  points  on  shore :  the  head- 
land of  Plemyrium,  which  forms  the  southern  side  of  the  great  harbor,  the  tem- 
ple of  Olympian  Jupiter  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Anapus,  and  the  suburb  of 
Neapolis,  just  without  the  walls  of  Acradina,  and  under  the  cliffs  of  Epipolae. 
The  position  of  Epipolce  itself,  which  the  Athenians  had  at  first  occupied  with  so 
much  effect,  and  which  they  afterwards  neglected  to  their  ruin,  was  now  secured 
against  the  enemy  by  the  walls  lately  carried  round  its  whole  extent  by  Dio- 
nysius. 

Thus  the  Greek  power  in  Sicily  was  reduced,  as  it  were,  to  one  little  spark, 
which  the  first  breath  seemed  likely  to  extinguish  ;  but  on  its  pres-  Crlti(,a,  8tate  of  ^ 
ervation  depended  the  existence  of  Rome  and  the  fate  of  the  world.  Greek  power  in  Sicily- 
Had  Carthage  become  the  sovereign  of  all  Sicily,  her  power,  in  its  full  and  unde- 

63  Diodorus,  XIV.  48-54.  •»  Diodorus,  XIV.  57-63. 

M  Diodorus,  XIV.  54,  55. 
12 


178  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XX** 

cayed  vigor,  must  have  immediately  come  into  contact  with  the  nations  of  Italy  ; 
and  the  Samnite  wars  of  Rome  might  have  ended  in  the  destruction  of  both  the 
contending  nations,  when  their  exhausted  strength  had  left  them  at  the  mercy  of 
a  powerful  neighbor.  But  this  was  not  to  be,  and  Dionysius  was  inspired  with 
resolution  to  abide  the  storm,  that  so  he  might  fulfil  that  purpose  of  God's  prov- 
idence, which  designed  the  Greek  power  in  Sicily  to  stand  as  a  breakwater  against 
the  advances  of  Carthage,  and  to  afford  a  shelter  to  the  yet  unripened  strength 
of  Rome. 

The  condition  of  Dionysius  seemed  desperate.  Blockaded  by  sea  and  land, 
proposes  to  with  a  people  impatient  of  his  despotism,  with  a  force  of  merce- 
m  siciiy.  narieS)  wno>  the  moment  that  he  became  unable  to  pay  them,  might 
betray  him,  either  to  the  enemy  without  the  walls  or  to  his  political  adversaries 
within ;  he  held  a  council  with  his  friends  in  the  citadel,  and  expressed  his  pur- 
pose of  leaving  Syracuse  to  its  fate,  and  attempting  to  effect  his  own  escape  by 
sea.  One  of  them  boldly  answered,56  "A  king's  robe  is  a  noble  winding-sheet." 
At  these  words  the  spirit  of  Dionysius  rose  within  him,  and  he  resolved  to  live  or 
die  a  king. 

But  his  deliverance  was  effected  by  another  power  than  his  own.  The  spots 
The  cartha  inian  r  WDere  ^1G  small  Sicilian  rivers  mats  their  way  into  the  sea  are, 
mwnentcrippkd'by  M  during  the  summer,  notoriously  unhealthy  :  a  malaria  fever  is  al- 

epidemic  sickness.  °,  .  V  •  •        i  •     i   -    •  "I 

most  the  certain  consequence  of  passing  a  single  night  m  any  vil- 
lage so  situated.  The  shore  near  the  rnouth  of  the  Anapus,  and  the  marshy  plain 
immediately  behind  it,  would  be  absolutely  pestilential  to  an  army  quartered 
there  during  the  heats  of  summer ;  and  the  Athenians,  when  besieging  Syracuse 
seventeen  years  before,  had  severely  suffered  from  its  influence.57  But  now  the 
season  was  unusually  hot,  and  from  the  prevalence  of  epidemic  disease  in  Africa 
about  this  period,  it  is  likely  that  the  constitutions  of  many  of  the  Carthaginian 
soldiers  would  be  more  than  usually  susceptible  of  infection.  Accordingly,58  the 
disorder  which  broke  out  in  the  besieging  army  more  resembled  the  most  malignant 
pestilence  than  any  ordinary  form  of  marsh  or  malaria  fever.  The  patients  were 
commonly  carried  off  in  five  or  six  days  ;  and  the  disease  was  either.really  so  con- 
tagious, or  was  imagined  to  be  so,  that  no  one  dared  to  visit  the  sick,  or  to  pay 
them  the  most  necessary  attentions :  and  thus  all  who  were  taken  ill  were  left  to 
die  without  relief. 

This  visitation  broke  both  the  power  and  the  spirit  of  the  Carthaginians.  Dio- 
Dionysius  destroys  their  nysius69  now  made  a  sally,  and  attacked  them  both  by  sea  and  land. 

He  carried  their  post  at  the  temple  of  the  Olympian  Jupiter,  and 
that  at  Dascon,  at  the  very  bottom  of  the  harbor,  on  the  right  of  the  Anapus, 
where  the  Athenians  first  effected  their  landing.  Here  he  found  their  ships  drawn 
up  on  the  beach,  and  he  instantly  set  fire  to  them.  Meanwhile  the  Syracusan 
fleet  advanced  right  across  the  harbor,  and  surprised  the  enemy's  ships  before 
they  could  be  manned  and  worked  out  from  the  shore  to  offer  battle.  Thus  tak- 
ing them  at  a  disadvantage,  the  Greeks  sunk  or  shattered  them  without  resistance, 
or  surrounded  them  and  carried  them  by  boarding.  And  now  the  flames  began 
to  spread  from  the  ships  on  the  beach  to  those  which  lay  afloat  moored  close  to 
the  shore.  These  were  mostly  merchant  ships,  worked  by  sails  like  ours,  and 
consequently,  even  while  at  anchor,  they  had  their  masts  up  and  their  standing 
rigging.  As  the  flames  caught  these  and  blazed  up  into  the  air,  the  spectacle 
afforded  to  the  Syracusans  on  their  walls  was  most  magnificent.  The  crews  of 
the  burning  ships  leaped  overboard,  and  left  them  to  their  fate  ;  their  cables  were 
burnt,  and  the  blazing  masses  began  to  drift  about  the  harbor,  and  to  run  foul  of 
one  another ;  while  the  crackling  of  the  flames,  and  the  crashing  of  the  falling 
masts  and  of  the  sides  of  the  ships  in  their  mutual  shocks,  heard  amidst  volumes 

68  Kn\6v  torn,  ivrd&iov  f,  rvpavvls.      Isocratcs.        M  Diodorus,  XIV.  70,  71. 
Archidamus,  §  49,  p.  125.  6a  Diodorus,  XIV.  72-75. 

M  Tlmcydides,  VII.  47. 


CHAP.  XXL]  RETREAT  OF  THE  CARTHAGINIANS.  17« 

of  smoke  and  sheets  of  fire,  reminded  the  Syracusans  of  the  destruction  of  the 
giants  by  the  thunder  of  Jove,  when  they  had  assayed  in  their  pride  to  storm 
Olympus.60 

Thus  called,  as  they  thought,  by  the  manifest  interposition  of  heaven  to  finish 
the  work,  the  very  old  men  and  boys  of  Syracuse  could  bear  to  look  Rejoicings  of  the  syr. 
on  idly  from  their  walls  no  longer,  but  getting  into  the  large  punts  acusails- 
or  barges,61  which  were  ordinarily  used  for  ferrying  men  and  cattle  across  the  har- 
bor, they  put  out  to  sea,  to  save  and  capture  such  of  the  enemy's  ships  asHie~ 
fire  had  not  yet  destroyed.  But  the  walls  were  crowded  with  fresh  spectators, 
for  as  the  report  of  the  victory  became  more  and  more  decided,  the  women,  chil- 
dren, and  slaves,  all  poured  out  from  their  houses,  and  hastened  to  enjoy  with 
their  own  eyes  the  sight  of  this  wonderful  deliverance.  When  the  day  was  over, 
the  Carthaginian  naval  force  was  almost  utterly  destroyed,  while  Dionysius  en- 
camped on  the  ground  which  he  had  won  near  the  temple  of  Olympian  Jupiter, 
having  the  remnant  of  the  besieging  arm)''  shut  in  between  his  position  on  one 
side,  and  the  walls  of  Syracuse  on  the  other. 

But  Imilcon  had  no  hope  of  continuing  the  contest  with  success  any  further. 
He  offered  all  the  treasure  in  his  camp,  amounting  to  three  hun-  Retreat  of  the  Carthft_ 
dred  talents,  to  purchase  the  unmolested  retreat  of  the  remainder  gLl>ians- 
of  his  armament.     "  This,"  said  Dionysius,  "  cannot  be  granted  ;  but  I  will  con- 
sent that  the  native  Carthaginians  shall  be  allowed  to  escape  by  night  to  Afr'ca," 
tipulating  nothing  for  their  subjects  and  allies.    He  foresaw  that  if  the  head  were 
ms  taken  from  the  body,  the  body  would  instantly  fall  into  his  power ;  and  he 
ras  not  sorry  to  impress  the  Africans,  Iberians,  and  Sikelians,  with  a  strong  sense 
the  selfish  arrogance  of  the  Carthaginians,  who,  thinking  only  of  themselves, 
)andoned  their  allies  to  destruction  without  scruple.     Accordingly,  when  the 
Carthaginians  had  escaped,  the  rest  of  the  armament  attempted  to  provide  as 
ley  could  for  their  own  safety.     The  Sikelians  and  Africans  were  obliged  to  lay 
lown  their  arms,  after  the  former  had  endeavored  in  vain  to  make  good  their 
itreat  to  their  own  country  ;  but  the  Iberians  held  together,  and  made  so  for- 
lidable  a  show  of  resistance,  that  Dionysius  readily  listened  to  their  proposals  of 
entering  into  his  service.     They  became  a  part  of  his  mercenary  army  ;  and  while 
they  helped  to  secure  his  power  against  his  domestic  enemies,  they  also  added  to 
the  glory  of  his  arms  abroad :  and  in  the  strange  vicissitudes  of  human  fortune, 
these  same  Iberians,  who  had  been  enlisted  in  Spain,  taken  thence  to  Africa,  and 
afterwards  had  crossed  the  sea  to  Sicily  as  invaders,  were  some  years  later  sent 
over  from  Sicily  to  Greece,62  as  a  part  of  the  auxiliary  force  sent  by  Dionysius 
aid  the  Lacedaemonians  ;  and  fought  with  distinction  in  Laconia  under  the  eye  of 
L.gesilaus,  against  the  invading  army  of  Epaminondas. 

Thus  was  Dionysius  saved  from  imminent  ruin,  and  the  Greek  power  in  Sicily 
ras  preserved.     His  subsequent  wars  with  Carthage  were  of  no  state  of  the  carthagin- 
iportance,  for  arni.'Ist  much  variety  of  fortune  in  particular  en-  ian  power  in  Sicily- 
jagements,  the  relations  of  the  two  states  were  never  materially  altered ;  thp 
Carthaginians  reiViained  masters  of  all  the  western  part  of  the  island,  while  the 
stern  part  continued  to  be  under  the  dominion  of  Dionysius. 
After  the  destruction  of  this  great  armament,  Dionysius  felt  himself  able  to 
carry  on  his  plans  of  conquest  against  the  Greeks  of  Italy.     One  of 
his  first  measures  was  to  people  the  important  city  of  Messana.  »tta"  :81U8thorepaitaiiM 
The  remains  of  the  old  citizens,  who  had  been  driven  out  by  the 

60  Diodorus,  XIV.  73.   This  whole  description  61  TairopOntia.  Diodorus,  XIV.  74.  This  is  one 

aeerns  to  have  been  taken  from  the  history  of  of  the  touches  which  seem  to  argue  that  the 

Philistus,  who  was  probably  an  eye-witness  of  writer  of  the  description  was  at  any  rate  a  Syra- 

the  scene  :  so  that  the  comparison  is  not  to  be  cusan,  familiar  with  the  harbor  of  Syracuse.  Na 

regarded  as  the  mere  nourish  of  a  writer,  far  explanation  is  given  by  him,  because  tho  use  ol 

lernoved  in  time  and  space  from  the  action  which  these  KopOftela  was  to  him  so  familiar,  that  ha 

suggested  it,  but  as  one  which  really  arose  in  could  not  fancy  that  any  was  requisite, 

the  minds  of  the  Syracusans,  amidst  the  excite-  62  Xenophon,  Hellenic.  VII.  1,  §  20. 
merit  and  enthusiasm  of  the  actual  spectacle. 


]80  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  (CHAP  XXI 

Carthaginians,  returned  to  their  home  after  Imilcon's  defeat ;  but  their  numbers 
were  so  thinned,  that  Dionysius  added  to  them  a  large  body  of  new  citizens  from 
Locri  on  the  Italian  coast,  his  old  and  firm  ally,  and  from  a  Locrian  colony,63  Me- 
dama,  on  the  Tyrrhenian  sea,  which  had  probably  been  lately  conquered  by  the 
Lucanians.-  With  these  there  were  at  first  joined  some  exiles  from  old  Greece, 
of  the  race  of  the  old  Messenians ;  but  afterwards,  to  satisfy  the  jealousy  of  La- 
cedaemon,  they  were  removed  from  Messana,  and  founded  for  themselves  the 
new  city  of  Tyndaris.64 

The  principal  object  of  Dionysius'  hostility  among  the  Greek  cities  of  Italy 
was  Rhegium.     The  Rhegians  had  favored  his  political  adversa- 

Battle  of  the  Hfillepo-       .  TIT  n  rf  i     i   •          T  r       •  n  i   • 

ma,  and  conquest  of  ries,  and  had  personally  affronted  him  by  refusing  to  allow  him 
the  right  of  intermarriage  with  their  citizens.  But  his  ambition 
led  him  to  desire  the  dominion  of  all  the  coast  of  Italy  on  the  Ionian  sea ;  and 
he  entered  into  a  league  with  the  Lucanians,  as  has  been  already  mentioned, 
hoping  that  they  might  exhaust  the  Greek  cities,  by  their  constant  plundering 
warfare,  and  that  he  might  then  step  in  to  reap  the  harvest.  His  defeat  of  the 
combined  army  of  the  Italian  Greeks  on  the  banks  of  the  Helleporus,63  and  his 
conquest  of  Rhegium,66  Caulon,67  and  Hipponium,68  are  the  principal  events  of 
this  contest.  He  enlarged  Syracuse,  by  removing  thither  the  whole,  or  a  great 
part,  of  the  population  of  the  conquered  cities  ;  and  his  increased  power  and  influ- 
ence on  the  Italian  coast  facilitated  those  further  plans  of  aggrandizement  which 
have  been  already  noticed,  his  settlements  at  Issa  and  Lissus,  and  on  the  coast 
of  Picenum,  his  alliance  with  the  Illyrians,  and  his  trade  in  the  Adriatic. 

Thus  powerful  at  home  and  abroad,  and  possessing  a  far  greater  dominion  than 
. send« chariots  any  prince  or  state  in  old  Greece,  Dionysius  yet  felt  that  Greece 
3mti;eupfrzeieosf  was>  as  ^  W6r6'  tne  ^eart  au&  ^e  °f  tn6  civilized  world,  and  that 
at  Athens.  no  glory  would  be  universal  or  enduring  unless  it  had  received  its 
stamp  and  warrant  from  the  genius  of  Athens.  He  sent  chariots  to  Olympia,  to 
contend  for  the  prize  at  the  Olympic  games  ;69  he  sent  over  also  rhapsodists  most 
eminent  for  the  powers  of  their  voice  and  the  charm  of  their  recitation  to  rehearse 
his  poems  ;  and  he  was  repeatedly  a  candidate  for  the  prize  of  tragedy  at  Athens. 
Alexander,  indeed,  scorned  to  contend  for  victory  at  the  Olympic  games  unless 
kings  could  be  his  competitors ;  but  in  such  matters  there  was  a  wide  differ- 
ence between  a  king  and  a  tyrant,  between  the  descendant  of  a  long  line  of  princes,70 
sprung  from  Hercules,  the  son  of  Jove,  and  the  humble  citizen  of  Syracuse,  whom 
his  fortune  had  unexpectedly  raised  to  greatness.  There  is  a  story  that  the  pub- 
lic feeling  at  Olympia  was  so  strong  against  Dionysius  as  a  tyrant,71  that  the  tents 
of  his  theori,  or  deputies  to  the  Olympic  assembly,  were  plundered,  and  the  reci- 
tation of  his  verses  drowned  amidst  the  clamor  and  hisses  of  the  multitude.  But 
whether  this  be  true  or  false,  we  know  that  at  Athens  his  tragedies  were  by  no 
means  regarded  as  contemptible ;  he  gained  on  different  occasions  the  second  and 
third  prizes,  and  at  last  his  tragedy,  entitled  "Hector  Ransomed,"72  was  judged 
worthy  of  the  highest  prize. 

This  evident  desire  of  intellectual  fame,  united  with  the  powers  of  earning  it, 
tempted  the  philosophers  of  Greece  to  believe  that  they  should  find  in  Dionys- 

63  Diodorus,  XIV.  78.     The  present  reading  66  Diodorus,  XIV.  3. 
In  the  text  of  Diodorus  is  MC&/MWI/OWS,  for  which          r  Diodorus,  XIV.  106. 
Cluverius  has   conjectured    MefyWouy.     M£<5a-  68  Diodorus,  XIV.  107. 
uaiovs  would  be  still  nearer  the  present  reading,  63  Diodorus,  XIV.  109. 

and  MISaiia  is  the  name  of  the  city  in  Strabo,  70  In  an  earlier  age,  however,  an  ancestor  of  the 

VI.  1,  §  5,  p.  256,  and,  it  is  said,  on  one  of  its  great  Alexander,  the  Macedonian  king  of  the 

coins.     Medama,  or  Mesma,  is  described  as  a  same  name,  who  reigned  during  the  Persian  in- 

Locrian  colony  by  Strabo,  in  tne  passage  above  vasion,  was  anxious  to  be  admitted  as  a  compct- 

quotcd,  and  by  Scymnus  Chius,  V.  307.  itor  for  the  prize  at  the  Olympic  games,  even  in 

64  Diodorus,  XIV.  78.  the  foot  race,  and  he  ran  accordingly  in  the  sta- 

65  Polybius  calls  the  river  "  Elleporus,"  I.  6.  dium.    See  Herodotus,  V.  22. 
Diodorus  calls  it  "  Helorus,"  XIV/104.    I  sus-  71  Diodorus,  XIV.  109. 
pect  that  the  true  reading  in  Polybius  would  be  72  Diodorus,  XV.  74. 

f<  Helleporus," 


?.  XXL] 


MANNER  OF  LIVING  OF  DIONYSIUS. 


181 


a  man  who  could  sympathize  with  them  in  spite  of  his  political  HU  itter«mwe  wit* 
itness,  and  would  rejoice  to  associate  with  them  on  equal  terms.  lso-rates  und  Plato- 
>lato  visited  Syracuse,73  and  Isocrates,74  at  a  safer  distance,  addressed  to  Dionys- 
a  letter  of  compliment  from  Greece.     As  long  as  they  remained  on  the  op- 
site  shores  of  the  Ionian  sea,  the  philosopher  and  the  tyrant  might  correspond 
rith  each  other  without  offence.    But  many  are  the  stories  which  show  the  foil} 
supposing  that  an  equality  of  mind  can  triumph  over  the  differences  of  rank 
id  power.     No  man  can  associate  freely  with  another,  when  his  life  is  at  the 
jrcy  of  his  companion's  caprice.     Plato  soon  returned  to  Greece,  with  a  lesson 
)m  some  of  the  philosophers  of  Syracuse,  "  that  men  of  their  profession  would 
lo  well  either  to  shun  the  society  of  tyrants,75  or  else  in  their  intercourse  with 
lem,  to  study  how  they  could  please  them  most."     This  advice  is  said  to  have 
m  occasioned  by  a  practical  lesson  given  to  Plato  by  Dionysius,  which  ought 
to  have  rendered  it  superfluous ;  the  story  ran,  that  the  tyrant  was  so  offended 
with  something  that  Plato  had  said,  that  he  sent  him  forthwith  to  the  slave- 
market,  and  had  him  sold  as  a  slave,  but  that  the  philosophers  immediately  re- 
leemed  him  by  a  general  subscription  amongst  themselves,  and  then  urged  him 
quit  Sicily.     A  similar  story  is  told  of  the  poet  Philoxenus,  whom  Dionysius 
said  to  have  sent  from  his  own  table  to  his  prisons  in  the  quarries,  because  he 
expressed  an  unfavorable  opinion  of  the  tyrant's  poetry.     These  stories  may 
serve  but  little  credit  for  the  particular  facts ;  yet  the  intercourse  between 
Frederick  of  Prussia  and  Voltaire  was  interrupted  in  a  similar  manner,  and  the 
jsumption  of  literary  men  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  pride  of  rank  and  power 
the  other,  are  likely  to  lead  to  such  results. 

That  the  despot  of  Syracuse  should  not  scruple  to  send  a  poet  to  the  quarries 
id  to  sell  a  philosopher  in  the  slave-market,  is  nothing  wonder- 

i          -\ir  i  -IT  i      T  ji  c    it          His  private  life. 

il.     We  may  be  more  unwilling  to  believe  the  reports  of  the 
ite  of  miserable  fear  to  which  suspicion  could  reduce  one  so  able  and  so  daring 
Dionysius.     "  He  could  trust  no  man,"  it  was  said,76  "  but  a  set  of  miserable 
:edmen,  and  outcasts,  and  barbarians,  whom  he  made  his  body-guard.     He 
jneed  his  chamber  with  a  wide  trench,  which  he  crossed  by  a  draw-bridge  ;  he 
iver  addressed  the  Syracusan  people  but  from  the  top  of  a  high  tower,  where 
)  dagger  could  reach  him;    he  never  visited  his  wives  without  having  their 
ipartments  previously  searched,  lest  they  should  contain  some  lurking  assassin ; 
lay,  he  dared  not  allow  himself  to  be  shaved  by  any  hands  except  his  own 
daughters' ;  and  even  them  he  was  afraid  to  intrust  with  a  razor ;  but  taught 
them  how  to  singe  off  his  beard  with  hot  walnut-shells."     Much  of  this  is  prob- 
)ly  exaggeration,  but  the  Greek  tyrants  knew  that  to  kill  them  was  held  to  be 
murder ;  and  it  is  no  shame  to  Dionysius,  if  his  nerves  were  overcome  by  the 
>urly  danger  of  assassination,  a  danger  which  appalled  even  the  iron  courage  of 
romwell. 

The  Greeks  had  no  abhorrence  for  kings :  the  descendant  of  a  hero  race,  rul- 
over  a  people  whom  his  fathers  had  ruled  from  time  inime-  Pecuiiar  character  oi 
lorial,  was  no  subject  of  obloquy,  either  with  the  people,  or  with  ^ ancient  tyrftnnies- 
philosophers.  But  a  tyrant,  a  man  of  low  or  ordinary  birth,  who  by  force 
fraud  had  seated  himself  on  the  necks  of  his  countrymen,  to  gorge  each  pre- 
dling  passion  of  his  nature  at  their  cost,  with  no  principle  but  the  interest  of  his 
m  power,  such  a  man  was  regarded  as  a  wild  beast  that  had  broken  into  the 
)ld  of  civilized  society,  and  whom  it  was  every  one's  right  and  duty  by  any 
leans,  or  with  any  weapon,  presently  to  destroy.  Such  monsters  of  selfishness 
Jhristian  Europe  has  rarely  seen.  If  the  claim  to  reign  by  "  the  grace  of  God" 


1  Diodorus,  XV.  7. 

74  Whether  the  letters  professing  to  be  writ- 
from  Isocrates  to  Dionysius  and  Philip  of 
"on,  and  published  at  the  end  of  his  ora- 

>ns,  are  genuine,  may  well  be  doubted  ;  al- 


though  the  fact  of  his  having  corresponded 
with  them  may  be  true  notwithstanding. 

75  Diodorus,  XV.  7.     At?  T&V  ao^bv  rots  rvpdv 
vot?  ij  c!>?  SjKi<n-«  ?}  wj  5j<5«rra  6/xtXeTv. 

76  Cicero,  Tusculan.  Disputat.  V.  20. 


182  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXII 

has  given  an  undue  sanction  to  absolute  power,  yet  it  has  diffused  at  the  same 
time  a  sense  of  the  responsibilities  of  power,  such  as  the  tyrants,  and  even  the 
kings  of  the  later  age  of  Greece,  never  knew.  The  most  unprincipled  of  modern 
sovereigns  would  yet  have  acknowledged  that  he  owed  a  duty  to  his  people,  for 
the  discharge  of  which  he  was  answerable  to  God  ;  but  the  Greek  tyrant  regarded 
his  subjects  as  the  mere  instruments  of  his  own  gratification  ;  fortune,  or  his  own 
superiority,  had  given  him  extraordinary  means  of  indulging  his  favorite  passions, 
and  it  would  be  folly  to  forego  the  opportunity.  It  is  this  total  want  of  regard 
for  his  fellow-creatures,  the  utter  sacrifice  of  their  present  and  future  improve- 
ment, for  the  sake  of  objects  purely  personal,  which  constitutes  the  guilt  of  Dio- 
nysius  and  his  fellow- tyrants.  In  such  men  all  virtue  was  necessarily  blighted  ; 
neither  genius,  nor  courage,  nor  occasional  signs  of  human  feeling,  could  atone  for 
the  deliberate  wickedness  of  their  system  of  tyranny.  Brave  and  able  as  Dionys- 
ius  was,  active,  and  temperate,  and  energetic,  he  left  behind  him  no  beneficial 
institutions ;  he  degraded  rather  than  improved  the  character  of  his  countrymen  ; 
and  he  has  therefore  justly  been  branded  with  infamy,  by  the  accordant  voice  of 
his  own  and  o£  after  ages ;  he  will  be  known  forever  as  Dionysius  the  tyrant . 


CHAPTER  XXII, 

CARTHAGE— BARBARIANS  OF  WESTERN  EUROPE— EAST  OF  EUROPE— GREECE- 
MACEDONIA— ILL  YRIA. 


"  Caaterum — qui  mortales  initio  coluerint,  indigenes  an  advecti,  parurn  compertum." — TACITUS 
Agricola,  XI. 

THE  enlarged  researches  of  our  own  times,  while  they  make  us  more  sensible 
Difficulties  of  ancient  °f  the  actual  extent  of  our  ignorance,  yet  encourage  us  with  the 
hope  that  it  will  gradually  be  diminished.  But  he  who  attempts 
to  write  history  in  the  interval  between  this  awakened  consciousness  of  the  defects 
of  our  knowledge,  and  that  fuller  light  which  may  hereafter  remove  them,  labors 
under  peculiar  disadvantages.  A  reputation  for  learning  was  cheaply  gained  in 
the  days  of  our  fathers,  by  merely  reading  the  works  of  the  Greek  and  Roman 
writers,  and  being  able  to  repeat  the  information  which  they  have  communicated. 

But  now  we  desire  to  learn,  not  what  existing  accounts  may  have  recorded  of 
a  people  or  a  race,  but  what  that  people  or  race  really  was,  and  did ;  we  wish 
to  conceive  a  full  and  lively  image  of  them,  of  their  language,  their  institutions, 
their  arts,  their  morals ;  to  understand  what  they  were  in  themselves,  and  how 
they  may  have  affected  the  fate  of  the  world,  either  in  their  own  times,  or  in 
after  ages.  These,  however,  are  questions  which  the  ancient  writers  were  often 
as  unable  to  answer  as  we  are  ;  happier,  it  may  be  thought,  than  we  in  this,  that 
they  had  no  painful  consciousness  of  ignorance.  To  repeat  what  the  Greek  and 
Roman  writers  have  left  on  record  of  Carthage,  and  its  dominion  in  Spain  and 
Africa,  would  be  an  easy  task,  but  at  the  same  time  most  unsatisfactory.  We 
look  around  for  other  witnesses,  we  question  existing  languages,  and  races,  and 
manners,  in  the  hope  of  gleaning  from  them  some  fuller  knowledge  of  extinct  na- 
tions, than  can  be  gained  from  the  scanty  accounts  of  foreigners  or  enemies. 

The  internal  state  of  Carthage  may  fitly  be  reserved  for  a  later  period  of  this 
c»rthage.  history.  It  will  be  enough  now  to  fill  up,  so  far  as  I  can,  that 


CHAP.  XXII.]  DOMINION  OF  CARTHAGE.  183 

sketch  of  her  dominion  and  foreign  relations,  which  has  been  begun  in  some 
measure  in  the  two  preceding  chapters. 

Iu  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century  before  the  Christian  era,  the  Carthaginians 
possessed  the  northern  coast  of  Africa,  from  the  middle  of  the 

.  r»    TT  i  1  *  J?  r-xtent  of  the   Cartna- 

greater  Syrtis  to  the  pillars  oi  Hercules,  a  country  reaching  trom  gini«n  dominion  in  Af- 
19  degrees,  east  longitude,  to  6  degrees,  west;  and  a  length  of  " 
>ast  which  Polybius1  reckoned  at  above  sixteen  thousand  stadia.  But  unlike 
le  compactness  and  organization  of  the  provinces  of  the  Roman  empire,  this  long 
line  of  coast  was,  for  the  most  part,  only  so  far  under  the  dominion  of  the  Car-- 
'thaginians,  that  they  possessed2  a  chain  of  commercial  establishments  along  its 
whole  extent,  and  with  the  usual  ascendency  of  civilized  men  over  barbarians, 
had  obliged  the  native  inhabitants  of  the  country,  whether  cultivators  of  the  soil 
or  wandering  tribes,  to  acknowledge  their  superiority.  But  in  that  part  where 
the  coast  runs  nearly  north  and  south,  from  the  Hermsean  headland,  or  Cape 
Bon,  to  the  lesser  Syrtis,  they  had  occupied  the  country  more  completely.  This 
was  one  of  the  richest  tracts  to  be  found  ;3  ant  here  the  CartLaginians  had  planted 
their  towns  thickly,  and  had  covered  the  open  country  with  their  farms  and  villas. 
This  was  their  *-g£ioixy,  the  immediate  domain  of  Carthage,  where  fresh  settle- 
ments were  continually  made  as  a  provision  for  the  poorer  citizens  ;4  settlements 
prosperous,  indeed,  and  wealthy,  but  politically  dependent,  as  was  always  the 
case  in  the  ancient  world ;  insomuch  that  the  term  #££ioixoj,  which  in  its  origin 
expressed  no  more  than  "  men  who  dwelt  not  in,  but  round  about  a  city,"  came 
to  signify  a  particular  political  relation,  theirs,  namely,  who  enjoyed  personal 
freedom,  but  had  no  share  in  the  government  of  their  country. 

Distinct  from  these  settlements  of  the  Carthaginians  themselves  were  the  sister 
cities  of  Carthage,  founded  immediately,  like  herself,  by  the  Phoeni-  Phoenician  coioniet  • 
cians  of  Tyre  and  Sidon,  although  her  fortune  had  afterwards  so  AMca< 
outgrown  theirs.  Amongst  these  Phoenician  colonies  were  Utica,5  more  famous 
in  Roman  than  in  Carthaginian  history,  Adrumetum,6  the  two  cities  known  by 
the  name  of  Leptis,  situated,  the  one  near  the  western  extremity  of  the  great 
Syrtis,  and  the  other  on  the  coast  between  the  lesser  Syrtis  and  the  Hermeean 
headland ;  and  Hippo,  a  name  so  closely  connected  in  our  minds  with  the  piety 
and  energy  of  its  great  bishop,  Augustine.  These  were  the  allies  of  Carthage, 
and  some  of  them  were  again  at  the  head  of  a  small  confederacy  of  states,7  who 
looked  up  to  them  for  protection,  as  they  in  their  turn  looked  up  to  Carthage. 
They  enjoyed  their  own  laws,  and  were  independent  in  their  domestic  govern- 
ment ;  but  in  their  foreign  relations  they  found,  in  common  with  all  the  weaker 
states  of  the  ancient  world,  that  alliance  with  a  greater  power  ended  sooner  or 
later  in  subjection. 

The  Phoenician  colonists,  who  founded  Carthage,  at  first  paid8  a  tribute  to  the 
native  Africans  on  whose  land  they  had  settled,  as  an  acknowl-  condition »f the AMO* 
edgment  that  the  country  was  not  their  own.  But  in  process  of  •»»s«et»ofc»rth»8a- 
time  they  became  what  the  Europeans  have  been  in  later  times  in  India,  no  longer 
dependent  settlers,  but  sovereigns ;  and  the  native  Africans,  driven  back  from  the 
coast  and  confined  to  the  interior,  were  reduced  to  the  condition  of  strangers  on 

i 

1  Polybius,  III.  39.  of  Basel ;  and  the  disputes  between  the  citizens 

*  'Ova  yiypairTai  TroAtoy/a™  J)  f[nt6pia  tvTjj  Ai/?6jJ  of  Basel  and  the  inhabitants  of  Liechstal,  and 
aitb  T>J?  XufmiJoff  rn?  nip'  'E<nr£0/<5aj  ju'xpi  'lipa-  the  other  country  towns,  seemed,  to  those  famil- 
K\Lid>v  crri\uv  tv  Aifivfj  irdvra  tart  KapxiSoviuv.  iar  with  ancient  history,  like  a  revival  of  the  po- 
Scylax,  Pcriplus,  p.  51,  52.  Ed.  Hudson.  litical  relations  of  Lacedaemon  and  Carthage. 

•  Polybius,  III.  23.     Diodorus,  XX.  8.     Scy-  5  Justin,  XVIII.  4. 

lax,  p.  49.  6  Sallust,  Bell.  Jugurth.  22,  80. 

4  Aristotle,  Politica,  VI.  5.     Within  the  last  7  In  the  second  treaty  between  Rome  and 

ten  years  an  exact  image  of  the  relation  of  the  Carthage,  the  contracting  parties  on  the  ono 

ancient  ntpioiicoi  to  their  ir6\is,  and  of  the  irrita-  side  are,  "  the  people  of  Carthage,  the  people  of 

tion  occasioned  by  it,  has  been  exhibited  to  the  Tyre,  and  the  people  of  Utica,  with  tlwir  allies." 

notice  of  Europe  on  more  than  one  occasion  in  Polybius,  III.  24. 

Switzerland.    Liechstal  was  one  of  the  Trepioucttes  8  Justin,  XVIII.  5. 


184  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXII 

their  own  soil.  They  understood  and  practised  agriculture,  but  we  know  not 
how  far  they  were  allowed  to  retain  the  property  of  the  land,  or  to  what  extent 
the  rich  Carthaginians  had  ejected  them,  and  employed  them  as  tenants  and  -cul- 
tivators of  the  soil  of  which  they  had  been  once  proprietors.  At  any  rate,  the 
Africans  were  in  the  condition  of  a  Roman  province ;  they9  were  ruled  despoti- 
cally by  the  Carthaginian  officers  sent  amongst  them,  and  were  subject  to  taxes, 
and  to  a  conscription  of  their  youth  to  serve  as  soldiers,  at  the  discretion  of  their 
governors.  In  the  first  Punic  war,  they  were  taxed  to  the  amount  of  fifty  per 
cent,  on  the  yearly  produce  of  their  land,  and  the  oppression  to  which  they  were 
subjected  made  them  enter  readily  and  zealously  into  the  quarrel  of  the  merce- 
nary soldiers,  during  their  famous  war  with  the  Carthaginians. 

The  contrast  between  Carthage  exercising  absolute  dominion  over  her  African 
subjects,  and  Rome  surrounded  by  her  Latin  and  Italian  allies, 

Differences  between  the  ,J  i        11  ••  -111  •  •    • 

situation  of  Carthage  and  gradually  communicating  more  widely  the  rights  ot  citizen- 

and  Rome  with  respect       ,.'  •>    .  ...  °.  .  /  i  &       />  -         •, 

to  their  subjects  and  ai-  ship,  so  as  to  change  alliance  into  union,  has  been  often  noticed, 
and  is  indeed  quite  sufficient  to  account  for  the  issue  of  the  Punic 
wars.  But  this  difference  was  owing  rather  to  the  good  fortune  of  Rome  and  to 
the  ill  fortune  of  Carthage,  than  to  the  wisdom  and  liberality  of  the  one  and  the 
narrow-mindedness  of  the  other.  Rome  was  placed  in  the  midst  of  people  akin 
to  herself  both  in  race  and  language ;  Carthage  was  a  solitary  settlement  in  a 
foreign  land.  The  Carthaginian  language  nearly  resembled  the  Hebrew  ;  it  be- 
longed to  the  Semitic  or  Aramaic  family.  Who  the  native  Africans  were,  and  to 
what  family  they  belonged,  are  among  the  most  obscure  questions  of  ancient  his- 
tory. But  it  is  one  of  the  consequences  of  that  wider  view  of  the  connection  of 
races  and  languages,  which  we  have  learnt  of  late  to  entertain,  that  the  state- 
ments to  be  found  in  the  traditional  or  mythic  reports  of  the  origin  of  nations, 
appear  in  some  instances  to  contain  in  them  a  germ  of  truth,  and  we  do  not  ven- 
ture, as  formerly,  to  cast  them  aside  as  mere  fables.  Thus  in  that  strange  ac- 
count of  the  peopling  of  Africa,  which  Sallust10  copied  from  Carthaginian  books, 
the  stream  of  migration  is  described  as  having  poured  into  northern  Africa  at  its 
western,  not  at  its  eastern  extremity,  by  the  straits  of  Gibraltar,  not  by  the  isth- 
mus of  Suez  and  by  Egypt.  And  we  read  that  the  invaders  were  Medians  and 
Persians,  who  had  marched  through  Europe  into  Spain,  as  a  part  of  the  great 
army  pf  Hercules.  They  found  the  north  of  Africa  possessed  by  an  older  race 
of  inhabitants,  the  Gsetulians  and  Libyans,  of  whose  origin  no  account  is  given. 
But  the  story  of  the  expedition  of  Hercules,  and  of  the  Medians  and  Persians11 
following  in  his  army,  and  entering  Africa  by  crossing  over  thither  from  Spain, 
may  at  least  lead  us  to  inquire  whether  any  affinity  can  be  traced  between  the 
language  of  the  Berbers,  the  descendants  of  the  ancient  Mauritanians,  and  that 
of  the  Basques,  the  descendants  of  the  old  Iberians ;  and  whether  the  languages 
of  the  native  tribes  of  north  Africa,  whether  agricultural  or  wandering,  may  not 
be  supposed  to  have  belonged  either  wholly  or  in  part  to  the  Indo- Germanic 
family,  rather  than  to  the  Semitic.  These  are  the  points  in  which  we  are  stand- 
ing half  way  between  the  equally  extreme  credulity  and  skepticism  of  the  last 
two  centuries,  and  that  fuller  knowledge  which  may  be  the  portion  of  our  pos- 
terity. But  whatever  may  be  discovered  as  to  the  African  subjects  of  Carthage, 
they  were  become  so  distinct  from  their  masters,  even  if  they  were  originally 
sprung  from  a  kindred  race,  that  the  two  people  were  not  likely  to  be  melted 
together  into  one  state ;  and  thus  they  remained  always  in  the  unhappy  and 
suspicious  relation  of  masters  and  of  slaves,  rather  than  in  that  of  fellow-citizens, 
or  even  of  allies. 

*  Polybius,  I.  72.  that  is.  in  what  is  now  Hungary,  were  said  by 

10  Bell.  Jugurthin.  20.    Uti  ex  libris  Pnnicis,  some,  he  tells  us,  to  have  been  a  colony  of  the 
qni  regis  lliempsalis  dicebantur,  interpretatum  Modes,  at  which  he  naturally  wonders.    It  is  sc 
nobis  est.  difficult,  in  these  stories,  to  distinguish  what  is 

11  The  Sigynnse,  a  people  whom  Herodotus  mere  confusion  or  invention  from  what  contains 
describes,  V.*9,  as  living  beyond  the  Danube,  a  germ  of  truth,  under  more  or  less  of  disguise, 


CHAP.  XXII]  THE  HALF-CASTE  AFRO-PHOENICIANS.  185 

The  dominion  of  Carthage  in  Africa,  as  it  resembled  in  many  other  respects 
that  of  the  British  in  India,  had  produced  also,  as  in  our  Indian  ^^  of  the  Af^ 
empire,  a  numerous  half-caste  population,  sprung  from  intermar-  J'1®™^ or  peoi>le 
riages  between  the  Carthaginians  and  the  native  Africans.  This 
mixed  race  was  known  by  the  name  of  Liby  or  Afro-Phoenicians  ;12  but  whether 
they  were  regarded  by  Carthage  as  a  source  of  strength,  or  suspected  as  danger- 
ous enemies,  we  have  no  sufficient  information  to  determine.  Perhaps  they  were 
thought  to  be  dangerous  at  home,  but  useful  and  trustworthy  abroad ;  and  thus 
they  were  sent  as  colonists  to  Spain,13  and  to  the  more  remote  parts  of  the  coast 
of  Africa,  without  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  just  as  the  poorer  citizens  of  Carthage 
itself  were  sent,  as  we  have  seen,  to  settlements  nearer  home.  If  we  can  trust 
the  text  and  the  authenticity  of  the  Greek  version  now  existing  of  the  voyage  of 
Hanno,  these  Afro-Phoenician  colonies  were  planted  on  a  very  large  scale;  for 
that  voyage  was  undertaken  for  the  purpose  of  settling  no  fewer  than  thirty 
thousand  Afro-Phoenicians14  along  the  shore  of  the  Atlantic  southward  of  the 
straits  of  Gibraltar. 

In  the  seventh  century  before  the  Christian  era,  i  Samian  ship15  bound  for 
Esrvpt  was  caught  in  a  violent  storm,  with  the  \\  ind  blowing 

OJ  r  .  .  &     Iberia,  or  Spain  :  Phoe- 

strongly  from  the  east.  The  ship  was  carried  altogether  out  ot  nician  colony  ofG«dir, 
her  course,  the  wind  continued  to  blow  from  the  east,  and  at  last 
she  was  actually  driven  through  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  and  the  first  land  which 
she  succeeded  in  making  was  the  coast  of  Tartessus  or  Tarshish,  the  southwest- 
ern coast  of  Spain.  The  Samians  found  that  the  storm  had  proved  their  best 
friend ;  they  returned  home  enriched  beyond  all  their  hopes,  for  the  port  of  Tar- 
shish, says  Herodotus,  was  at  that  time  fresh16  and  undisturbed  ;  the  gold  of  its 
neighboring  mines  was  a  treasure  not  yet  appreciated  by  its  possessors ;  they 
bartered  it  to  the  Samian  strangers  in  return  for  the  most  ordinary  articles  of  civ- 
ilized living,  which  barbarians  cannot  enough  admire.  This  story  makes  us  feel 
that  we  are  indeed  living  in  the  old  age  of  the  world.  The  country  then  so  fresh 
and  untouched  has  now  been  long  in  the  last  stage  of  decrepitude :  its  mines, 
then  so  abundant,  have  been  long  since  exhausted ;  and  after  having  in  its  turn 
discovered  and  almost  drained  the  mines  of  another  world,  it  lies  now  like  a  for- 
saken wreck  on  the  waves  of  time,  with  nothing  but  the  memory  of  the  past  to 
ennoble  it.  In  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century  of  Rome,  the  coast  of  Spain,17 
both  on  the  ocean  and  on  the  Mediterranean,  was  full  of  Carthaginian  trading 
settlements,  but  these  were  mostly  small,  and  of  no  great  celebrity.  Gadir,  or 
Gades,  on  the  other  hand,  a  colony  founded  directly  from  Tyre,18  had  been  long 

I  since  famous.  Here  was  one  of  the  most  celebrated  temples  of  the  Tyrian  Her- 
cules, and  its  trade  and  wealth  were  considerable ;  the  neighboring  country 
being  rich  in  mines,  while  the  sea  yielded  an  inexhaustible  supply  of  fish,  which 
was  commonly  sold  in  the  Athenian  markets  as  early  as  the  Peloponnesian  war.1" 
But  except  Gades,  the  Greek  seamen  knew  of  no  other  place  of  importance  on 
the  coast  of  Spain  at  this  period,  till  they  came  north  of  the  Iberus,  to  the  coun- 
try which  was  then  inhabited  by  the  Ligurians.  Here  there  was  the  Greek  set- 
tlement of  Emporion,20.an  offshoot  from  the  Phocsean  colony  of  Massalia.  If  Sa- 
guntum  was  really  a  city  of  Greek  or  Tyrrhenian  origin,  founded  by  colonists 
from  Zacynthus  and  Ardea,  it  seems  to  have  retained  no  marks  of  the  Greek 
character ;  it  had  no  seaport,  and  though  it  was  itself  near  the  coast,  yet  it  was 
not  of  sufficient  importance  to  attract  the  notice  of  the  Greek  navigator,*. 

The  great  Spanish  peninsula  itself,  and  its  original  inhabitants,  the  various  tribes 
of  the  Iberian  race,  were  as  yet  but  little  known  to  the  rest  of  the  world.     Sicil- 

B  Polybius,  III.  33.  "  Scylax,  Periplus,  p.  1. 

M  Scymnus  Chius,  V.  195, 196.  M  Strabo,  III.  prope  tinem, 

14  Hanno,  Periplus,  p.  1.    Ed.  Hudson.  w  Pollux,  VI.  48.    Eupoli,  quoted  by  Step  ba- 

16  Herodotus,  IV.  152.  nus  Byzant.  in  TdScipa. 

.  m  Scylax,  Periplus,  p.  1. 


186  HISTORF  OF  ROME  [CHAP.  XXII 

Natire  iberisns-,  their  ^ii  antiquarians21  derived  the  oldest  part  of  the  population  of  their 
»ce  and  character.  jsian(jj  the  Sicanians,  from  the  northeastern  coast  of  Spain.  The 
Iberians  had  for  some  time  been  accustomed  to  serve  in  the  Carthaginian  armies ; 
their  name  occurs  amongst  the  various  nations  who  composed  the  great  host  oi 
Hamilcar22  when  he  invaded  Sicily  in  the  time  of  Gelon,  and  was  defeated  in  the 
famous  battle  of  Himera.  The  Iberians  were  known  to  the  Athenians23  as  amongst 
the  most  warlike  of  the  barbarians  of  the  west,  whom  they  purposed  to  employ 
in  conquering  their  Peloponnesian  enemies,  had  success  at  Syracuse  enabled  them 
to  fulfil  their  more  remote  designs  ;  and  we  have  seen  Iberians  distinguished  above 
all  the  other  soldiers  in  the  same  service,  in  the  great  Carthaginian  expedition 
which  Imilcon  led  against  the  tyrant  Dionysius.  Another  circumstance  removed 
them  even  more  than  their  remarkable  courage  from  the  common  mass  of  barba- 
rians. Writing  was  common  among  them ;  and  some  of  their  tribes24  possessed 
written  records  of  their  past  history,  not  composed  in  verse,  besides  numerous 
poems,  and  large  collections  of  laws  and  institutions  in  a  metrical  form,  amount- 
ing, it  was  said,  to  about  six  thousand  lines.  We  ourselves  have,  in  some  degree, 
a  national  interest  in  the  Iberians,  if  it  be  true  that  colonies  of  their  race  crossed 
the  Bay  of  Biscay,  and  established  themselves  on  the  coast  of  Cornwall.  But 
their  memory  has  almost  utterly  perished ;  we  know  not  with  what  race  of  man- 
kind they  were  connected ;  and  although  the  Basque  dialect,  still  spoken  on  both 
sides  of  the  Pyrenees,  is  supposed  to  be  a  remnant  of  their  language,  yet  its  rela- 
tion to  other  languages  appears  to  have  been  not  yet  ascertained,  so  as  to  inform 
us  to  what  family  it  belongs.  It  may  be  hoped  that  this,  as  well  as  the  deci- 
phering of  the  Etruscan  monuments,  may  be  amongst  the  discoveries  reserved  for 
our  own  generation,  or  for  that  of  our  children. 

From  the  Pyrenees  to  the  frontiers  of  Etruria,25  the  coast  of  the  Mediterranean 
was  occupied  by  the  Ligurians,  a  people  distinguished  by  the 
Greeks  both  from  the  Iberians  and  from  the  Kelts,  although  they 
are  supposed  to  have  been  connected  with  the  latter  nation  in  their  race  and 
language.  As  the  Ligurians  dwelt  on  the  coast,  they  became  known  to  the  Car- 
thaginians ;  and  thus  Ligurians26  are  named  together  with  Iberians  amongst  the 
soldiers  of  Hamilcar's  expedition  to  Sicily,  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century 
before  the  Christian  era.  In  the  time  of  Scylax,  a  few  years  later  than  our  pres- 
ent period,  the  Ligurians  and  Iberians  were  mixed  together  on  the  coast,  between 
the  Pyrenees  and  the  Rhone,  and  the  exclusive  dominion  of  the  Ligurians  only 
extended  from  the  Rhone  to  Etruria.  But  Thucydides  mentioned  it  as  an  ascer- 
tained fact,27  that  at  a  very  remote  period  they  had  dislodged  the  Sicanians  from 
their  land  on  the  Sicanian  river  in  Iberia,  and  that  these,  flying  before  their  con- 
querors, went  over  and  settled  in  Sicily.  We  cannot  certainly  tell  what  river  is 

21  Thucydides,  VI.  2,  following  Antiochus.  country  there  are  three  distinct  dialects,  and 

23  Herodotus,  VII.  165.  that  with  regard  to  one  of  these  nothing  satis- 

23  Thucydides,  VI.  90.  factory  had  been  published  when  Von  Hum- 

24  Strabo,  III.  p.  139.     Here  again  Niebuhr's  boldt  wrote,  while  the  lexicon  or  vocabulary  oi 
sagacity  has  corrected  the  common  reading,  another  was  far  from  perfect.    I  notice  this,  be- 
vdftovs  fHfjLirpovs  ffrKiaxi'Mwv  ITU>V,  which,  as  he  cause  words  may  exist  in  these  dialects  which 
observes,  would  not  be  Greek,  into  vdpovs  e&Ki-  may  go  far  to  establish  the  resemblance  of  the 
o-x^'wv  hiav.  Basque  language  to  others,  or  to  prove  its  di- 

When  this  page  was  written,  I  had  not  seen    versity ;  and  may  explain  those  names  in  the 


judgme 

character,  and  of  the  conclusion  which  it  endeav-  from  the  Kelts;  'but  they  may  have  had  the 
ored  to  establish.  He  considers  it  to  be  cer-  same  degree  of  connection .with  them  which  sub- 
tain  that  the  present  Basque  language  is  sub-  sisted  between^  all  the  nations  of  the  great  Indo- 
stantially  the  same  with  the  ancient  Iberian :  Germanic  family.  He  does  not  believe  in  the 
the  names  of  places  in  the  ancient  geography  Iberian  extraction  of  any  part  of  the  inhabitants 
of  Spain  being,  for  the  most  part,  not  only  sig-  of  the  British  Islands. 

nificant  in  Basque,  but  exhibiting  in  their  sound,  ^  Scylax,  p.  2.     Herodotus  speaks  of  "th« 

and  in  their  omission  of  some  letters,  and  their  Ligurians  who  live  above  Massaha."    V  9. 

combinations  of  others,  the  peculiarities  of  the  28  Ilerodot.  VII.  165. 

existing  language.  It  appears  that  in  the  Basque  27  Thucydides,  VI.  2. 


CHAP.  XXIL]  THE  KELTS,  OR  GAULS.  187 

meant,  nor  what  limits  Thucydides  assigned  to  Iberia ;  but  a  migration  to  Sicily, 
rather  than  to  Corsica  or  Sardinia,  becomes  probable,  in  proportion  as  we  place 
the  Sicanians  further  to  the  south,  and  nearer  to  the  trading  settlements  of  the 
Carthaginians  or  Phoenicians.  Perhaps  the  Ligurians  advanced  along  the  coast 
from  east  to  west,  expelling  or  conquering  the  Iberian  tribes  ;  till  at  last,  when 
the  force  of  their  irruption  was  spent,  the  Iberians  recovered  their  former  coun- 
try, wholly  between  the  Iberus  and  the  Pyrenees,  and  partially  between  the  Pyr- 
enees and  the  Rhone.  At  any  rate,  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  Iberians, 
and  not  the  Kelts,  were  the  inhabitants  of  the  country  between  the  Pyrenees  and 
the  Garonne  and  the  Cevennes,  as  is  shown  even  to  this  day,  by  the  existence  of 
the  Basque  language  in  the  south  of  France  no  less  than  in  Spain. 

It  may  be  true,  indeed,  that  the  Kelts  or  Gauls  had  long  before  the  fourth  cen- 
tury of  Rome  crossed  the  Alps,  and  established  themselves  in  that  „, 

*  ,    .      ,  ,,  Af      'T  ,1  ,•  /•     Al  A  .      '  The    KeltB'    Of    GaulB: 

country,  which  now  forms  the  Lombard  portion  of  the  Austrian  **%£££* " y8t 
dominions  in  northern  Italy.  It  may  be  true  also  that  Keltic  tribes 
were  to  be  found  in  the  heart  of  Spain ;  for,  before  civilization  has  asserted  its 
power,  nations,  like  rivers,  are  continually  changing  their  boundaries,  and  take 
their  own  course  almost  at  pleasure.  But  as  the  Kelts  had  most  certainly  nei- 
ther crossed  the  Apennines,  nor  reached  as  yet  the  shores  of  the  Adriatic,  they 
had  no  connection  with  the  civilized  world  ;  the  Carthaginians  had  no  opportunity 
of  enlisting  them  into  their  armies,  nor  had  the  Greek  traders  acquired  any  direct 
knowledge  of  them.  Their  name  was  known  only  through  the  reports  of  those 
Phoenicians28  who  navigated  the  Atlantic  and  the  Bay  of  Biscay,  on  their  way  to 
the  tin  mines  of  Britain.  And  this  explains  the  strange  description  of  their  position 
given  by  Herodotus,29  "  that  the  Kelts  dwell  without  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  and 
that  they  border  on  the  Kynesians,  who  live  the  farthest  to  the  west  of  all  the 
people  of  Europe."  This  is  clearly  the  language  of  some  Phoenician  Periplus  of 
the  western  coasts  of  France  and  Spain :  the  Kynesians30  must  have  lived  on  the 
coasts  of  Portugal,  Gallicia,  and  Asturias ;  perhaps  on  that  of  Gascony  and  Gui- 
enne :  beyond  these,  as  the  voyager  pursued  his  course  along  the  land,  he  came 
to  the  country  of  the  Kelts  who  occupied  the  whole  coast  north  of  the  Garonne, 
and  were,  very  probably,  intermixed  with  the  Iberian  Kynesians  on  the  coasts  of 
Gascony  and  Navarre.  The  Greeks,  when  they  read  this  account,  little  suspected 
that  these  same  Kelts  reached  from  the  shores  of  the  ocean  inland  as  far  as  the 
Alps,  and,  possibly,  nearly  to  the  head  of  the  Adriatic  ;  and  that  while  they  heard 
of  them  only  as  dwelling  without  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  they  were  advanced  in 
the  opposite  direction,  almost  within  the  ordinary  horizon  of  Greek  observation, 
and  in  a  very  short  time  would  unexpectedly  appear  like  a  wasting  torrent  in  the 
heart  of  Italy.  The  narrow  band  of  coast  occupied  by  the  Ligurian  and  Venetian 
tribes  was  as  yet  sufficient  to  conceal  the  movements  of  the  Kelts  from  the  notice 
of  the  civilized  world.  Thus  immediately  before  that  famous  eruption  which  de- 
stroyed Herculaneum  and  Pompeii,  the  level  ridge31  which  was  then  Vesuvius  ex- 
cited no  suspicion ;  and  none  could  imagine  that  there  were  lurking  close  below 
that  peaceful  surface  the  materials  of  a  fiery  deluge,  which  were  so  soon  to  burst 
forth,  and  to  continue  for  centuries  to  work  havoc  and  desolation. 

"We  can  trace  with  great  distinctness  the  and  character  in  different  parts  of  his  philosoph- 

period  at  which  the  Kelts  became  familiarly  ical  works, 

known  to  the  Greeks.     Herodotus  only  knew  M  II.  33,  IV.  49. 

of  them  from  the  Phoenician  navigators :  Thu-  *>  There  is  no  mention  of  these  Cynesians,  so 

cydides  dees  not  name  them  at  all :  Xenophon  far  as  I  remember,  in  any  ancient  writer,  except 

only  notices  them  as  forming  part  of  the  aux-  in  the  two  passages  of  Herodotus  quoted  above, 

iliary  force  sent  by  Dionysius  to  the  aid  of  La-  Niebuhr  places  them  to  the  north,  rather  than 

cedsemon.   Isocrates  makes  no  mention  of  them,  to  the  west,  of  the  Kelts  (Kleine  Histor.  Schrif- 

But  immediately  afterwards,  their  incursions  ten,  p.  142) ;  but  I  do  not  see  why  this  is  neces- 

into  central  and  southern  Italy  on  the  one  hand,  sary.    The  account  in  the  text  seems  sufficiently 

jmd  into  the  countries  between  the  Danube  to  explain  the  description  in  Herodotus, 

and  Macedonia  on  the  other,  had  made  them  81  Vicina  Vesevo  orajugo.    Since  the  erup- 

objects  of  general  interest  and  curiosity ;  and  tion  no  one  would  ever  have  called  the  top  ol 

Aristotle  notices  several  points  in  their  habits  Vesuvius  a  "  jugum." 


188  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXII 

Fiom  the  countries  :f  western  Europe,  on  which  the  first  faint  dawn  of  histor- 
ical lisfht  had  as  yet  scarcely  broken,  we  turn  to  the  heart  of  the 

Greece.    Supremacy  of       .     ...   °  ,  ,  ,      . J      , .  -IT  V    ^  i  •    i      i        i        T  i 

UwAwnon.  oiynthian  civilized  world,  to  those  republics  of  Greece  which  had  already 
reached  their  highest  point  of  glory  and  advancement,  and  were 
now  feeling  the  first  approach  of  decay,  like  a  plant  when  its  seed  is  almost  ripe, 
and  ready  to  be  shed  or  wafted  by  the  winds  to  a  distance,  there  to  multiply  the 
race  of  its  parent.  According  to  the  synchronism  of  Polybius,32  the  invasion  of 
Rome  by  the  Gauls  took  place  in  the  same  year  with  the  conclusion  of  the  peace 
of  Antalcidas,  that  is,  in  the  second  year  of  the  ninety-eighth  Olympiad.  Prob- 
ably it  should  be  placed  a  few  years  later  ;  but  at  any  rate,  it  falls  within  the 
period  of  the  Lacedaemonian  supremacy  in  Greece,  after  the  humiliation  of  Athens 
by  the  result  of  the  Peloponnesian  war,  and  before  the  rise  of  the  power  of 
Thebes.  Never  was  dominion  wielded  by  such  unfit  hands  as  those  of  the  Spar- 
tans. Living  at  home  under  an  iron  system,  which  taught  each  successive  gen- 
eration that  their  highest  virtue  was  to  preserve  and  not  to  improve  the  institu- 
tions of  their  fathers,  the  Lacedaemonians  were  utterly  unable  to  act  the  part  of 
conquerors ;  for  conquest,  being  the  greatest  of  all  possible  changes,  can  only  be 
conducted  by  those  who  know  how  to  change  wisely.;33  a  conqueror  who  is  the 
slave  of  existing  institutions,  is  no  better  than  a  contradiction.  Thus  the  Spartans 
had  no  idea  of  turning  their  triumph  over  Athens  to  any  other  account  than  that 
of  their  own  pride  and  rapacity  ;  neither  the  general  intercourse  between  nation 
and  nation,  nor  commerce,  nor  intellectual  nor  moral  excellence,  derived  any  benefit 
from  their  ascendency.  It  was  therefore  unnatural,  and  fulfilled  no  object  of 
God's  providence,  except  that  of  being  an  instrument  for  the  chastisement  of  others; 
so  that  it  could  only  sow  the  seed  of  future  wars,  till,  having  heaped  up  the  meas- 
ure of  insult  and  oppression,  it  at  last  drew  down  its  just  judgment.  But  the 
growth  of  that  spirit  of  organization  and  self-government,  which  the  high  intelli- 
gence of  the  Greek  mind  could  not  but  foster,  was  seen  in  the  formation  of  the 
Oiynthian  confederacy.34  Among  the  Chalcidian  and  Bottisean  towns  of  the  penin- 
sula of  Pallene  and  its  neighborhood,  places  whose  fate  it  had  been  hitherto  to  be 
the  mere  subjects  of  some  greater  power,  we  now  witness  the  growth  of  an  inde- 
pendent political  system,  of  which  the  head  was  not  to  be  Sparta  nor  Athens, 
but  Olynthus.  This  was  a  proof  that  the  vigor  of  the  Greek  character  was  de« 
veloping  itself  in  a  wider  circle  than  heretofore,  and  prepares  us  for  the  change 
so  soon  to  be  effected  by  the  genius  of  Philip  and  Alexander,  when  the  centre  of 
the  power  and  outward  activity  of  Greece  was  to  be  found  in  Macedon,  while 
Athens  still  remained  the  well-spring  of  its  intellectual  vigor. 

The  eastern  coast  of  the  Adriatic  is  one  of  those  ill-fated  portions  of  the  earth 
which,  though  placed  in  immediate  contact  with  civilization,  have 

Eastern     coast   of  the  •         i         ^       r        ,,         •.         ,         •  TT        •    •        i  i     •      i         i         i 

fifdxhes  ro?!ul°ssian8  remame<^  perpetually  barbarian.  Unvisited,  and  indeed  almost 
inaccessible  to  strangers  from  the  robber  habits  of  the  population, 
the  Dalmatian  provinces  of  Austria,  no  less  than  those  of  Montenegro  and  Al- 
bania, which  are  not  yet  reunited  to  Christendom,  are  to  this  hour  as  devoid  of 
illustrious  names  and  noble  associations,  as  they  were  in  the  fourth  century  be- 
fore the  Christian  era.  From  the  gulf  of  Ambracia,  the  northwestern  boundary 
of  Greece,  up  to  the  head  of  the  Adriatic,  the  coast  was  occupied  by  the  Mo- 
lossians,  Thesprotians,  Chaonians,  and  beyond  these,  by  the  various  tribes35  of 
the  great  Illyrian  nation,  amongst  whom  Herodotus  included  even  the  Henetians 
or  Venetians,  at  the  northern  extremity  of  this  whole  region.  In  remote  times, 
before  the  Hellenic  race  began  to  assume  a  character  so  distinct  from  all  its 

32  I.  6.  ians,  pp.  6,  7.    And  so  also  does  Livy,  X.  2. 

33  'H<jvxa£owT)    fjirv    ir6\£t    ra    aKivrjra    vdmfia  But  Plerodotus,  as  I  have  said,  reckons  even 
fytara •  irpoj  xo'xXa  fif  avayKa^o/jtivotg  ttvai  TroAAijj  the  Venetians  as  Illyrians,  I.  196,  and  Strabo 
KOI  r/7?  f7r«r£xi/>7(r£ws  tat.    Thucyd.  I.  71.  calls  the  whole  eastern  coast  of  the  Adriatic, 

84  Xenophon,  Ilellenica,  V.  2,  §  12,  et  seqq.       Illyricum,  as  far  as  the  very  head  of  the  gulf. 
15  Scylax  distinguishes  the  Venetians,  as  well    VII.  pp.  313,  314. 
as  the  Istrians  and  Liburnians,  from  the  Illyr- 


CHAP.XXIL]  MOLOSSIANS,  THESPROTIANS,  ETC.  189 

kindred  nations,  the  Molossians,  Thesprotians,  and  Chaonians,  all  of  them,  it.  is 
probable,  Pelasgian  tribes,  were  both,  in  their  religion  and  in  their  traditions  of 
their  heroes,  closely  connected  with  the  Greeks.  The  ancient  temple  of  Dodona, 
once  no  less  famous  than  Delphi  became  afterwards,  belonged  to  the  Thespro- 
tians ;  the  son  of  Achilles  was  said  to  have  reigned  over  the  Molossians ;  and 
even  within  historical  memory,  the  names  of  Molossian  kings  and  chiefs  are  of 
Greek  origin,  such  as  Alcon,  one  of  the  suitors  of  the  fair  Agariste,  the  daugh- 
ter of  Clisthenes  of  Sicyon,  and  still  later,  Admetus,  the  protector  of  Themisto- 
cles  in  his  disgrace,  and  Alcetas,  the  ally  of  Dionysius  of  Syracuse.  But  the 
mass  of  the  people  were  considered  to  be  barbarian,  and  their  fortunes  were  dis- 
tinct from  those  of  Greece,  till  the  brilliant  reign  of  Pyrrhus,  more  than  a  cen- 
tury after  our  present  period,  for  a  time  united  them. 

The  Illyrians  were  already  notorious  for  their  piracies,  and  it  was  remarked  of 
them,  that  some  of  their  tribes  were  governed  by  queens.36    Their 
queen  Teuta,  and  her  wars  with  the  Romans,  will  give  me  an  op- 
portunity of  noticing  them  more  fully  hereafter ;  and  so  rapidly  is  our  knowl- 
edge increasing,  that  ere  long  we  may  possibly  gain  some  clue  to  assist  us  in 
discovering  the  race  and  language  of  the  Illyrians,  points  which  at  present  are 
involved  in  the  greatest  obscurity. 

We  are  within  five-and-twenty  years  of  the  accession  of  Philip  to  the  throne 
of  Macedon,  but  so  entirely  was  the  Macedonian  Greatness  his 

,  i       .,      .          •-.  •  •  r       -i      ,    'L  Macedon.      Reipn    of 

own  personal  work,  that  nothing  as  yet  gave  sign  ot  what  it  was  Amymua,  uu»  father  of 
so  soon  to  become.  His  father,  Amyntas,  was  at  this  time  king, 
and  unable  even  to  cope  with  the  Olynthian  confederacy,  which  had  lately  grown 
up  in  his  neighborhood.  Many  of  the  cities  of  Macedonia  were  won  by  the 
Olynthians,37  and  Amyntas  was  most  rejoiced  to  obtain  the  aid  of  Lacedsemon 
to  establish  him  on  his  throne  by  putting  down  this  formidable  enemy.  The 
Macedonians38  were  not  allowed  to  be  Greeks,  although  they  were  probably  of 
a  kindred  stock,  and  although  the  Greek  language  was  now  in  universal  use 
among  them.  But  their  kings  were  of  the  noblest  Greek  blood,  being  Heracli- 
dae  from  Argos,  claiming  descent  from  Temenus,  one  of  the  three  hero  chiefs  of 
the  race  of  Hercules,  who  had  established  themselves  in  Peloponnesus  by  the  aid 
of  the  Dorians.  The  people  were  stout,  brave,  and  hardy,  and  more  numerous 
than  the  citizens  of  the  little  Greek  commonwealths ;  so  that  Philip  afterwards 
found  no  difficulty  in  raising  a  considerable  army,  when  he  began  to  aspire  to 
the  honor  of  making  himself  the  first  power  in  Greece.  But  as  yet,  though 
Archelaus  had  made  roads  through  the  country,39  and  had  collected  largo  sup- 
plies of  arms  to  arm  his  people,  the  friendship  and  the  enmity  of  Macedon  were 
of  little  value,  and  none  could  have  imagined  that  the  fatal  blow  to  the  inde- 
pendence of  Greece  was  to  come  from  a  kingdom  which  as  yet  scarcely  belonged 
to  the  Greek  name,  and  in  the  struggles  for  dominion  between  Athens  and  La- 
cedcemon,  had  been  only  a  subordinate  auxiliary. 

Further  to  the  east,  the  great  Persian  monarchy  still  existed  unimpaired  in 
the  extent  of  its  visible  dominion,  although  ready  at  the  first  state  of  the  Pci8ian 
touch  to  fall  to  pieces.  All  of  Asia,  of  which  the  Greeks  had  any  monivrd'>'- 
knowledge,  from  the  shores  of  the  ^Egaean  to  the  Indus  and  the  Araxes,  from 
the  Erythraean  sea  southwards  to  the  Caspian  and  the  chain  of  Caucasus,  obeyed, 
to  speak  generally,  the  great  king.  In  Africa,  however,  it  was  otherwise  :  Egypt 

36  Ai/?itpvoJ  yvvatKOKparovvrat.  Scylax,  Periplus,  saying,  that  he  himself  was  of  Greek  origin,  al- 
p.  7.   This  is  on  the  assumption  that  the  labor-  hiding  to  his  supposed  descent  from  Temenus 
nians  were  either  Illyrians,  or,  at  any  rate,  of  a  the  lieraclid.    This  would  have  been  needless, 
kindred  stock.  had  his  birth  as  a  Macedonian  made  him  a 

37  Xenophon,  Hellenica,  V.  2,  §  13,  3,  §  9.  Greek.     Again,  Thucydides  distinguishes  the 

38  Alexander,  the  son  of  Amyntas,  when  he  Macedonians  from  the  Greeks  who  were  settled 
went  over  wiUi  some  secret  information  to  the  on  their  coast,  and  even  expressly  includes 
Greek  camp,  before  the  battle  of  Plataja,  is  them  amongst  the  barbarians,  IV.  l'J4,  12G. 
represented  by  Herodotus  (IX.  45)  as  account-  3U  Thucydides,  II.  100. 

ing  for  his  interest  in  the  welfare  of  Greece  by 


190  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXIII 

had  been  for  some  years  in  revolt,  was  again  governed  by  a  dynasty  of  its  na- 
tive princes,  and  had  defied  the  efforts  of  the  Persian  kings  to  reconquer  it. 
And  this  example,  together  with  the  long  war  carried  on  against  the  Persians  by 
Evagoras,  the  tyrant  of  the  little  state  of  Salamis,  in  Cyprus,  and  the  belt  of 
Greek  cities  encircling  the  whole  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  from  Trapezus  on  the 
Euxine  to  Cnidus  by  the  Triopian  cape,  was  tending  gradually  to  dissolve  the 
Persian  power.  The  great  king's  hold  on  Caria  and  Cilicia  was  loosened,  and 
when  Isocrates  wrote  his  Panegyrical  Oration,  in  the  beginning  of  the  hundredth 
Olympiad,40  Tyre  was  in  the  possession  of  the  king's  enemies,  and  its  naval  force 
strengthened  for  a  time  the  arms  of  Evagoras. 

Such  was  the  state  of  the  civilized  world,  when  the  Kelts  or  Gauls  broke 
Co  lusion  through  the  thin  screen  which  had  hitherto  concealed  them  from 

sight,  and  began,  for  the  first  time,  to  tsie  their  part  in  the  great 
drama  of  the  nations.  For  nearly  two  hundred  years  they  continued  to  fill  Eu- 
rope and  Asia  with  the  terror  of  their  name ;  but  it  was  a  passing  tempest,  and 
if  useful  at  all,  it  was  useful  only  to  destroy.  The  Gauls  could  communicate  no 
essential  points  of  human  character  in  which  other  races  might  be  deficient ; 
they  could  neither  improve  the  intellectual  state  of  mankind,  nor  its  social  and 
political  relations.  When,  therefore,  they  had  done  their  appointed  work  of 
havoc,  they  were  doomed  to  be  themselves  extirpated,  or  to  be  lost  amidst  na- 
tions of  greater  creative  and  constructive  power  ;  nor  is  there  any  race  which  has 
left  fewer  traces  of  itself  in  the  character  and  institutions  of  modern  civilization. 


CHAPTER  XXIII, 

MISCELLANEOUS— PHYSICAL  HISTORY. 


"Postrema  vero  partitio  historic  ciyilis  ca  sit,  ut  dividatur  in  meram  aut  mixtam.  Mixtures 
^Icbrcs  dvue :  altcra  ex  scientia  civili ;  altera  pracipue  ex  naturali." — BACON,  De  Augmentis 
Sciential-.  II.  10. 


A  GREAT  work  might  be  written  on  the  connection  between  the  revolutions  of 
nature  and  those  of  mankind  :  how  they  act  each  upon  the  other  ; 
of  physical  S£  how  man  is  affected  by  climate,  and  how  climate  is  again  altered 
by  the  labors  of  man  ;  how  diseases  are  generated  ;  how  different 
states  of  society  are  exposed  to  different  disorders,  and  require  different  sorts  of 
diet ;  how,  as  all  earthly  things  are  exhaustible,  the  increased  command  over 
external  nature  given  by  increased  knowledge,  seems  to  have  a  tendency  to 
shorten  the  period  of  the  existing  creation,  by  calling  at  once  into  action  those 
resources  of  the  earth  which  else  might  have  supplied  the  wants  of  centuries  to 
come  ;  how,  in  short,  nature,  no  less  than  human  society,  contains  tokens  that 
it  had  a  beginning,  and  will  as  surely  have  its  end.  But,  unfortunately,  the 
physical  history  of  ancient  times  is  even  more  imperfect  than  the  political  his- 
tory; and  in  the  place  of  those  exact  and  uninterrupted  records  of  natural  phe- 
nomena, from  which  alone  any  safe  conclusions  can  be  drawn,  we  have  only  a 
few  scattered  notices  ;  nor  can  we  be  sure  that  even  these  have  recorded  what 
was  most  worthy  of  our  knowledge.  Still,  these  scanty  memorials,  such  as  they 

40  Isocrates,  Panegyric.  §  188,  p.  74. 


OHAP.  XXIII] 


CHANGE  IN  THE  CLIMATE  OF  ITALY. 


191 


are,  must  not  be  neglected ;  and  as  we  gain  a  wider  experience,  even  these  may 
hereafter  be  found  instructive. 

The  first  question  with  regard  to  the  physical  state  of  ancient  Rome  is,  wheth- 
er the  climate  was  such  as  it  is  at  present.    Now  here  it  is  impos- 

...  1,1  T    •  r    A  •  The   climate   of    Italy 

sible  not  to  consider  the  somewhat  analogous  condition  ot  America  was  anciently  colder  in 
at  this  day.  Boston  is  in  the  same  latitude  with  Rome  ;  but  the 
severity  of  its  winter  far  exceeds  not  that  of  Rome  only,  but  of  Paris  and  Lon- 
don. Allowing  that  the  peninsular  form  of  Italy  must  at  all  times  have  had  its 
effect  in  softening  the  climate,  still  the  woods  and  marshes  of  Cisalpine  Gaul, 
and  the  perpetual  snows  of  the  Alps,  far  more  extensive  than  at  present,  owing 
to  the  uncultivated  and  uncleared  state  of  Switzerland  and  Germany,  could  not 
but  have  been  felt  even  in  the  neighborhood  of  Rome.  Besides,  even  on  the 
Apennines,  and  in  Etruria  and  in  Latium,  the  forests  occupied  a  far  greater  space 
than  in  modern  times  :  this  would  increase  the  quantity  of  rain,  and  consequently 
the  volume  of  water  in  the  rivers ;  the  floods  would  be  greater  and  more  numer- 
ous, and  before  man's  dominion  had  completely  subdued  the  whole  country, 
there  would  be  large  accumulations  of  water  in  the  low  grounds,  which  would 
still  further  increase  the  coldness  of  the  atmosphere.  The  language1  of  ancient 
writers,  on  the  whole,  favors  the  same  conclusion,  that  the  Roman  winter,  in 
their  days,  was  more  severe  than  it  is  at  present.  It  agrees  with  this,  that  the 
olive,  which  cannot  bear  a  continuance  of  severe  cold,  was  not  introduced  into 
Italy  till  long  after  the  vine :  Fenestella2  asserted  that  its  cultivation  was  un- 
known as  late  as  the  reign  of  Tarquinius  Priscus ;  and  such  was  the  notion  en- 
tertained of  the  cold  of  all  inland  countries,  even  in  the  latitude  of  Greece,  that 
Theophrastus3  held  it  impossible  to  cultivate  the  olive  at  the  distance  of  more 
than  four  hundred  stadia  from  the  sea.  But  the  cold  of  the  winter  is  perfectly 
consistent4  with  great  heat  in  the  summer.  The  vine  is  cultivated  with  success 
on  the  Rhine,  in  the  latitude  of  Devonshire  and  Cornwall,  although  the  winter  at 
Coblen.tz  and  Bonn  is  far  more  severe  than  it  is  in  Westmoreland ;  and  ever- 
greens will  flourish  through  the  winter  in  the  Westmoreland  valley  far  better 
than  ori  the  Rhine  or  in  the  heart  of  France.  The  summer  heat  of  Italy  was 
probably  much  the  same  in  ancient  times  as  it  is  at  present,  except  that  there 


1  It  is  by  no  means  easy  to  know  what  weight 
i'.»  to  're  given  to  the  language  of  the  poets,  nor 
how  far  particular  descriptions  or  expressions 
uay  have  been  occasioned  by  peculiar  local  cir- 
eamsUinces.  Pliny's  statement,  Epistol.  II.  17, 
that  the  bay-tree  would  rarely  live  through  the 
winter  without  shelter,  either  at  Rome,  or  at 
his  own  villa  at  Laurentum,  if  taken  absolutely, 
would  prove  too  much ;  for  although  the  bay 'is 
less  hardy  than  some  other  evergreens,  yet  now 
can  it  be  conceived  that  a  climate  in  which  the 
olive  would  nourish,  could  be  too  severe  for  the 
bay?  There  must  cither  have  been  some  local 
peculiarity  of  winds  or  soil,  which  the  tree  did 
not  like,  or  else  the  fact,  as  is  sometimes  the 
case,  must  have  been  too  hastily  assumed ;  and 
men  were  afraid,  from  long  custom,  to  leave 
the  bay  unprotected  in  the  winter,  although,  in 
fact,  they  might  have  done  itwitli  safety.  Yet 
the  elder  Pliny,  XVII.  2,  speaks  of  long  snows 
being  useful  to  the  corn,  which  shows  that  he 
is  not  speaking  of  the  mountains  ;  and  a  long 
snow  lying  in  the  valleys  of  central  or  southern 
Italy  would  surely  be  a  very  unheard-of  phe- 
nomenon now.  Again,  the  freezing  of  the  riv- 
ers, as  spoken  of  by  Virgil  and  Horace,  is  an 
image  of  winter,  which  could  not,  I  think,  nat- 
urally suggest  itself  to  Italian  poets  of  the  pres- 
ent day,  at  any  point  to  the  south  of  the  Apen- 
nines. Other  arguments,  to  the  same  effect, 
may  be  seen  in  a  paper  by  Dailies  Barrington, 


in  the  58th  volume  of  the  Philosophical  Trans- 
actions. Gibbon,  also,  after  stating  the  argu- 
ments on  both  sides  of  the  question,  comes  to 
the  same  conclusion.  Miscellaneous  Works, 
Vol.  III.  p.  246.  Pie  quotes,  however,  the  Abbe 
de  Louguerue,  as  saying  that  the  Tiber  was 
frozen  in  the  bitter  winter  of  1709. 

2  Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.  XV.  1. 

3  Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.  XV.  1. 

4  It  is  a  common  notion  that  climate  follows 
latitude,  and  that  a  northern  country  will  be 
cold,  and  a  southern  one  warm,  as  compared 
with  each  other  throughout  the  year.    But  this 
is  by  no  means  a  universal  rule  ;  on  the  con- 
trary, climate  in  England  is  more  affected  by 
the  longitude  of  a  place,  than  by  its  latitude ; 
and  the  winters  are  often  mildest  in  those  parts 
where  the  summers  are  least  genial.    The  whole 
eastern  coast,  from  Kent  to  Caithness,  is  much 
colder  in  winter  than  the  western;  and  this  to 
such  a  degree,  that  Kent  is  not  only  colder  than 
Cornwall,  but  colder  than  Cumberland,  or  Ar- 
gyleshire.   On  the  other  hand,  the  eastern  coast 
in  summer  enj  :>ys  a  much  greater  share  of  steady 
fine  weather  and  sunshine  than  the  western. 
Wall-fruit  will  ripen  in  the  neighborhood  of  Ed- 
inburgh far  more  surely  than  in  Westmoreland, 
and  wheat  grows  luxuriantly  as  far  north  as 
Elgin,  while  it  is  a  rarity  or.  the  coast  of  Ar- 
gyleshire. 


192  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXIII 

were  a  great  number  of  spots  where  shade  and  verdure  might  be  found,  and 
where  its  violence  would,  therefore,  be  more  endurable.  But  the  difference  be- 
tween the  temperature  of  summer  and  winter  may  be  safely  assumed  to  have 
been  much  greater  than  it  is  now. 

It  then  becomes  a  question  whether  the  greater  cold  of  the  winter,  and  the 
Ti,is  primps  had  an  ef-  greater  extent  of  wood  and  of  undrained  waters  which  existed  in 
oTlhrneighborhoodCof  tne  times  °f  the  Romans,  may  not  have  had  a  favorable  influence 

in  mitigating  that  malaria  which  is  now  the  curse  of  so  many  parts 
of  Italy,  and  particularly  of  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  Rome.  On  a  subject 
so  imperfectly  understood,  even  by  those  who  have  had  the  fullest  experience,  it 
were  most  unbecoming  in  a  foreigner  to  speak  otherwise  than  with  the  greatest 
diffidence.  We  know,  however,  that  the  Campagna  at  Rome,  which  is  now 
almost  a  desert,  must,  at  a  remote  period,  have  been  full  of  independent  cities ; 
and  although  the  greater  part  of  these  had  perished  long  before  the  fourth  cen- 
tury of  Rome,  yet  even  then  there  existed  Ostia,  Laurentum,  Ardea,  and  Antium 
on  one  side,  and  Veii  and  Caere  on  the  other,  in  situations  which  are  now  regarded 
as  uninhabitable  during  the  summer  months  ;  and  all  the  lands  of  the  Romans,  on 
which  they,  like  the  old  Athenians,  for  the  most  part  resided  regularly,  lie  within 
the  present  range  of  the  malaria. 

Some  have  supposed  that,  although  the  climate  was  the  same  as  it  is  now,  yet 

the  Romans  were  enabled  to  escape  from  its  influence,  and  their 

The  range  of  the  mala-  .        r  - 

tin  less  extensive  for-  safety  has  been  ascribed0  to  their  practice  of  wearing  woollen  next 

merly  than  at  present.  /  .  O 

to  the  skin,  instead  ot  linen  or  cotton.  .But  not  to  notice  other 
objections  to  this  notion,  it  is  enough  to  say  that  the  Romans  regarded  unhealthy 
situations  with  the  same  apprehension  as  their  modern  descendants ;  it  is  one 
of  the  first  cautions  given  by  Cato6  and  Varro7  to  a  man  going  to  purchase  land, 
that  he  should  buy  only  where  the  air  is  healthy ;  "  otherwise,"  says  Varro, 
"  farming  is  nothing  else  than  a  mere  gambling  with  life  and  property."  The  truth 
seems  to  be,  that  the  malaria,  although  well  known  and  extremely  fatal,  was 
much  more  partial  than  at  present,  and  that  many  spots  which  are  now  infected 
were  formerly  free  from  it.  "  The  whole  of  Latium,"  says  Strabo,8  "  is  a  flour- 
ishing and  very  productive  country,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  spots  near  the 
coast,  which  are  marshy  and  unhealthy."  And  again,  when  speaking  expressly 
of  the  Campagna  between  the  Alban  hills  and  Rome,9  he  says,  "that  the  parts 
towards  the  sea  are  not  so  healthy  ;  but  that  the  rest  is  a  good  country  to  live 
in,  and  well  cultivated  accordingly."  Now,  although  this  is  probably  going  too 
far,  for  the  unhealthy  spots  could  not  have  been  confined  altogether  to  the  sea- 
coast,  yet  with  every  allowance  for  exaggeration  and  careless  writing,  this  is  a 
description  of  the  Campagna  which  no  man  in  his  senses  would  think  of  giving 
now. 

On  the  other  hand,  Cicero™  and  Livy11  both  speak  of  the  immediate  neighbor- 
Rome  itself,  then  na  hood  of  Rome  as  unhealthy,  but  at  the  same  time  they  extol  the 
th7th«ritleiu»ne!iiate  positive  healthiness  of  the  city  itself ;  ascribing  it  to  the  hills,  which 
neighborhood.  are  a^  QncQ  ^.^  themselves,  and  offer  a  screen  to  the  low  grounds 

from  the  heat  of  the  sun.  Bunsen,  also,  from  an  experience  of  many  years, 
gives  a  favorable  account  of  the  healthiness  of  the  city  itself.  "  The  site  of 
Rome,"  he  says,  "  taken  generally,  may  be  called  healthy."  It  is  true,  that  one 
of  the  most  unhealthy  parts  of  modern  Rome,  the  Piazzi  di  Spagna  and  the 
slope  of  the  Pincian  hill  above  it,  was  not  within  the  limits  of  the  ancient  city. 
Yet  the  praise  of  the  healthiness  of  Rome  must  be  understood  rather  com- 


B  By  Brocchi,  in  his  "Discorso  sulla  condi-        °  V.  3,  §  12,  p.  239. 

zionc  dell'  aria  di  Roma  ncgli  anticlii  tempi,"        10  De    Republica,  II.    6.      "  Locum    delegit 
printed  at  the  end  of  his  work  on  the  Geology 
of  Rome. 

6  Cato,  de  Re  Rustics,  II. 

7  Varro,  de  Re  Rustica.  II.  4.  herrimos  colles.' 

8  V.  3,  §  5,  p.  231. 


VQ    itepuoiica,  11.    b.      ••  ijocum    cieiegit 
(Romulus)  in  regione  pestilent!  salubrem." 

11  Compare  VII.  38.      "In  pestilente  atque 
arido  circa  urhem  solo  ;"  and  V.  54.     "  Sam- 


CHAP.  XXIIL]  SUPPOSED  CAUSES  OF  THE  MALARIA.  193 

paratively  with  that  of  the  immediate  neighborhood  than  positively.  Rome, 
in  the  summer  months,  cannot  be  called  healthy,  even  as  compared  with  the 
other  great  cities  of  Italy,  much  less  if  the  standard  be  taken  from  Berlin  or  from 
London. 

Again,  the  neighborhood  of  Rome  is  characterized  by  Livy  as  a  "  pestilential 
and  parched  soil."     The  latter  epithet  is  worthy  of  notice,  because 

,*•  .  ..  ..  .  1       j    j-i  t       •        •  i         '   i      The  CampagnftliMper- 

the  favorite  opinion  has  been  that  the  malaria  is  connected  with  i»pi  become  lewheat- 

,r.,         .  A  T>   i  • A  •  -11          i    .  thy  from  the  winter» 

marshes  and  with  moisture.     But  it  is  precisely  here  that  we  may  having  become  wilder, 

find,  I  think,  the  explanation  of  the  spread  of  the  malaria  in  mod-  ««•  fc°the  quantuyTf 
ern  times.  Even  in  spring,  nothing  can  less  resemble  a  marsh  than 
the  present  aspect  of  the  Campagna.  It  is  far  more  like  the  down  country  of 
Dorsetshire,  and  as  the  summer  advances  it  may  well  be  called  a  dry  and  parched 
district.  But  this  is  exactly  the  character  of  the  plains12  of  Estremadura,  where 
our  soldiers  suffered  so  grievously  from  malaria  fever  in  the  autumn  of  1809.  In 
short,  abundant  experience  has  proved,  that  when  the  surface  of  the  ground  is 
wet,  the  malaria  poison  is  far  less  noxious  than  when  all  appearance  of  moisture 
on  the  surface  is  gone,  and  the  damp  makes  its  way  into  the  atmosphere  from  a 
considerable  depth  under  ground.  After  a  wet  and  cold  summer  in  1799,  when 
the  whole  face  of  the  country  was  nearly  flooded  with  water,  the  British  army 
remained  the  whole  autumn  in  one  of  the  most  unhealthy  parts  of  Holland,  with- 
out suffering  in  any  remarkable  degree  from  malaria  fever.  But  in  1809,  when 
the  summer  had  been  hot  and  fine,  every  one  remembers  the  deadly  effect  in  the 
autumn  fevers  on  the  soldiers  who  were  holding  Walcheren.  If,  then,  more  rain 
fell  in  the  Campagna  formerly  than  is  the  case  now  ;  if  the  streams  were  fuller 
of  water,  and  their  course  more  rapid ;  above  all,  if,  owing  to  the  uncleared  state 
of  central  Europe,  and  the  greater  abundance  of  wood  in  Italy  itself,  the  summer 
heats  set  in  later,  and  were  less  intense,  and  more  often  relieved  by  violent  storms 
of  rain,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  Campagna  must  have  been  far 
healthier  than  at  present ;  and  that  precisely  in  proportion  to  the  clearing  and 
cultivation  of  central  Europe,  to  the  felling  of  the  woods  in  Italy  itself,  the  con- 
sequent decrease  in  the  quantity  of  rain,  the  shrinking  of  the  streams,  and  the 
disappearance  of  the  water  from  the  surface,  has  been  the  increased  unhealthiness 
of  the  country,  and  the  more  extended  range  of  the  malaria. 

It  must  be  observed  also,  that  the  present  desolation  of  the  Campagna,  and 
even  that  comparative  want  of  population  which  prevailed  in  it  Causes  of  ito  p&AvaA 
during  the  later  times  of  the  Roman  republic  and  under  the  em-  dcsolation- 
pire,  are  not  wholly  to  be  attributed  to  physical  causes.  The  aguish  districts  of 
England  continue  to  be  inhabited,  nor  have  the  terrors  of  the  yellow  fever  driven 
men  away  from  the  unhealthiest  situations  of  the  West  Indies,  or  from  Vera  Cruz, 
Acapulco,  or  Carthagena.  The  old  cities  of  the  Campngna  would  have  continued 
to  defy  the  malaria ;  their  population  would  have  been  kept  down,  indeed  ;  many 
•  their  children  would  have  died  young,  and  the  average  length  of  human  life 
ould  have  been  far  short  of  threescore  years  and  ten  ;  but  men  do  not  readily 
ve  their  country,  and  they  would  have  continued,  as  their  fathers  had  done 
fore  them,  to  struggle  with  disease  and  death.  When,  however,  political  causes 
.d  destroyed  the  cities  of  the  Campagna  one  after  the  other,  and  the  land  be- 
me  the  property  of  Roman  citizens ;  when  again,  at  a  later  period,  the  small  prop- 
ties  disappeared,  and  whole  districts  fell  into  the  hands  of  a  few  individuals ; 
len  it  was  natural  that  those  who  could  afford  to  live  where  they  chose',  should 

12  The  view  here  given  of  some  of  the  phc-  of  his  description  of  Rome.    An  unprofessional 

>ena  of  marsh  or  malaria  fevers  was  obtained  man's  judgment  of  a  medical  work  is  worth  lit- 

m  a  paper  by  Dr.  Ferguson  of  Windsor,  "  on  tie ;  but  the  subject  of  Dr.  Ferguson's  paper  is 

-    nature  and  history  of  the  Marsh  Poison,"  one  in  which  I  have  long  felt  a  lively  interest : 

hieh  was  read  before  the  Royal  Society  of  Edin-  and  all  that  I  have  observed  myself,  or  heara 

iirgh  in  1820.     I  directed  JBunsen's  "attention  from  medical  men,  in  answer  to  my  inquiries  as 

it,  and  he  has  made  much  use  of  it  in  his  own  to  matters  of  fact,  has  been  in  agreement  witb 

per  on  the  "  Aria  Cattiva,"  in  the  first  volume  his  statements. 
13 


194  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXIlL 

not  fix  themselves  in  a  spot  of  even  partial  unliealthiness,  and  thus  a  great  part, 
of  the  Campagna  was  left  only  to  the  slaves  by  whom  it  was  cultivated.  In 
modern  times,  when  slave  labor  was  no  longer  to  be  had,  and  there  were  no  at- 
tractions strong  enough  to  induce  a  free  population  to  migrate  from  their  homes  to 
an  unhealthy  district,  the  Campagna  has  remained  a  wilderness,  and  its  harvests 
are  reaped  by  a  temporary  immigration  of  laborers  from  other  parts  of  the  coun- 
try. To  repeople  it  under  such  circumstances  is  far  more  difficult  than  to  keep 
up  a  population  already  existing ;  and  if,  as  I  believe,  the  physical  state  of  the 
Campagna  has  become  more  and  more  unfavorable,  it  seems  likely,  without  some 
extraordinary  advances  in  our  knowledge  of  the  malaria,  and  in  our  ability  to 
combat  it,  to  remain  a  wilderness  forever.13 

The  disorders  produced  by  malaria,  whether  more  cr  less  fatal,  so  regularly 
e  idemh  dis  accomPanied  the  return  of  hot  weather,  that  they  were  not  likely 
orderenoUcSthea^I  to  be  recorded  in  the  annals.  The  diseases  which  were  noticed 
there  were  of  a  very  different  character,  and  belonged  rather  to 
another  class  of  phenomena,  those  extraordinary  sicknesses  which,  in  obedience  to  a 
law  hitherto  undiscovered,  visit  the  earth  at  different  periods,  prevail  more  or  less 
extensively,  and  acting  independently,  as  it  seems,  of  any  recognized  causes  of 
disease,  are  also  beyond  the  reach  of  all  known  remedies.  The  first  half  of  the 
fourth  century  of  Rome  was  one  of  these  calamitous  periods,  and  the  pestilences 
which  occurred  at  the  beginning  of  it  have  already  been  noticed.  Seven  others 
are  recorded  between  the  years  318  and  365 ;  that  is  to  say,14  in  319,  320,  322, 
327,  343,  356,  and  363.  They  are  described  in  general  terms,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  those  of  the  years  327  and  363,  which  are  ascribed  to  unusual  droughts  ; 
and  said  also  to  have  nearly  resembled  each  other  in  their  symptoms.  The  epi- 
demic of  327  first,  as  we  are  told,  attacked  the  cattle,  the  herdsmen,  and  others  who 
tended  the  cattle,  and  lastly  it  became  general.  It  appears  to  have  been  wholly 
inflammatory,  and  to  have  shown  itself  particularly  on  the  skin  ;  first,  in  the  form  of 
a  violent  rash,15  accompanied  with  extreme  irritation,  and  afterwards  in  the  shape  of 
erysipelas  of  a  very  malignant  kind.  This  visitation  took  place  just  after  the  con- 
clusion of  the  peace  of  Nicias,  and  we  do  not  hear  of  any  coincident  prevalence 
of  pestilence  in  Greece.  The  epidemic  of  36316  is  described  in  similar  terms ;  it 
was  brought  on  by  the  same  causes,  an  exceedingly  hot  and  dry  summer ;  and 
the  symptoms  were  the  same,  an  eruption  terminating  in  large  and  painful  ulcers, 
accompanied  with  such  irritation,  that  their  patients  tore  their  flesh  even  to  the 
bone.  The  date  of  this  disorder  falls  about  the  beginning  of  the  ninety-ninth 
Olympiad,  that  is  to  say,  it  coincides  with  the  Olynthian  war ;  and  as  it  arose 

13  This  opinion  should  be  expressed  with  the  prietors  disposed  to  follow  a  new  system,  at 
greatest  hesitation  and  diffidence,  because  Bun-  variance  with  their  old  habits,  it  must  be  allowed 
sen  believes  that  the  Campagna  is  rechimable  that  the  cluke  of  Zagarolo's  experiment  was  made 
by  encours-2-ing  human  habitation  in  it;  find  he  under  circumstances  unusually  favorable.  The 
thinks  that  if  tiae  great  landholders  were  to  let  out  country  round  Zagarolo  is  high  ground;  it 
their  property  on  leases  to  a  number  of  small  forms  a  sort  of  shoulder,  connecting  the  Alban 
farmers,  who  would  thus  naturally  create  a  resi-  hills  with  the  Apennines,  and  forms  the  divor- 
dent  population,  the  unliealthiness  of  the  air  tium  aquarum,  or  water-shed,  of  the  feeders  of 
would,  in  a  great  measure,  be  obviated.  It  is  said  the  Tiber  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  Garig- 
;hat  the  breaking  up  of  the  surface  of  the  ground  liano  on  the  other. .  Its  character  also  is  wholly 
is  found  to  lessen  the  virulence  of  the  malaria;  different  from  the  general^  aspect  of^the  Cam- 
and  the  fires  which  necessarily  accompany  liu-  pagna ;  it  is  not  a  country  of  long  swelling  slopes, 
man  dwellings,  are  another  known  antidote  to  notched  as  it  were  here  and  there  with  deep 
it.  As  a  proof  of  this,  Bunsen  appeals  to  the  narrow  stream  beds ;  but  a  succession  of  nearly 
great  improvement  thus  effected  by  the  duke  parallel  ridges,  rising  to  a  considerable  height, 
of  Zagarolo  in  the  neighborhood  of  that  little  with  valleys  rather  than  gorges  between  them, 
town,  which  stands  on  the  edge  of  the  Cam-  To  all  appearance,  therefore,  it  was  more  easily 
pagna,  a  few  miles  fromPalestriria,  about  a  mile  reclaimable  than  the  great  mass  of  the  Cam- 
on  the  left  of  the  road  coming  from  Koine.  The  pagna. 

nir,  which  was  decidedly  unhealthy,  has  been  M  Livy,  IV.  21,  25,  30,  r>2.     V.  13,  31. 

purified ;   and  the  whole   district,  by  having  5  Dionysius,  XII.  3.    Fragm.  Mai. 

been  peopled,  has  become  actually  capable  of  K  Dionysius,  XIII.  4.     Fragm.  Mai.     Liv>, 

supporting  a  population  in  health  and  prosper-  V.  31.    Dionysius  appears  to  put  this  epidemic 

ity.     However,  without  reckoning  on  the  moral  a  year  earlier  than  Livy,  namely,  362. 
Improbability  of  finding  the  great  bo  Jy  of  pro- 


lal 

Ei 


CHAP.  XXIIL]  VOLCANIC  LAKES— LAKE  OF  ALBA.  195 

from  local  causes,  we  cannot  be  surprised  that  we  hear  no  mention  of  its  having 
extended  into  Greece.  But  the  epidemic  of  322  and  of  the  years  almost  imme- 
diately preceding  it,  was  contemporary  with  the  great  plague  of  Athens :  and  that 
of  356  coincided,  according  to  the  chronology  of  Diodorus,  with  the  violent  sick- 
ness which  destroyed  Imilcon's  army  before  Syracuse,  and  had  been  preceded  by 
three  or  four  years  of  epidemic  disease  in  Africa. 

If  from  diseases  we  turn  to  the  phenomena  of  the  weather,  with  which  they  are, 
in  all  probability,  closely  connected,  we  find  the  years  327  and  363 

*».»•{  111  •  i  -i     Phenomena  of  the  wea- 

marked,  as  has  already  been  observed,  by  excessive  droughts  ;  and  ther.  Great  frost  of  u»» 
the  summer  of  356  is  said  by  Diodorus17  to  have  been  of  the  same  J< 
character.  On  the  other  hand,  the  winter  of  355  had  been  one  of  unusual  sever- 
ity ;18  the  Tiber  was  choked  up  with  ice,  the  snow  lay  seven  feet  deep,  where 
it  was  not  drifted  ;  many  men  and  cattle  were  lost  in  it,  and  many  of  the  cattle 
were  killed  by  the  extreme  cold,  or  starved  from  want  of  pasture,  the  resources  by 
which  we  now  provide  for  their  subsistence  during  the  winter  being  then  little 
practised.  It  is  added  that  the  fruit-trees,  by  which  are  meant  the  figs  and  olives 
in  particular,  either  perished  altogether,  or  suffered  so  severely  that  they  did  not 
bear  for  a  long  time  afterwards ;  and  that  many  houses  were  crushed  by  the 
weight  of  snow  which  lay  on  them,  or  carried  away  by  its  melting  when  the  frost 
at  last  broke  up.  There  is  also  a  notice  in  Diodorus  of  the  winter  of  3 2 1,19  which 
is  described  as  having  been  excessively  wet,  so  that  the  fruits  of  the  following 
season  never  ripened  properly,  and  the  corn  was  considered  unwholesome. 

The  period  about  the  year  322  was  remarkable  in  Greece  for  the  frequency 
and  severity  of  earthquakes ;  the  numerous  earthquakes  which,  volcanic  phenomena, 
from  their  occurring  so  nearly  together,  were  remembered  afterwards  Earthiuakes- 
as  an  epoch,  happened,  says  Thucydides,20  at  this  time.  In  the  same  way  the 
Romans  were  alarmed  in  the  year  319  by  reports21  of  frequent  earthquakes  in 
the  country  immediately  adjoining  Rome,  and  many  houses  were  thrown  down 
by  the  shocks.  It  is  probable  some  phenomenon  of  this  sort  occasioned  also  the 
great  overflow  of  the  Alban  lake  during  the  war  with  Veii ;  an  event  remarkable 
in  itself,  and  still  more  so  as  having  led  to  the  famous  work  existing  to  this  day  ; 
the  tunnel  by  which  the  water  of  the  lake  is  carried  through  the  range  of  hills 
which  encircle  it,  and  from  thence  is  discharged  into  the  Campagna. 

The  lakes  of  Alba  and  Nemi,  like  others  in  the  neighborhood  of  Rome,  are  of 
a  peculiar  character.  In  their  elevation,  lying  nestled  as  it  were  The  voi<.anic  )ake»  Of 
high  up  in  the  bosom  of  the  mountains,  they  resemble  what  in  RLe^'TumS0^  the 
Cumberland  and  Westmoreland  are  called  tarns;  but  our  tarns,  lukoofAlba- 
like  ordinary  lakes,  have  their  visible  feeders  and  outlets,  their  head  which  re- 
ceives the  streams  from  the  mountain  sides,  and  their  foot  by  which  they  dis- 
charge themselves,  generally  in  a  larger  stream,  into  the  valley  below.  The 
lakes  of  Alba  and  Nemi  lie  each  at  the  bottom  of  a  perfect  basin,  and  the  un- 
broken rim  of  this  basin  allows  them  no  visible  outlet.  Again,  it  sometimes  hap- 

ns  that  lakes  so  situated  have  their  outlet  tinder  ground,  and  that  the  stream 
hich  drains  them  appears  again  to  the  day  after  a  certain  distance,  having  made 
its  way  through  the  basin  of  the  lake  by  a  tunnel  provided  for  it  by  nature. 
This  is  the  case  particularly  where  the  prevailing  rock  is  the  mountain  or  metal- 
liferous limestone  of  Derbyshire,  which  is  full  of  caverns  and  fissures :  and  an  in- 
stance of  it  may  be  seen  in  the  small  lake  or  tarn  of  Malham  in  Yorkshire,  and 
another  on  a  much  larger  scale  in  the  lake  of  Copais  in  Boeotia.  But  the  volcanic 
rock^,  in  which  the  lake  of  Alba  lies,  do  not  afford  such  natural  tunnels,  or  at 

"  XIV.  70.  or  since,  down  to  his  time.    I  cannot  find  any 

"|  Livy,  V.  13.     Dionysius,  XII.  8.    Fragm.  particulars  of  the  freezing  of  the  Tiber  in  1709, 

Mu.5.    Bunseri  observes  that  ice  in  the  Tiber  is  already  noticed  in  note  1. 

r  as  unknown  a  phenomenon  as  it  would  be  w  XII.  58. 

reen  the  tropics.    The  winter  of  355  is  in-  20  III.  89. 

'.  described  by  Dionysius  as  one  altogether  21  Livy,  IV.  21. 
ua^.ralleled  in  the  Koman  annals,  either  before 


196  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXIII 

least  they  are  exceeding  small,  and  unequal  to  the  discharge  of  any  large  quan- 
tity of  water ;  so  that  if  any  unusual  cause  swells  the  lake,  it  can  find  no  adequate 
outlet,  and  rises  necessarily  to  a  higher  level.  The  Roman  tradition  reported 
that  such  a  rise  took  place  in  the  year  357 ;  it  was  caused  probably  by  some 
volcanic  agency,  and  increased  to  such  a  height,  that  the  water  at  last  ran  over 
the  basin  of  hills  at  its  lowest  point,22  and  poured  down  into  the  Campagna. 
Traces23  of  such  an  outlet  are  said  to  be  still  visible ;  and  it  is  asserted  that  there 
are  marks  of  artificial  cutting  through  the  rock,  as  if  to  enlarge  and  deepen  the 
passage.  This  would  suppose  the  ordinary  level  of  the  lake  in  remote  times  to 
have  been  about  two  hundred  feet  higher  than  it  is  at  present ;  and  if  this  were 
so,  the  actual  tunnel  was  intended  not  to  remedy  a  new  evil,  but  to  alter  the  old 
state  of  the  lake  for  the  better,  by  reducing  it  for  the  time  to  come  to  a  lower 
level.  Possibly  the  discharge  over  the  edge  of  the  basin  became  suddenly  greater, 
and  so  suggested  the  idea  of  diverting  the  water  altogether  by  a  different  chan- 
nel. But  the  whole  story  of  the  tunnel,  as  we  have  it,  is  so  purely  a  part  of  the 
poetical  account  of  the  fall  of  Veii,  that  no  part  of  it  can  be  relied  on  as  histori- 
cal. The  prophecy  of  the  old  Veientian,  and  the  corresponding  answer  of  the 
Delphian  oracle,  connecting  the  draining  of  the  lake  with  the  fate  of  Veii,  must 
be  left  as  we  find  them ;  only  it  is  likely  enough  that  any  extraordinary  natural 
phenomenon,  occurring  immediately  after  the  visitation  of  pestilence,  and  in  the 
midst  of  a  long  and  doubtful  war,  should  have  excited  unusual  alarm,  and  have 
been  thought  important  enough  to  require  an  appeal  to  the  most  famous  oracle 
in  the  world.  But  other  questions  of  no  small  difficulty  remain :  the  length  of 
the  tunnel,  according  to  the  lowest  statement  given,  exceeds  two  thousand  one 
hundred  yards  ;24  according  to  others  it  exceeds  two  thousand  six  hundred  ;25  and 
one  estimate  makes  it  as  much  as  two  thousand  eight  hundred  :26  its  height  varies 
from  seven  feet  and  a  half  to  nine  or  ten  feet ;  and  its  width  is  not  less  than  four 
feet.  Admitting  that  it  was  wholly  worked  through  the  tufo,27  which  is  easily 
wrought,  still  the  labor  and  expense  of  such  a  tunnel  must  have  been  consider- 
able ;  and  in  the  midst  of  an  important  war,  how  could  either  money  or  hands 
have  been  spared  for  such  a  purpose  ?  Again,  was  the  work  exclusively  a  Ro- 
man one,  or  performed  by  the  Romans  jointly  with  the  Latins,  as  an  object  of 
common  concern  to  the  whole  confederacy  ?  The  Alban  lake  can  scarcely  have 
been  within  the  domain  of  Rome ;  nor  can  we  conceive  that  the  Romans  could 
have  been  entitled  to  divert  its  waters  at  their  pleasure  without  the  consent  of 
the  neighboring  Latin  cities.  But  if  it  were  a  common  work ;  if  the  Latins  en- 
tered heartily  into  the  quarrel  of  Rome  with  Veii,  regarding  it  as  a  struggle  be- 
tween their  race  and  that  of  the  Etruscans ;  if  the  overflow  of  the  waters  of  their 
national  lake,  the  lake  which  bathed  the  foot  of  the  Alban  mountain,  where  their 
national  temple  stood  and  their  national  solemnities  were  held,  excited  an  interest 
in  every  people  of  the  Latin  name,  then  we  may  understand  how  their  joint  labor 
and  joint  contributions  may  have  accomplished  the  work  even  in  the  midst  of 
war ;  and  the  Romans,  as  they  disguised  on  every  occasion  the  true  nature  of 
their  connection  with  the  Latins,  would  not  fail  to  represent  it  as  exclusively 
their  own. 

51  Dionysius,  XII.  11.  Fragm.  Mai.  "  Westphal  says  it  is  worked  through  lava. 

K  Sir  W.  Gell,  Topography  of  Rome,  &c.  Vol.  Sir  W.  Gell  says  it  is  excavated  generally  in  the 

I.  p.  43.  tufo.  Mr.  Meason,  whose  authority  is  consid- 

**  Westphal.  Romische  Kampagne,  p.  25.  erable,  as  he  had  had  much  practical  acquaint- 

*  Sir  W.  Gell,  Topography  of  Rome,  p.  39.  ance  with  mining,  and  went  into  the  tunnel  for 

38  Mr.  Laing  Meason,  quoted  by  Sir  W.  Gell  about  130  yards  from  the  lake,  speaks  of  the 

ID  a  note  to  p.  53  of  his  Topogr.  of  Rome,  Vol.  I.  work  as  cut  in  the  tufo. 


CHAPTER  XXIV, 

J?HE  GAULS  INVADE  CENTRAL  ITALY— BATTLE  OF  THE  ALIA— BURNING  OF 
ROME-RANSOM  OF  THE  CAPITOL  AND  OF  THE  CITY— RETREAT  OF  THE 
GAULS. 


"  Hark !  the  Gaul  is  at  her  gates !" 

COWPER. 

Aurea  cassaries  ollis,  atque  aurea  vestis : 
Virgatis  lucent  sagulis  ;  turn  lactea  colla 
Auro  innectuntur :  duo  quisque  Alpina  coruscant 
Gsesa  manu.  scutis  protect!  corpora  longis." 

VIRGIL,  ^En.  VIII.  658. 


THE  fourth  century  before  the  Christian  sera  brought  the  Gauls,  as  we  have 
seen,  for  the  first  time  within  the  observation  of  the  civilized  world. 

-      .  .  ,    .  ,  ,  i         Common     account     of 

They  then  crossed  the  Apennines,  and  overran  central  and  south-  the  settlement  of  the 

%-      i  i  i  iii-  .1        Til       •        1    j.    •!  i    i_       Gaulish  tribe*  in  Italy. 

ern  Italy ;  they  then  also  broke  in  upon  the  Illynan1  tribes,  estab- 
lished themselves  between  the  Danube  and  Greece,  and  became  known  to  the 
kings  of  Macedon.2  But  whether  it  was  in  this  same  century  that  they  had  first 
crossed^  the  Alps' as  well  as  the  Apennines,  is  a  question  much  more  difficult  to 
answer.  If  we  follow  the  well-known  account  of  Livy,3  we  must  fix  their  passage 
of  the  Alps  two  hundred  years  earlier :  it  was  about  six  hundred  years  before  the 
Christian  aera,  according  to  this  statement,  that  there  happened  a  vast  emigration 
of  the  inhabitants  of  central  Gaul ;  one  great  multitude,  said  the  story,  crossed 
the  Rhine,  and  sought  a  home  amidst  the  wilds  of  the  Hercynian  forest ;  another 
made  its  way  over  the  Alps,  descended  into  the  plain  of  the  Po,  encountered  and 
defeated  the"  Etruscans,  who  were  then  the  masters  of  the  country,  near  the  river, 
Ticinus,  and  founded  the  city  of  Mediolanum.  After  this  other  tribes  of  central 
Gauls,  entering  Italy  by  the  same  course,  and  finding  their  countrymen  already 
in  possession  of  all  to  the  westward  of  the  Adda,  penetrated  still  deeper,  and  ex- 
tended the  Gaulish  settlements  as  far  as  the  Adige.  Again,  at  a  later  period, 
but  how  much  later  we  are  not  told,  the  Boii4  and  Lingones  set  out  from  the  east 

1  Justin,  XXIV.  4.  This  is  the  great  expedi-  as  haying  entered  Italy  last  of  all  the  Gauls,  are 

tion  which  Scylax  alludes  to,  when  he  describes  also  included  amongst  the  tribes  of  the  first 

the  Gauls  on  the  northwestern  coast  of  the  swarm  who  founded  Mediolanum.  Both  these 

Adriatic,  as  "  men  who  had  stayed  behind  from  circumstances  seem  to  show,  that  in  the  view 

their  expedition;"  airo\ci<(>d{vTes  rf/?.  The  fol-  of  the  author  of  this  account,  all  the  migrations 

lowing  words,  tni  oreviav,  appear  to  me  to  be  into  Italy  took  place  nearly  continuously,  and 

corrupt.  were  the  result  of  one  and  the  same  cause, 

8  In  the  very  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Alex-  This  also  seems  to  agree  best  with  the  fact,  that 

ander,  when  a  Gaulish  embassy  came  to  con-  the  last  comers,  instead  of  attempting  to  dis- 

gratulate  him  on  his  victory  over  the  Getee.  lodge  those  who  had  arrived  before  them,  passed 

Arrian,  Exp.  Alex.  I.  4.  on  quietly  to  a  more  distant  settlement.  This 

8  Livy,  V.  84,  35.  is  very  conceivable,  if  all  had  left  their  country 

4  The  Lingones  came  from  the  neighborhood  from  one  and  the  same  impelling  cause,  and  in 

of  Langres,  that  high  table-land  which  looks  the  course  of  one  generation  ;  but  had  the  Boii 

down  on  the  infant  Marne  to  the  north,  and  on  and  Lingones  entered  Italy  a  century  or  a  ccn- 

the  streams  which  feed  the  Saone  to  the  south,  tury  and  a  half  later  than  the  founders  of  Me- 

The  situation  of  the  Boii  in  Gaul  is  not  known ;  diolanum,  and  from  causes  wholly  unconnected 

their  nation  is  only  to  be  traced  in  the  countries  with  their  migration,  they  would,  in  all  proba- 

to  which  it  had  emigrated,  in  Germany  and  bility,  have  tried  to  establish  themselves  be- 

Italy.  It  is  remarkable  that  the  story  speaks  of  tween  the  Ticinus  and  the  Adda,  and  would 

ft  simultaneous  migration  into  Germany  and  have  paid  little  regard  to  the  tie  of  a  common 

Italy  ;  and  we  find  Boii  in  both  of  these  coun-  extraction,  when  distance  of  time  and  place  had 

tries.  Again,  the  Senones,  who  are  mentioned  done  so  much  to  weaken  it. 


198 


HIST011Y  OF  ROME. 


[CUAP.  XXIY 


and  northeast  of  Gaul,  made  their  way  to  the  lake  of  Geneva,  ascended  the  val- 
ley of  the  Rhone,  crossed  the  Alps  by  the  pass  which  now  bears  the  name  of  the 
Great  St.  Bernard,  and  as  the  whole  country  on  the  north  of  the  Po  was  already 
occupied,  these  new  adventurers  passed  that  river,  and  drove  out  the  Etruscans 
and  Umbrians  from  their  possessions  between  the  Po  and  the  Apennines,  from 
the  neighborhood  of  the  modern  cities  of  Parma,  Modena,  and  Bologna.  Last  of 
all,  but  again  the  time  is  not  specified,  came  the  Senones  from  the  same  quartei 
of  Gaul,  and  following  the  track  of  the  Boii  and  Lingones,  crossed  as  they  had 
done  both  the  Alps  and  the  Po,  reached  the  coast  of  the  Adriatic,  and  finally 
spread  themselves  along  its  shores  from  the  neighborhood  of  Ravenna  to  that  of 
Ancona. 

The  geographical  part  of  this  account  appears  to  deserve  our  full  belief ;  but 
it.  chronology  ia  «uspi-  it  does  not  follow  that  its  chronology  is  equally  trustworthy.  The 
narrative  itself  seems  to  imply  that  all  these  migrations  were  nearly 
continuous,  and  it  is  for  many  reasons  most  probable5  that  they  were  so  ;  yet  it  is 
not  credible  that  the  Senones  should  have  been  settled  on  the  coast  of  the  Adri- 
atic6 for  two  hundred  years  before  they  crossed  the  Apennines ;  and  there  is  a 
preponderance7  of  evidence  to  prove  that  their  inroad  into  Etruria  followed  close 
upon  their  first  establishment  in  north  Italy.  It  is  impossible  to  say  at  how  early 
a  period  tribes  of  Gauls  may  have  passed  over  the  Cottian  Alps,  and  settled  in 
the  valleys  and  plains  of  Piedmont.  But  the  general  overthrow  of  the  Etruscan 
power  between  the  Alps  and  the  Apennines  has  every  appearance  of  having  been 


B  Partly  for  the  reasons,  given  in  the  preced- 
ing note,  and  also,  because  a  general  burst  of 
migration  at  one  particular  period  is  more  prob- 
able amongst  a  barbarian  people  than  a  succes- 
sion of  migrations  to  the  same  quarter,  during 
a  term  of  two  hundred  years. 

8  They  crossed  the  Apennines,  according  to 
Diodorus  and  the  author  of  the  little  work, 
l'De  Viris  Illustribus,"  because  their  settle- 
ment on  the  Adriatic  was  parched  and  barren : 
they  surely  would  have  discovered  this  in  less 
time  than  a  hundred  years.  Niebuhr  notices 
the  general  rapidity  of  barbarian  incursions  ; 
they  advance  further  and  further  till  they  meet 
with  some  invincible  obstacle.  And  those  who 
had  exterminated  the  Etruscans  from  the  north 
of  the  Apennines,  would-  have  had  nothing  to 
deter  them  from  attacking  the  same  enemies  in 
their  southern  possessions  in  Etruria  Proper. 

7  Diodorus,  XIV.  113.  Dionysius,  XIII.  14, 
15.  Fragm.  Mai.  P'Juv,  Hist.  Natur.  III.  17, 
where  he  says  that  :.ie  Gauls  destroyed  the 
Etruscan  city  of  Melp;:m  in  northern  Italy  in 
the  same  year  and  day  on  which  the  Eomans 
took  Veil.  Justin,  XXIV.  4,  and  XX.  5,  and 
even  Livy  himself,  in  two  passages  referred  to 
by  Niebuhr,  V.  17,  and  37,  where  he  makes  the 
Etruscans  speak  of  the  Gauls  as  a  people  whom 
they  had  never  seen,  who  were  recently  become 
their  neighbors,  and  with  whom  they  knew  not 
whether  they  were  to  have  peace  or  war ;  and 
where  in  the  same  way  he  speaks  of  the  Gauls 
as  a  new  enemy  to  the  Komans,  who  were  come 
upon  them  from  the  shores  of  the  ocean  and  the 
extremities  of  the  earth.  The  only  plausible  ar- 
gument for  the  more  ancient  settlement  of  the 
Gauls  in  Italy  (for  little  stress  is  to  be  laid  on 
their  pretended  alliance  with  the  Phoceean  exiles 
who  were  founding  Massilia),  is  to  be  found  in 
the  statement  of  Dionysius,  VII.  3,  which  some 
understand  as  saying  that  the  Greek  city  of 
C:iraa  in  Campania  was  besieged  in  the  reign 
of  Tarquinius  Superbus  by  some  Etruscans  who 
had  dwelt  on  the  shores  of  the  Ionian  gulf,  and 
who  had  been  in  the  course  of  time  driven  from- 


their  country  by  the  Gauls.  This  is  the  inter- 
pretation of  Dionysius'  words,  as  Miiller  under- 
stands them.  (Etrusker,  Vol.  I.  p.  153,  note 
78.)  Niebuhr,  however,  understands  them  dif- 
ferently ;  and  the  language  is  not  sufficiently 
precise  to  enable  us  to  be  certain  as  to  the  wri- 
ter's meaning.  The  words  are,  Tvpfavuv  oi  irtpl 
T&V  'Idviov  KdXirov  KaroiKovvTCS,  fKeWfv  0'  virii  rut 
K.C\TU>V  {£c\aOtvT£f  ffvv  <x.f>av(f,  Kal  avv  avrolf  'Op 
fipiKol  TE  Kal  Aavvioi  Kal  (tvxvol  TU>V  rtAAwi'  /?«p/3a'pw» 
fntxtipwav  avebuv  (rf]v  Ru/*^)-  Niebuhr  think/ 
that  this  means,  "those  Etruscans  who  then 
were  dwelling  on  the  Ionian  gulf,  but  who  in 
the  course  of  time  were  afterwards  driven  from 
thence  by  the  Gauls."  Miiller  objects  that  if  this 
were  the  meaning,  Dionysius  must  have  writ- 
ten ot  rdrt  pifv  KCITOIKOVVTESI  vtrrcpov  df  f^Aafl/vrej. 
This  would  have  been  clearer,  undoubtedly; 
but  Dionysius  does  not  write  with  the  perfect 
clearness  of  Isocrates  or  Demosthenes,  and  tho 
words  <ritv  xf>^vv  are  meant  to  express  the  same 
thing  as  Miiller's  varepov.  But  after  all.  what 
can  be  made  of  the  passage  under  any  interpre- 
tation? "  The  Etruscans  on  the  Ionian  gulf," 
that  is,  on  the  Adriatic,  could  not  have  been 
driven  out  by  the  Gauls  as  early  as  the  sixty- 
fourth  Olympiad,  for  all  allow  that  the  Senones, 
who  expelled  the  Etruscans  from  the  coast,  en- 
tered Italy  after  all  the  other  Gauls ;  and  their 
invasion  was  so  recent,  that  Scylax  speaks  of 
the  Etruscans,  as  well  ns  of  the  Umbrians  and 
Daunians,  as  still  dwelling  on  the  shores  of  the 
Adriatic  even  in  his  time.  Nor  is  there  any 
reason  for  considering  the  expedition  against 
Cuma  as  occasioned  by  the  expulsion  of  the  in- 
vaders from  their  own  country  by  another  ene- 
my. The  Umbrians  and  Baunians  who  took 
Sart  in  it  were  certainly  never  driven  out  from 
heir  country  by  the  Gauls;  and  it  is  more 
probable  that  the  Etruscans,  who  are  named  as 
the  first  people  in  the  confederacy,  were  not  a 
band  of  fugitives  j  but  were  rather  attempting, 
in  conjunction  with  their  dependent  allies,  to 
extend  their  dominion  still  further  over  Italy; 
for  this  was  the  period  of  their  greatest  power. 


CHAP.  XXI V.]  DIVISIONS  OF  THE  KELTIC  RACE. 


efl 

de 

i 

exi 


effected  suddenly,  speedily,  and  not  earlier  than  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century 
>f  Rome,  when  some  causes,  to  us  unknown,  set  the  whole  Keltic  or  Gaulish  na- 
ion  in  motion,  and  drove  them  southward  and  eastward  to  execute  their  ap- 
ointed  work  of  devastation  and  destruction. 

Another  question  next  presents  itself.     Can  we  recognize  these  Gaulish  inva- 
ders of  Italy  as  belonging  to  either  of  the  existing  divisions  of  the 

•/,_  ?      °  /-M        -i  i  -rr      °        n  «•  i     i  To   what   Keltic    rac< 

Keltic  race  ?     Were  they  Gael,  or  were  they  Kymry  ?  or  did  they  ^J^™1^",1* 
long  to  some  third  division,  distinct  from  each  of  these,  which 
as  since  utterly  perished  ?    Much  has  been  written  upon  the  subject  of  the  Kelts 
d  their  language ;  but  we  seem  as  yet  unable  to  connect  our  knowledge  of  the 
xisting  Keltic  races  with  the  accounts  which  we  have  received  of  them  from  the 
writers  of  antiquity. 

Diodorus8  tells  us  that  the  Romans  included  under  one  common  name  of  Gauls 
two  great  divisions  of  people :  the  one  consisting  of  the  Keltic 

..       O  ,11  f    r\        1  i       f  ^  ,1      Diodorut' distinction  be. 

tribes  of  Spam,  of  the  south  and  centre  of  Gaul,  and  of  the  north  tween  the  Gauu  »nj 


Kelts. 


of  Italy ;  the  other  embracing  those  more  remote  tribes  which 
lived  on  the  shores  of  the  ocean,  and  on  the  skirts  of  what  he  calls  the  Hercyn- 
ian  mountains,  and  eastward  as  far  as  Scythia.  This  last  division,  he  says,  were 
the  proper  Gauls,  while  the  others  were  to  be  called  Kelts.  Niebuhr  supposes 
that  Diodorus  learnt  this  distinction  from  Posidonius,  and  it  is  undoubtedly  well 
worth  noticing.  Diodorus  further  says,  that  to  these  more  remote  tribes  belonged 
the  Kimbri,  whom  some  writers  identified  with  the  old  Kimmerians ;  and  that 
these  Kimbri  were  the  people  who  took  Rome,  and  sacked  Delphi,  and  carried 
their  conquests  even  into  Asia. 

It  may  be  doubted,  however,  whether  there  be  not  in  this  statement  a  show 
of  knowledge  greater  than  the  reality.  Keltce  and  Galatea  are 

n  i         !•«•  L    p  /'i  Kelt  and  Gaul  are  hot 

undoubtedly  only  different  forms  of  the  same  name ;  the  first  was  different  forms  of  th« 
the  form  with  which  the  Greeks  were  earliest  acquainted,  at  a 
time  when  their  knowledge  of  the  Kelts  was  confined  to  the  tribes  of  Spain  and 
Gaul.  The  great  Gaulish  migration  of  the  fourth  century  before  Christ,  intro- 
duced the  other  and  more  correct  form  "  Galatae  ;"  yet  many  writers9  continued 
to  use  the  old  orthography,  and  in  fact,  with  the  exception  of  the  Galatians  of 
Asia  Minor,  the  other  Gauls,  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  are  generally  called  by  the 
Greeks  according  to  their  old  form  of  the  name,  not  Galatae,  but  Keltse.  These 
names,  therefore,  would  in  themselves  rather  show  that  the  invaders  of  Italy  and 
Greece  were  the  same  people  with  the  old  inhabitants  of  the  west  of  Europe, 
than  establish  any  diversity  between  them. 

But  when  we  find  from  Caesar,10  that  the  Gauls  on  the  shores  of  the  ocean, 
that  is,  on  the  coasts  of  the  British  channel  and  the  North  sea,  the  Yet  tbe  distinction  of 
Gauls  whom  he  calls  Belgians,  were  distinguished  both  in  language  Diodorus  is  P*"*  true« 
and  customs  from  the  Gauls  of  the  interior ;  when  we  consider  that  these  more 
remote  Gauls  included,  according  to  Diodorus,  the  people  called  Kimbri,  and 
when  we  see  that  the  people  now  calling  themselves  Kymry,  namely,  the  Welsh, 
do  actually  differ  in  language  and  in  customs  from  the  Keltic  tribes  in  Ireland 
and  Scotland,  the  statement  of  Diodorus  does  appear  to  contain  a  real  truth,  and 
we  begin  to  recognize  in  the  Keltoe  and  Galatae  of  his  geography  two  great  di- 
visions of  the  same  race,  analogous  to  the  Gael  and  Kymry  existing  at  this  day 
in  Great  Britain. 

Yet  the  gleam  of  light  thus  gained  is  almost  instantly  overclouded.  The  Gaula 
of  the  north  of  Italy  appear,  according  to  every  testimony,11  to  have  been  the 

Diodorus,  V.  32.  is,  of  the  Galatoe  of  Diodorus,  and  not  of  the  re* 

9  Aristotle  ascribes  to  the  Keltse  a  peculiarity  mote  inhabitants  of  Gaul  and  Spain. 

in  national  manners,  which  Diodorus  reports  of  10  De  Bello  Gallico,  I.  1. 

the  Galatffi.    And  in  those  notices  ot  Keltic  "  Polybius,  II.  15.     Tpavffd\irivot  ye  p>j>  oi 

manners  and  character  which  occur  in  several  TT/I-  TOV  yivovs  dAAu  Sta  r>iv  TUV  rdjrou  6ia<f>o(>av 
places  of  his  works,  he  must  have  been  spej*k- 
»ng  of  the  Kelts  of  Pannonia  and  Thrace,  that 


200  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CiiAi*.  XXF7 

tmt  involved  in  much  same  people  with  the  Gauls  of  the  centre  of  France,  or  in  the  Ian- 
Acuity.  guage  of  Diodorus,  with  the  Keltae.  The  names  of  their  tribes,  the 

Benones,12  Lingones,  Insubres,  Cenomani,  can  be  connected  at  once  with  particu- 
lar districts  of  Keltic  Gaul,  which  bore,  it  may  almost  be  said  which  bear  to  this 
day,  the  same  names,  and  from  which  their  origin  is  distinctly  traced.  We  find 
among  them  no  traces  of  Belgian  or  Kimbrian  names,  or  of  their  having  come 
from  the  shores  of  the  Northern  ocean,13  or  the  Hercynian  mountains.  How  then 
can  it  be  said  that  the  invaders  of  central  Italy  were  not  Keltse,  but  Galatse ;  not 
Gael,  but  Kymry  ? 

It  has  been  maintained,  indeed,  that14  the  Boii,  Lingones,  and  Senones,  the 
The  G»ui«  who  invaded  ^r^6S  wni°n  were  the  last  to  enter  Italy,  and  which  crossed  the 
aS^m  to*  x«*  Alps,  not  by  the  passes  to  the  west  of "  Turin,  but  by  the  Great 
St.  Bernard,  were  of  a  different  race  from  the  earlier  invaders,  and 
that  while  those  were  Gael,  these  who  came  last  were  Kymry.  But  the  Roman 
writers,  and  Polybius,  who  was  well  acquainted  with  the  Cisalpine  Gauls,  ac- 
knowledged no  such  diversity.  And  though  we  cannot  ascertain  the  country 
of  the  Boii,  yet  the  Lingones  and  Senones  both  fall  within  the  limits  assigned  by 
Caesar  to  Keltic  Gaul,  as  distinguished  from  the  country  of  the  Belgae  or  Kyrary. 

If,  however,  we  are  disposed  to  rely  on  the  statement  of  Diodorus  and  Appian, 
Bat  po6»ibiy  the  Kim-  that  the  Gauls  who  invaded  Greece  were  Kimbri,  it  may  be  very 
h"v«^k^nyna7t'innthe  possible  that  there  was  a  more  general  movement  among  the 
invMion  with  them.  Keltic  tribes  in  the  fourth  century  of  Rome,  than  the  Greek  or 
Roman  writers  were  aware  of.  The  Kymry,  breaking  in  upon  the  Gael  from  the 
east  and  north,  may  have  persuaded  or  forced  some  of  their  tribes  to  join  them 
in  their  march  southwards  ;  the  two  nations  may  have  poured  into  Italy  together, 
and  while  the  Gaelic  tribes  settled  themselves  on  the  Po  or  on  the  coast  of  the 
Adriatic,  the  mass  of  the  Kymrians  may  have  pressed  forward  round  the  head  of 
the  gulf,  and  so  penetrated  into  Pannonia  and  Thrace.  No»  could  we  deny  the 
possibility  of  some  Kymrians  having  remained  in  Italy  with  the  Gael ;  and  if  we 
believe  that  the  name  of  Brennus15  was  really  borne  by  the  leader  of  the  attack 
on  Rome,  and  that  this  word  is  no  other  than  the  Kymrian  "  Brenhin,"16  which 
signifies  king  or  leader,  then  we  must  conclude  that  although  the  mass  of  the 
invaders  were  Gael,  yet  that  not  only  were  there  Kymrians  joined  with  them, 
but  that  a  Kymrian  chief  commanded  the  whole  expedition.  This  may  have  been 
so,  but  I  can  hardly  think  that  there  is  sufficient  evidence  to  require  us  to  believe 
that  it  was  so. 

Again,  though  I  have  called  the  Gauls  of  north  Italy  Gael,  and  have  sup- 
posed that  those  who  passed  on  to  Illyricum  and  Thrace  may  have 

Difficulty  of  identifying    f  ,,  T  "  p          p  "IT  i      ,     •         ! 

the  language  of  the  been  Kymry,  yet  1  am  far  from  concluding  that  m  the  language 

Gaul*     who     invaded        c  ^        f  ill  •        j    .1  XT-  irVv 

Kaiy  with  any  existing  of  the  former  we  sn*uld  have  recognized  the  exact  Erse  and  Gaelic 
of  Ireland  and  tlae  Scotch  Highlands,  or  in  that  of  the  latter  the 

n  The  Senones  came  from  the  neighborhood  mentioned  the  attack  on  Eome,  as  we  know, 

of  Sens  on  the  Yonne,  the  Lingones  from  that  but  not  with  its  details ;  and  it  is  not  likely  that 

of  Langres  :  the  Insubres  came  from  a  district  they  should  have  given  the  name  of  the  Gaulish 

in  the  country  of  the  .^Edui,  between  the  Loire  leader.     In  fact,  Diodorus,  whose  narrative,  as 

and  Saone ;  and  the  Cenomani  from  the  neigh-  Niebuhr  supposes,  is  copied  from  Fabius,  does 

borhood  of  Le  Mans.  not  give  it  at  all.     It  is  very  likely  that  the  name 

18  The  expression  in  Livy  already  referred  to,  of  Brennus  was  borrowed  from  the  story  of  the 
"that  the  Gauls  came  from  the  shores  of  the  Gaulish  attack  on  Delphi,  as  so  many  of  the  em- 
ocean,"  must  not  be  alleged  here,  inasmuch  as  bellishments  of  the  Roman  history  have  been 
the  ocean  is  there  used  merely  in  opposition  $>  taken  from  the  famous  stories  of  the  history  of 
the  Mediterranean,  and  may  quite  as  well  be  Greece. 

understood  of  the  Bay  of  Biscay  as  of  the  Ger-  16  Dr.  Pritchard,   whose  authority  in  such 

man  Ocean  or  the  Baltic.  questions  is  of  the  highest  order,  believes  that 

14  By  Thierry  in  his  Histoire  des  Gaulois,  Vol.  Brennus  is  not  the  Welsh  "  Brenhin,"  but  ra- 

I.  p.  44,  &c.  ther  the  proper  name  Bran,  which  occurs  in 

*  It  must  be  remembered  always  that  Fabius,  Welsh  history.    I  know  not  whether  this  name 

the  oldest  lioman  historian,  wrote  about  two  ever  prevailed  amongst  the  Irish  or  the  Gael  of 

hundred  years  after  the  Gaulish  invasion,  and  Scotland, 
borrowed  largely  from  the  Greek  writers.  They 


.  XXIV.] 


THE  KELTIC  LANGUAGES. 


201 


exact  form  of  the  modern  Welsh.  The  Keltic  languages,  which  still  exist  in  thes<» 
islands,  are  in  all  likelihood  the  solitary  survivors  out  of  the  multitude  of  lan- 
iges  or  dialects,  once  spoken  by  the  various  branches  of  the  great  Keltic  fam- 
ly,  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  sources  of  the  Danube,  from  the  Mediterranean  to 
the  northern  extremity  of  the  British  isles.  Length  of  time  and  remoteness  of 
)lace  introduce  wonderful  changes  in  a  language  ;  so  that  no  one  could  expect  to 
ind  an  exact  resemblance  between  the  Keltic  spoken  in  the  fourth  century  before 
the  Christian  sera,  by  the  Gauls  of  France  and  Italy,  and  the  actual  language  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Ireland  and  the  north  of  Scotland.  We  may,  therefore,  tind 
names  of  places  and  persons17  among  the  ancient  Gauls,  which  no  Keltic  language 
in  its  present  state  will  enable  us  to  interpret.  Much  more  may  it  be  impossible 
to  trace  such  words  in  the  written  Welsh,  or  Erse,  or  Gaelic  ;  although  an  exact 
acquaintance  with  the  various  spoken  dialects  in  the  several  parts  of  Ireland  or 
Wales  might  even  now  enable  us  to  discover  them.  There  are  many  German 
words18  lost  in  our  written  English,  which  either  exist  in  the  names  of  places  or 
in  some  of  our  provincial  dialects ;  and  doubtless  the  converse  of  this  might  be 
observed  by  any  one  who  was  familiar  with  the  spoken  dialects  of  Germany.  For 
the  language  of  the  civilized  nation  was  once  no  more  than  the  dialect  of  some 
particular  tribe,  till  some  intellectual  or  political  superiority  of  those  who  spoke 
it,  caused  it  to  be  adopted  in  writing  in  preference  to  its  sister  dialects,  and  thus 
made  its  peculiarities  from  henceforth  the  common  rule.  Now,  it  may  well  hap- 
pen in  two  nations  speaking  a  common  language,  that  the  dialects19  which  shall 


17  Dr.  Pritchard  tells  me  that  he  cannot  trace  occupied  by  the  Keltiberians.  Humboldt  refers 
the  terminations  magus,  briga,  and  briva,  in  to  the  termination  bria,  which  is  met  with  in 
any  of  the  existing  Keltic  languages.  Although  the  geography  of  Thrace,  as  in  the  town  of  Se- 
I  am  myself  ignorant  of  those  languages,  yet  I  Ivmbria  and  Mesembria.  He  thinks  that  the 
can  see  that  Thierry's  pretended  explanations 
of  Keltic  names  of  places  are  often  quite  extrav- 
agant. Bodencus,  according  to  Polybius,  was 
the  name  given  by  the  people  of  the  country  to 


the  river  Po  (Polyb.  II.  16) ;  and  this  word,  ac- 
cording to  Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.  III.  16,  signifies 
bottomless,  "fundo  carens."  Metrodorus  of 
Scepsis,  from  whom.  Pliny  borrowed  this  ac- 
countj  said  indeed  that  Bodencus,  or  Bodincus, 
as  it  is  in  our  copies  of  Pliny,  was  a  Ligurian 
word ;  but  there  was  a  town,  Bpdincomagus, 
which  has  evidently  a  Keltic  termination.  Can 
Bodincus,  or  Bodencus,  be  reasonably  explained 
by  the  present  Welsh  or  Irish  languages  ?  Again, 
the  same  Metrodorus  derived  Padus  from  the 
Gaulish  Pades,  which,  he  said,  signified  a  pine- 
tree.  Can  this  be  traced  in  modern  Keltic  ?  It 
should  be  observed,  that  in  explaining  the  names 
of  places,  and  especially  of  terminations,  it  is 
not  enough  to  produce  Welsh  or  Irish  words  of 
similar  sound,  aud  capable  of  forming  some- 
thing of  a  significant  word ;  but  their  combina- 
tion must  be  agreeable  to  the  usages  of  the 
language ;  and  with  regard  to  terminations,  it 
should  be  shown  either  that  they  are  common 
in  names  of  places  in  Kr'tic  countries  now,  or 
that  some  word  of  similar  signification  is  so 
used.  Attempts  have  been  made  within  these 
few  years  by  Welsh  and  German  antiquaries  to 
explain  the  names  of  ancient  towns  in  Italy  from 
the  Keltic  and  Teutonic  languages ;  and  in 
either  case  it  has  not  been  difficult  to  find  words 
of  similar  sound  both  in  Welsh  and  German, 
which  when  combined  give  a  possible  significa- 
tion. But  in  all  these  cases  we  see  at  once  that 
of  two  different  derivations  one  must  be  wrong  ; 
and  it  mostly  happens,  1  think,  that  both  are  so. 
Von  Humboldt  notices  the  terminations  of 
magus,  briga,  and  briva,  as  undoubtedly  Keltic. 
The  first  and  last  of  them  do  not  occur  in  Spain ; 
out  Briga  is  frequently  met  within  the  limits 


Basque  "iri"  and  "uri"  are  connected  with 
both ;  and  that  we  can  go  no  further  than  to 
say  that  there  was  an  old  root  bri  or  bro,  ex- 
pressing land,  habitation,  settlement,  with 
which  also  the  Teutonic  burg  and  the  Greek 
iri'pyoj  may  have  been  originally  connected.  In 
the  Welsh  and  Breton  languages  "  bro"  is  still, 
he  says,  not  only  a  cultivated  field,  but  gener- 
ally a  country  or  district  |  and  the  Scholiast  on 
Juvenal,  Sat.  VIII.  234,  explains  the  name  oi 
Allobrogae  as  signifying  strangers,  men  from 
another  land,  "  quoniam  brogae  Galli  agrum 
dicunt,  alia  autem  aliud."  Briva  is  supposed 
to  mean  bridge ;  but  Von  Humboldt  agrees  with 
Dr.  Pritchard  in  saying,  that  there  is  no  simi- 
lar word  of  a  like  signification  known  to  exist 
in  any  of  the  surviving  Keltic  languages. 

I  find  brog  and  brug  in  O'Brien's  Irish  Dic- 
tionary as  signifying  "a  grand  house  or  build- 
ing, fortified  place,  a  palace  or  royal  residence." 
O'Brien  connects  it  with  briga  and  the  Thracian 
Bria.  I  also  find  the  substantive  "  brugaide" 
in  O'Brien's  Dictionary,  as  signifying  "a  hus- 
bandmen, ploughman,  or  farmer." 

18Dorf,  *'  a  village,"  is  a  well-known  instance; 
a  word  which  now  exists  in  English  only  in  the 
form  of  "  thorpe,"  a  common  termination  of  the 
names  of  places  in  several  counties,  and  some- 
times a  name  by  itself.  Again,  the  German 
"  bach,"  a  stream  or  brook,  is  in  common  use 
in  the  north  of  England,  where  the  brooks  or 
streams  are  invariably  called  becks. 

19  Many  curious  instances  of  this  might  be 
given.  Horse  and  pferd  are  the  classical  Eng- 
lish and  German  words  for  the  same  animal , 
but  horse  exists  in  German  under  the  form  ros, 
and  is  to  be  met  with  in  poetry,  and  also  some- 
times on  the  signs  of  inns,  as  if  it  were  now 
either  an  old  or  a  merely  provincial  or  familiar 
word.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  English 
form  of  pferd,  which  is  pad,  has  sunk  still  lower 


202 


HISTORY  OF  ROME. 


ultimately  prevail  in  each,  shall  not  be  those  which  most  nearly  resemble  one 
another;  and  thus,  at  an  advanced  period  of  their  history,  their  languages  shall 
present  a  far  greater  dissimilarity  than  existed  between  them  in  their  infancy. 
Thus,  as  we  follow  the  stream  of  time  backwards  towards  its  source,  it  is  nat- 
ural that  the  differences,  not  of  dialect  only,  but  even  of  language. 

The     difference*     be-       iii-i  i  11  •,  i  i>      • 

tween  innfmagea  were  should  become  less  and  less :  so  that  what  are  now  distinct  main 

anciently    less   marked     -i  -i  c  -,  •      i     i 

b1aur*tw"ve  Wome  brancnes  ot  one  great  stock,  may  at  a  very  remote  period  have 
formed  the  as  yet  undivided  elements  of  one  common  trunk.  There 
must  have  been  a  time  when  the  Keltic20  and  Teutonic  languages  were  parted  far 
less  widely  than  we  find  them  now ;  even  within  historical  memory,  when  the 
Keltic  and  Teutonic  tribes  were  intermixed  with  each  other,  within  the  limits  of 
what  is  now  Germany,  and  when  they  were  so  confounded  together  in  the  eyes 
of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  as  to  be  regarded  only  as  one  great  people,*1  the  real 
differences  of  manners  and  language  may  have  been  much  less  than  they  became 
afterwards,  when  their  limits  were  more  distinctly  marked.  What  was  working 
in  the  wide  extent  of  central  Europe  during  so  many  centuries  of  which  no  memo- 
rial remains,  we  should  vainly  seek  to  discover.  Accident,  to  use  our  common 
language,  may  have  favored  the  growth  of  improvements  in  some  remote  tribe, 
while  the  bulk  of  the  people,  although  nearer  to  the  great  centre  of  human  civil- 
ization, may  have  remained  in  utter  barbarism ;  and  thus  Caesar's  statement  may 
be  perfectly  true,  that  druidism,  of  which  we  find  no  traces  amongst  the  Cisalpine 
Gauls,  was  brought  to  its  greatest  perfection  in  Britain,  and  that  the  Gauls  in  his 
own  time  were  in  the  habit  of  crossing  over  thither  as  to  the  best  and  purest 
source  of  instruction  in  its  mysteries. 

There  is  one  point,  however,  in  which  the  difference  between  the  Keltic  race 
physical  character  of  m  ancient  and  modern  times  has  been  unduly  exaggerated.  The 
Greek  and  Roman  writers  invariably  describe  the  Gauls22  as  a  tall 
and  light-haired  race  in  comparison  with  their  own  countrymen ;  but  it  has  been 
maintained  that  there  must  be  some  confusion  in  these  descriptions  between  the 
Gauls  and  the  Germans,  inasmuch  as  the  Keltic  nations  now  existing  are  all  dark- 
haired.  This  statement  was  sent  to  Niebuhr  by  some  Englishman  ;  and  Niebuhr, 
taking  the  fact  for  granted  on  his  correspondent's  authority,  was  naturally  much 
perplexed  by  it.  But  had  he  travelled  ever  so  rapidly  through  Wales  or  Ireland, 
or  had  he  cast  a  glance  on  any  of  those  groups  of  Irish  laborers,  who  are  con- 
stantly to  be  met  with  in  summer  on  all  the  roads  in  England,  he  would  have  at 


and  is  merely  a  cant  or  ludicrous  word  in  our 
present  language. 

20  It  is  quite  manifest  from  Dr.  Pritchard's 
excellent  work  on  the  origin  of  the  Keltic  na- 
tions, that  the  Keltic  and  Teutonic  languages 
belong  to  one  common  family,  which  is  com- 
monly called  the  Indo-Germanic.    This  appears 
not  only  from  their  containing  a  multitude  of 
common  words,  but  from  a  surer  evidence,  the 
analogy  in  their  grammatical  forms. 

In  order  to  judge  of  the  connection  between 
one  language  and  another,  something  more  is 
necessary  than  the  being  merely  able  to  write 
and  to  speak  those  two  languages.  Sir  W.  Be- 
tham,  in  his  work  called  "  the  Cymry  and  the 
Gael,"  gives  a  list  of  Welsh  and  Irish  pronouns, 
to  show  that  the  Welsh  language  has  no  con- 
nection with  the  Irish.  Whereas  that  very  list 
furnishes  a  proof  of  their  affinity  to  any  one 
who  has  been  accustomed  to  compare  the  vari- 
ous forms  assumed  by  one  and  the  same  origi- 
nal word,  in  the  several  cognate  languages  of  the 
same  family. 

21  Dionysius  divides  the  country  of  the  Kelts, 
KtArt*/5,  into  two  great  divisions,  which  he  calls 
Gaul  and  Germany,  XIV.  2.  Fragm.  Mai.  Stra- 
bo  describes  the  Germans  as  the  most  perfect 


and  genuine  specimen's  of  the  peculiarities  of 
the  Gaulish  race,  and  says  that  the  Eomans 
called  them  Germani,  "true,"  "genuine,"  to 
intimate  that  they  were  genuine  Gauls  :  us  2v 

yvrjaiavf  TaXdraS  fpd&iv  ^ov^tvoi.  VII.  1,  §  2, 
p.  290. 

23  Diodorus  calls  them  tipriKtis.  Act/to/  and  rais 
K<5/j<nj  %av&oi.  V.  28.  Ammianus  Marcellinus 
calls  them  "  candidi  et  rutili,"  XV.  12.  Virgil 
speaks  of  their  "aurea  csosaries,"  and  "lactea 
colla,"  ^En.  VIII.  658,  9.  Strabo  says  that  the 
"  Germans  differ  a  little  from  the  Gauls  in  being 
more  tall  and  more  light  haired,"  r<p  - 


rov  pcytQovs  /cat  TTJS  ^avOdrnros.      VII.  p.  290;   and 

again  he  describes  the  Britons  as  "less  light 
haired  than  the  Gauls,"  IV.  p.  200.  Polybius 
also  speaks  of  their  "great  stature,"  II.  15  ;  and 
Livy  mentions  their  "procera  corpora,  promis- 
sae  et  rutilatse  comae."  XXX  VI  II.  17.  Is'ow  after 
such  multitudes  of  Gauls  had  been  brought  into 
the  slave  market  by  the  conquests  of  the  dic- 
tator Caesar,  the  writers  of  the  Augustan  age, 
even  though  they  might  never  have  crossed  the 
Alps,  must  have  been  as  familiar  with  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  Gaul  as  the  West  Indians  are  with 
that  of  a  negro.  A  mistake  so  general  on  a  point 
so  obvious  is  utterly  impossible. 


CHAP.  XXIV.]  ACCOUNTS  OF  THE  GAULISH  INVASION.  203 

once  perceived  that  his  perplexity  had  been  needless.  Compared  with  the  Ital- 
ians, it  would  be  certainly  true  that  the  Keltic  nations  were,  generally  speaking, 
both  light-haired  and  tall.23  If  climate  has  any  thing  to  do  with  the  complexion, 
the  inhabitants  of  the  north  of  Europe,  in  remote  times,  may  be  supposed  to  have 
been  fairer  and  more  light-haired  than  at  present ;  while  the  roving  life,  the  plen- 
tiful  food,  and  the  absence  of  all  hard  labor,  must  have  given  a  greater  develop- 
ment to  the  stature  of  the  Gaulish  warrior  who  first  broke  into  Italy  than  can  be 
looked  for  amongst  the  actual  peasantry  of  Wales  or  Ireland. 

The  Gauls  then  from  beyond  the  Alps  were  in  possession  of  the  plain  of  the 
Po,  and  had  driven  out  or  exterminated  the  Etruscans,  when  in 
the  year  of  Rome  364,  they  for  the  first  time  crossed  the  Apen-  ApennineVaud0"tuck 
nines,  and  penetrated  into  central  Italy.  On  the  first  alarm  of 
this  irruption24  the  Romans  sent  three  of  their  citizens  into  Etruria  to  observe  their 
movements ;  and  these  deputies  arrived  at  Clusium  just  at  the  time  when  the 
Gauls  appeared  before  its  walls,  and  began,  after  their  usual  manner,  to  lay  waste 
the  country.  The  citizens  made  a  sally,  and  the  Roman  deputies  went  out  with 
them ;  they  engaged  with  the  Gauls,  and  one  of  the  deputies  encountered  and 
slew  a  Gaulish  chief.  Roman  patricians,  said  the  Roman  story,25  could  not  be 
confounded  with  Etruscans ;  the  Gauls  instantly  perceived  that  there  were  some 
strangers  of  surpassing  valor  aiding  the  citizens  of  Clusium ;  they  learned  that 
these  strangers  were  Romans,  and  they  forthwith  sent  deputies  to  Rome  to  de- 
mand that  the  man  who  had  thus  fought  with  them,  and  slain  one  of  their  chiefs, 
when  there  was  no  war  between  the  Gauls  and  the  Romans,  should  be  given  up 
into  their  hands,  that  they  might  have  blood  for  blood.  The  senate  thought  that 
the  demand  of  the  strangers  was  reasonable,  and  voted  that  the  deputy  should  be 
given  over  into  their  hands ;  but  his  father,  who  was  one  of  the  military  tribunes 
for  the  year,  appealed  to  the  people  from  the  sentence  of  the  senate,  and  being 
a  man  of  much  influence,  persuaded  them  to  annul  it.  Then  the  Gauls,  finding 
their  demand  rejected,  broke  up  in  haste  from  Clusium,  and  marched  directly 
against  Rome.26 

Thus  the  very  outset  of  this  Gaulish  invasion,  even  as  related  by  Diodorus 
who  gives  the  story  in  its  simplest  form,  is  disguised  by  the  na-  ' 

i  .  ..    A,    J   -n  Ti    •       •  -i_l       ?  i  f    Uncertainty  of  the  « 

tional  vanity  ot  the  Romans.  It  is  impossible  to  rely  on  any  of  count*  of  the  Gauii»i 
the  details  of  the  narrative  which  has  been  handed  down  to  us ; 
the  Romans  were  no  doubt  defeated  at  the  Alia ;  Rome  was  taken  and  burnt , 
and  the  Capitol  ransomed  ;  but  beyond  this  we  know,  properly  speaking,  nothing. 
We  know  that  falsehood  has  been  busy,  to  an  almost  unprecedented  extent,  with 
the  common  story ;  exaggeration,  carelessness,  and  honest  ignorance,  have  joined 
more  excusably  in  corrupting  it.  The  history  of  great  events  can  only  be  pre- 
served by  contemporary  historians ;  and  such  were  in  this  case  utterly  wanting. 
But  as  we  have  an  outline  of  undoubted  truth  in  the  stoiy,  and  as  the  particulars 
which  are  given  are  exceedingly  striking  and  in  many  instances  not  improbable,  I 
shall  endeavor  at  once  to  present  such  a  view  of  the  events  of  the  Gaulish  war 
as  may  be  clear  from  manifest  error,  and  to  preserve  also  some  of  its  most  re- 

**  I  should  not  have  ventured  to  speak  so  con-  points.  According  to  Livy,  the  three  deputies 
fidently  merely  from  rny  own  observation ;  but  were  all  demanded  by  the  Gauls ;  nothing  is  said 
Dr.  Pritchard,  who  has  for  many  years  turned  of  their  father  being  military  tribune,  but  it  U 
his  attention  to  this  question,  assures  me  that  said  that  they  themselves  were  immediatelji 
he  is  perfectly  satisfied  as  to  the  truth  of  the  elected  military  tribunes  for  the  ensuing  year, 
fact  here  stated.  To  me  it  is  only  surprising  Diodorus  does  not  name  them;  according  to 
that  any  one  should  have  thought  of  disputing  Livy  they  were  three  brothers,  sons  of  M.  Fa- 
it, bius  Ambustus.  Now  no  Fabius  appears  in  the 

34  Diodorus,  XIV.  113.  list  of  military  tribunes  for  the  year  364,  either 

25  Livy,  V.  36.   Nee  id  clam  esse  potuit,  quam  according  to  Diodorus  or  Livy ;  and  though  the 
ante  signa  Etruscorum  tres  nobihssimi  fortis-  list  for  365,  as  given  by  Diodorus,  is  very  cor- 
simique  Komanajjuventutis  pugnarent;  tantum  rupt,  yet  there  are  no  traces  of  its  ever  having 
eminebat  peregrina  virtus.  contained  the  names  of  more  than  two  Fabii  at 

26  Diodorus,   IV.  113,   114.      This  story,  it  the  most, 
will  be  observed,  differs  from  Livy's  in  several 


204  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXIV 

markable  details,  which  may  be  true,  and  are  at  any  rate  far  too  famous  to  be 
omitted. 

We  know  that  the  Gauls  needed  no  especial  provocation  to  attack  Clusium,  or 
The  Gaui.  advance  np.  to  penetrate  beyond  Rome  into  the  south  of  Italy.  Wherevei 
there  was  a  prospect  of  the  richest  plunder,  there  was  to  them  a 
sufficient  cause  for  hostility.  But  the  cities  of  Etruria,  surrounded  by  their  mas- 
sive walls,  were  impregnable  except  by  famine ;  so  that  after  the  open  country 
had  been  once  wasted,  the  Gauls  would  naturally  carry  their  arms  elsewhere. 
From  Clusium  the  valley  of  the  Clanis  would  conduct  them  directly  to  the  Tiber ; 
that  river,  so  far  from  its  mouth,  would  be  easily  fordable  ;  and  then  all  the  plain 
of  Latium  lay  open  to  their  attack.  The  season  was  now  the  middle  of  summer ; 
the  new  military  tribunes,  who  at  this  period  came  into  office  on  the  first  of  July, 
had  just  been  elected ;  and  expecting  the  Gauls  to  advance  upon  Rome,  and 
supposing  that  they  would  approach  by  the  right  bank21  of  the  Tiber,  they  sum- 
moned to  the  field  the  whole  force  of  the  commonwealth,  they  called  on  their 
Latin  and  Hernican28  allies  to  aid  them,  and  having  thus  collected  all  their  strength, 
they  marched  out  of  Rome  on  the  road  to  Etruria,  intending  to  receive  the  en- 
emy's attack  in  the  neighborhood  of  Veii,  which  was  now  a  sort  of  frontier  for- 
tress of  the  Roman  territory,  and  which  might  serve  as  the  base  of  their  opera- 
tions. The  whole  army  thus  assembled  amounted,  according  to  the  statement 
of  Plutarch,29  to  forty  thousand  men. 

But  the  Gauls  meantime  had  crossed  the  Tiber  into  Umbria,  and  were  moving 
along  the  left  bank  of  the  river,  through  the  country  of  the  Sa- 

They  cross  the  Tiber,    .  .  ,         ,  ,    .  ..  _  rn.°     ..-_  .   * 

and  enter  the  country  of  bines,  towards  the  plain  of  Latium.  Ihe  Roman  writers,  who  pre- 
tend that  their  only  object  was  Rome,  and  that  as  soon  as  they 
heard  that  their  demand  for  satisfaction  was  rejected  they  hastened  from  Clusium 
to  attack  the  Romans,  forget  that  this  is  inconsistent  with  another  part  of  their 
story,  namely,  that  the  deputies  who  had  gone  to  Clusium  were,  as  if  in  mockery 
of  the  Gauls,  elected  military  tribunes  immediately  after  the  refusal  to  give 
them  up.  For  as  the  tribunes  did  not  enter  on  their  office  till  the  first  of  July, 
and  the  battle  of  the  Alia  was  not  fought  till  the  sixteenth,  the  pretended  hasty 
march  of  the  Gauls  from  Clusium  to  Rome,  a  distance  of  about  a  hundred  miles,30 
must  have  taken  up  more  than  a  fortnight.  But  in  all  likelihood  the  Gauls  went 
on  plundering  the  country  before  them,  without  aiming  exclusively  at  Rome : 
according  to  Diodorus,  they  had  waited  in  Etruria  before  they  began  their  march 
southwards,  long  enough  to  receive  large  reinforcements31  from  beyond  the  Ap- 
ennines ;  and  the  provocation  given  them  by  the  Romans  was,  we  may  suppose, 
gladly  seized  as  a  pretence  for  extending  their  attacks  from  the  country  of  their 
old  enemies,  the  Etruscans,  to  that  of  the  other  nations  of  central  Italy. 

When  it  was  discovered  that  the  Gauls  were  already  on  the  left  bank  of  the 
Tiber,  and  advancing  by  the  Salarian  road,  which  was  the  old  communication  be* 

37  Diodorus  states  positively  that  the  Eoman  and  did  not  serve  in  war ;  m*at  is,  of  proletari- 

army  marched  out  across  the  Tiber.     It  is  true  ans  and  serarians.    According  to  Diodorus,  the 

that  he  seems  to  have  supposed  the  Alia  to  have  left  wing  of  the  Eoman  army,  consisting  of  the 

been  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Tiber;  but  this  bravest  soldiers,  amounted  to  24,000  :  that  is, 

confusion  arose  probably  from  his  finding  no  it  contained  the  four  regular  legions  spoken  of 

notice  of  the  Romans  recrossing  the  river  before  by  Dionysius,  which    amounted  together   f» 

the  battls.    His  first  statement  is  probable,  and  12,000  men,  and  of  an  equal  number  of  the  al- 

seems  to  me  to  explain  the  extreme  suddenness  lies.    This  would  leave  about  16,000  men  for 

with  which  the  battle  on  the  Alia  took  place.  the  raw  and  inferior  troops,  TO'VS  affOevcardrovf, 

M  "The Gauls,"  says Polybius,  "defeated the  who  in  the  battle  formed  the  right  of  the  Eo- 

Eomans  and  those  who  were  drawn  up  in  the  man  army. 

field  along  with  them."    'P«/i«fouj  *a«  roi>s  ptra  *  Polybius  underrates  the  distance  at  a  three 

rotfrui*  itaparafaplvovs.  11.18.   These  could  have  days'  journey.    II.  25.    Strabo  calls  it  eight 

been  no  other  than  the  Latin  and  Hernican  al-  hundred  stadia.    V.  p.  226.    The  itineraries  as 

lies.  corrected  make  it  one  hundred  and  two,  and 

"  Camillas,  18.      According  to    Dionysius,  one  hundred  and  three  miles,  and  it  cannot  bt 

XIII.  19,  there  were  four  legions  of  picked  and  much  less, 

experienced  soldiers,  and  a  still  more  numerous  81  XIII.  114. 
force  of  thoso  who  commonly  stayed  at  home 


CHAP.  XXIV  J  BATTLE  OF  THE  ALIA.  205 

tween  the  land  of  the  Sabines  and  Rome,  then  the  Romans  were  The  Rommig  ^  pott 
naturally  thrown  into  the  greatest  alarm.  The  Tiber,  for  many  ontheAliH- 
miles  above  Rome,  is  not  fordable ;  as  there  were  no  towns  on  the  river  there 
were  probably  no  bridges,  and  boats  could  not  be  procured  at  such  short  notice 
for  the  passage  of  so  large  an  army.  The  Romans  therefore  were  obliged  to  go 
round  by  Rome,  and  without  an  instant's  delay  march  out  by  the  Salarian  road, 
in  order  to  encounter  the  enemy  at  as  great  a  distance  from  the  city  as  possible. 
They  found  the  Gauls  already  within  twelve  miles  of  Rome ;  the  little  stream  of 
the  Alia,  or  rather  the  deep  bed  through  which  it  runs,  offered  something  like  a 
line  of  defence  ;32  and  accordingly  the  Romans  here  awaited  the  attack  of  their 
enemy.  Their  right  was  posted  on  some  high  ground,33  covered  in  front  by  the 
deep  bed  of  the  Alia,  and  with  a  hilly  and  wooded  country  protecting  its  flank ; 
while  the  left,  consisting  of  the  regular  legions,  filled  up  the  interval  of  level 
ground  between  the  hills  and  the  Tiber,  and  its  extreme  flank  was  covered  by 
the  river. 

There  seems  in  all  these  dispositions  nothing  of  overweening  rashness  or  of 
folly  ;  it  is  doubtful  what  was  really  the  disproportion  of  numbers 

,J  .  •/•  ,1        /-i        i      i      j    i       ,  •          Battle  of  the  Alia. 

between  the  two  armies ;  if  the  Gauls  had  but  recently  been  rein- 
forced, the  Roman  generals  may  have  supposed  the  enemy's  numbers  to  have 
been  no  greater  than  they  were  at  Clusium ;  and  to  fight  was  unavoidable,  if 
they  wished  to  save  their  country  from  devastation.  But  the  Gaulish  leader 
showed  more  than  a  barbarian's  ability.  With  the  bravest  of  his  warriors  he  as- 
sailed the  right  of  the  Roman  position :  the  soldiers  of  the  poorer  classes,  unused 
to  war,  and  untrained  in  the  management  of  their  arms,  were  appalled  by  the 
yells,  and  borne  down  by  the  strength  of  their  enemies  ;  and  their  wooden  shields 
were  but  a  poor  defence  against  the  fearful  strokes  of  the  Keltic  broadsword. 
The  right  of  the  Romans  was  broken  and  chased  from  its  ground ;  the  course  of 
the  river  had  obliged  the  left  of  the  army  to  be  thrown  back  behind  the  right,  so 
that  the  fugitives  in  their  flight  disordered  the  ranks  of  the  regular  legions  ;  and 
the  Gauls  pursuing  their  advantage,  the  whole  Roman  army  was  totally  routed. 
The  vanquished  fled  in  different  directions  ;  those  on  the  left34  plunged  into  the 
Tiber,  in  the  hope  of  swimming  across  it  and  escaping  to  Veii ;  but  the  Gauls 
slaughtered  them  in  heaps  on  the  banks,  and  overwhelmed  them  with  their  jave- 
lins in  the  river,  so  that  a  large  part  of  the  flower  of  the  Roman  people  was  here 
destroyed.  The  fugitives  on  the  right  fled  towards  Rome  ;  some  took  refuge  in 
a  thick  wood35  near  the  road,  and  there  lay  hid  till  nightfall;  the  rest  ran  with- 
out stopping  to  the  city,  and  brought  the  tidings  of  the  calamity. 

The  Gauls  did  not  pursue  the  fugitives  far :  we  hear  as  yet  nothing  of  that 
cavalry  for  which  they  were  afterwards  so  famous ;  probably  be- 
cause they  had  not  yet  been  long  enough  in  Italy  to  have  supplied  night  on1  tVptu*id  <S 
themselves  with  the  horses  of  that  country;   and  the  breed  of 
Transalpine  Gaul,  like  that  of  Britain,  was  too  small  to  be  used  except  for  the 

33  It  is  well  known  that  to  identify  the  famous  cigliana  Vecchia  is  placed  about  two  miles  nearer 

Alia  with  any  existing  stream  is  one  of  the  hard-  to  Rome.    Both  descriptions  are  given  in  such 

est  problems  of  Roman  topography.    Virgil  and  detail  that  this  diversity  is  rather  perplexing. 

Livy  agree  in  placing  it  on  the  left  bank  of  the  33  Livy,  V.  38.    Diodorus,  XIV.  114. 

Tiber ;  and  Livy's  description  seems  as  precise  -   34  Livy,  V.  38.    Diodorus,  XIV.  114,  115. 

us  possible,  for  he  says  that  the  armies  met,  "ad  ^  Festus  in  "  Lucaria."    The  wood,  accord- 

undecimum  lapidem,  qua  flumen  Alia  Crustu-  ing  to  this  statement,  was  between  the  Salarian. 

minis  montibus  praealto  defluens  alveo  haud  road  aud  the  Tiber.    This  shows  that  Sir  W. 

multum  infra  viam  Tiberino  amni  miscetur."  Gell  has  rightly  marked  the  old  Salarian  road 

V.  37.     And  Westphal  accordingly  says  that  on  his  map,  wliere  he  makes  it  turn  to  the  right 

"something  less  then  eleven  miles  from  Rome,  over  the  hills  away  from  the  Tiber,  about  two 

there  is  a  small  brook  with  high  banks,"  and  miles  beyond  Castel  Giubileo.    Had  the  road 

that  "  on  the  right  of  the  road  at  this  spot  you  followed  the  low  grounds  near  the  river,  there 

sec  the  village  of  Marcigliana  Vecchia."  p.  127.  could  scarcely  have  been  a  wood  between  it  and 

But  I  cannot  reconcile  this  with  Sir  W.  Gell's  the  Tiber,  for  the  ground  must  have  been  tliec 

map,  or  with  his  description  in  his  article  on  the  as  now,  nothing  but  a  great  expanse  of  meadows 
Alia  in  his  topography  of  Rome  ;  for  there  Mar- 


206  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXIV. 

drawing  of  their  war- chariots.  Besides,  they  were  themselves  wearied  with  their 
march,  and  with  their  exertions  in  the  battle  ;  and  it  was  of  importance36  to  each 
man  to  collect  and  exhibit  his  trophies,  the  heads  of  the  enemies  whom  he  had 
slain ;  for  these  were  the  proof  that  the  warrior  had  done  his  duty  in  the  battle, 
and  was  entitled  to  his  share  of  the  spoil :  these  were  to  be  carried  home,  and 
preserved  to  after  ages  in  his  family,  as  a  memorial  of  his  valor.  Thus,  accord- 
ing to  the  account  of  Diodorus,  the  Gauls  passed  the  night  after  their  victory  on 
the  field  of  battle. 

But  the  Romans  found  it  impossible  to  defend  their  city ;  as  the  flower  of  the 
The  Rom.™  re«oi™  to  citizens  of  the  military  age,  who  had  escaped  from  the  battle,  had 
defend  the  capUoi.  retreated  to  Veii.  It  is  probable  that  a  large  proportion  of  these 
were  not  sorry  to  have  this  opportunity  of  effecting  what  they  had  before  at- 
tempted in  vain,  and  wished  to  remain  at  Veii  as  their  future  country.  Of  the 
remaining  inhabitants  of  Rome,  the  greater  part  dispersed,  as  the  Athenians  had 
done  before  the  approach  of  Xerxes  ;37  they  took  refuge  with  their  families,  and 
such  of  their  effects  as  they  could  remove,  in  many  of  the  neighboring  cities. 
But  it  was  resolved,  as  at  Athens,  to  maintain  the  citadel,38  for  this,  as  in  all  the 
cities  of  the  ancient  world,  was  in  a  manner  the  sanctuary  of  the  nation :  it  was 
the  spot  in  which  the  temples  of  the  nation's  peculiar  gods  were  built ;  and  to 
this  every  feeling  of  patriotism,  whether  human  merely  or  religious,  was  closely 
connected.  This  was  the  home  of  the  true  gods  of  Rome,  and  the  citadel  of  the 
true  Roman  people,  before  the  stranger  commons,  with  their  new  gods,  had  pre- 
tended to  claim  the  rights  of  Roman  citizens ;  and  many  a  patrician,  indignant  at 
the  retreat  of  the  legions  to  Veii,  and  regarding  this  desertion  as  another  proof 
that  the  commons  were  no  genuine  sons  of  Rome,  retired  into  the  Capitol  with  a 
resolution  never  to  abandon  that  country  and  those  gods,  which  he  felt  and  might 
justly  claim  to  be  indeed  his  own. 

But  the  citadel  might  be  taken ;  the  genuine  Romans  who  defended  it  might 
be  massacred  :  the  temple  of  the  three  guardian  powers  of  Rome, 

The      Veatal      Vireins     T  ,    ,  ..       "  /•     i         /^        •       i          •     i  /> 

with  the  etomai  fire  J  upiter,  J  uno,  and  Minerva,  of  the  Capitol,  might  be  profaned  and 

withdraw  to  Caere.  ,     r  ,  Oi'll    xi  i       J    i  *•  xl  j      l       J 

destroyed.  Still  there  had  been  a  time  when,  other  gods  had  pos- 
sessed the  Capitol,  and  yet  even  then  there  was  Rome,  and  there  were  Romans. 
Other  powers  and  other  rites  were  the  pledge  of  Rome's  existence,  and  if  they 
failed,  she  must  be  lost  forever.  The  flamen  of  Quirinus,39  the  dei6ed  founder  of 
the  city,  and  the  Vestal  Virgins,  who  watched  the  eternal  fire,  the  type  arid  as- 
surance of  its  duration,  must  remove  their  holy  things  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
enemy,  or  if  all  could  not  be  removed,  what  was  left  must  be  so  hidden  that  no 
chance  should  ever  betray  it.  Accordingly  the  Flarnen  and  the  Virgins  of  Vesta 
buried  some  of  their  holy  things  in  the  ground,  in  a  spot  preserved  afterwards 
with  the  strictest  care  from  every  pollution;  and  whatever  they  could  remove, 
they  carried  with  them  to  Agylla  or  Caere.  They  went  on  their  way,  said  the 
story,40  on  foot ;  and  as  they  were  ascending,  the  hill  Janiculum,  after  having 
crossed  the  river  and  left  the  city,  there  overtook  them  on  the  ascent,  a  man  of 
the  commons,  L.  Albinius  by  name,  who  was  conveying  his  wife  and  children  in 
a  carriage  to  a  place  of  safety.  But  when  Lucius  saw  them,  he  bade  his  wife 
and  children  to  alight,  and  he  put  into  the  carriage  in  their  room  the  holy  vir- 
gins and  their  eternal  fire ;  "  For  it  were  a  shame,"  said  he,  "  that  I  and  mine 
should  be  drawn  in  a  carriage,  while  the  Virgins  of  Vesta  with  their  holy  things 
were  going  on  foot."  So  he  conveyed  them  safe  in  the  carriage  to  Caere. 

30  Diodorus,  XIV.  115.    V.  29.    Strabo,  IV.  the  heads  of  their  enemies  resemble  what  is  re- 

p.  107.     The  practice  of  cutting  off  the  heads  of  lated  of  the  Gauls,  I  have  ventured  to  transfer 

their  enemies,  and  of  preserving  them  in  their  to  the  latter  people  this  custom  also, 

houses,  is  ascribed  directly  to  the  Gauls.     The  37  Diodorus,  XIV.  115.    Livy.  V.  40. 

presenting  them  to  the  general,  as  a  title  to  a  w  Diodorus,  XIV.  115.    Livy,  V.  39.    Florae 

share  of  the  spoil,  is  mentioned  by  Herodotus  says  that  the  force  which  garrisoned  the  Capitol 

as  a  Scythian  custom  (IV.  64) ;  but  as  in  other  dill  not  exceed  a  thousand  men,  I.  13. 

respects  the  Scythian  customs  with  regard  to  3a  Livy,  V.  40.                    40  Livy,  V.  40. 


CHAP.  XXIV.] 

Meantime  1 


THE  GAULS  ENTER  ROME. 


207 


Meantime  the  Gauls,  it  is  said,  hesitated  for  one  whole  day4-  to  attack  the  city, 
suspecting  that  the  apparent  absence  of  all  preparations  for  de- 

,  ,  ,          The  Gmi)»  enter  Rome. 

fence  was  but  a  snare  to  entice  them  to  venture  on  an  assault  rashly. 
Thus  the  Romans  gained  a  respite  which  was  most  needful  to  them  ;  and  when, 
on  the  third  day  after  the  battle,  according  to  the  ancient  mode  of  reckoning,  the 
enemy  did  force  the  gates  and  enter  the  city,  the  mass  of  the  population  had  al- 
ready escaped,  and  the  Capitoline  Hill  was,  as  well  as  circumstances  would  allow, 
provisioned  and  garrisoned.  When  the  Gauls  entered,  their  chiefs  it  appears 
established  themselves  on  some  of  the  houses  on  the  Palatine  Hill,42  exactly  oppo- 
site to  the  Capitol ;  and  in  the  rest  of  the  city  the  work  of  plunder  and  destruc- 
tion raged  freely. 

The  mass  of  the  commons  had  fled  from  Rome  with  their  wives  and  children, 
or  having  escaped  from  the  route  of  the  Alia  had  taken  refuse 

TT    ••         rni        a  /•   j_i  '    '  J       c    ±1  •  !_•  r      i         The  old  patricians  de- 

at  Veil,  ihe  flower  of  the  patricians,  and  of  the  citizens  of  the  vote  themseu-e*  * 
richer  classes  of  an  age  to  bear  arms,  had  retired  into  the  Capitol, 
to  defend  to  the  last  that  sanctuary  of  their  country's  gods.  The  flamen  of  Qui- 
rinus  and  the  Vestal  Virgins  had  departed  with  the  sacred  things  committed  to 
their  charge  out  of  the  reach  of  danger.  But  there  were  other  ministers  of  the 
gods,43  whom  their  duty  did  not  compel  to  leave  Rome,  whom  their  age  rendered 
unable  to  join  in  the  defence  of  the  Capitol,  and  who  could  not  endure  to  be  a 
burden  upon  those  whose  strength  allowed  them  to  defend  it.  rnhey  would  not 
live  the  few  remaining  years  of  their  lives  in  a  foreign  city,  but  as  they  could  not 
serve  their  country  by  their  deeds,  they  wished  at  least  to  serve  it  by  their  deaths. 
So  they,  and  others  of  the  old  patricians  who  had  filled  the  highest  offices44  in 
the  commonwealth,  met  together ;  and  M.  Fabius,  the  chief  pontifex,  recited  a 
solemn  form  of  words,  which  they  each  repeated  after  him,  devoting  to  the  spirits 
of  the  dead  and  to  the  earth,  the  common  grave  of  all  living,  themselves  and  the 
army  of  the  Gauls  together  with  themselves,  for  the  welfare  and  deliverance  of 
the  people  of  the  Romans  and  of  the  Quirites.45  Then,  as  men  devoted  to  death, 
they  arrayed  themselves  in  their  most  solemn  dress ;  they  who  had  held  curule 
offices,  in  their  robes  of  white  with  the  broad  scarlet  border  ;46  they  who  had  won 


41  Diodorus  makes  them  hesitate    for   two 
whole  days,  and  thus  to  enter  the  city  on  the 
fourth  day  after  the  battle,  according  to  the  an- 
cient manner  of  reckoning.     The  cause  of  the 
delay  may  indeed  be  a  little  misrepresented: 
alter  so  great  a  victory,  the  conquerors  indulged 
themselves  for  one  whole  day,  as  we  can  readily 
suppose,  in  excess,  and  in  plundering  all  the 
Burrounding  country;  and  if  their  leader  had 
pushed  on  to  Rome,  yet  the  force  which  he 
could  induce  to  follow  him  might  be  so  small, 
as  to  make  him  afraid  to  commence  an  attack 
upon  so  large  a  city.     But  it  seems  certain  that 
the  delay  was  of  one  day  only,  and  not  of  two. 
Polybius  says  that  the  Gauls  took  Rome  three 
days  after  the  battle  ',  that  is,  after  the  interval 
of  one  whole  day.     1-1,18.     And  the  statement 
of  Verrius  Flaceus,  preserved  by  Gcllius,  V.  17, 
and  which  has  all  the  precision  of  a  quotation 
from  some  official  record,  says,  "post  diem  tcr- 
tiura  ejus  diei  urbem  captain  esse." 

42  Diodorus,  XIV.  115. 

43  Ot  TWJ>  a'AAuv  Q&v  icpa?,  is  Plutarch's  ex- 
pression, after  mentioning  the  departure  of  the 
Vestal  Virgins.     Camillus,  21. 

44  Q,ui  curules  gesserant  magistratus.    Livy, 

tt.  Plutarch,  Camillus,  21.  Livy  mentions  this 
account,  though  he  does  not  expressly  adopt  it. 
V.  41.  I  have  borrowed  the  "carmen  devotio- 
nis,"  the  form  in  which  the  old  men  devoted 
themselves,  from  the  story  of  Dccius  in  the 
great  Latin  war.  lie  who  devoted  himself  to 


death  for  his  country,  intended  to  offer  himself 
to  the  powers  of  death,  as  a  willing  victim  on 
the  part  of  his  own  countrymen,  that  the  other 
victims  required  by  fate  might  be  taken  from 
the  army  of  the  enemy.  To  have  prayed  for 
victory  simply,  without  any  sacrifice  on  the  part 
of  the  conquerors,  was  a  tempting  of  Nemesis ; 
but  if  the  sacrifice  was  first  otfered,  then  the 
wrath  of  Nemesis  would  bo  turned  against  the 
enemy,  that  they  too  might  have  their  portion 
of  evil.  The  devoted  otfered  himselt  "  diia 
manibus  tellurique."  Livy,  VIII.  9.  Strictly, 
the  dii  manes  were  the  spirits  of  a  man's  own 
ancestors,  but  they  are  addressed  here  as  rep- 
resentatives of  the  powers  of  death  generally. 
Tellus  is  of  course  the  notion  of  the  grave. 

46  The  toga  praetexta,  or  bordered  toga.  The 
toga,  it  is  well  known,  was  rather  a  shawl  than 
a  robe,  but  the  word  shawl  would  suit  so  ill 
with  oar  associations  of  ancient  Rome,  that  it 
would  not  be  worth  while  to  introduce  it.  The 
triumphal  toga,  toga  picta,  was  like  a  rich  In- 
dian shawl  worked  with  figures  of  various  col- 
ors ;  it  was  thrown  over  the  tunica  palraata,  the 
coat  or  frock  worked  with  figures  of  palm 
branches,  probably  in  gold.  The  sella  curulis 
was,  as  its  name  imports,  the  seat  or  body  of 
the  chariot,  Stypos,  and  when  used  by  the  cu- 
rule magistrates  at  their  tribunals,  implied  that 
they  shared  in  the  imperium  or  sovereign 
power  held  of  old  by  the  kings,  one  mark  of 
which  was  the  being  borne  in  a  chariot  instead 
of  walking  on  foot. 


208  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXIV 

triumphs,  in  their  robes  of  triumph  overlaid  with  embroidery  of  many  colors 
and  with  palm  branches  of  gold,  and  took  their  seats  each  on  his  ivory  chair  of 
magistracy  in  the  gateway  of  his  house.  When  the  Gauls  saw  these  aged  men 
in  this  array  of  majesty,  sitting  motionless  amidst  the  confusion  of  the  sack  of 
the  city,  they  at  first  looked  upon  them  as  more  than  human,47  and  one  of  the 
soldiers  drew  near  to  M.  Papirius,  and  began  to  stroke  reverently  his  long  white 
beard.  Papirius,  who  was  a  minister  of  the  gods,  could  not  endure  the  touch  of 
profane  barbarian  hands,  and  struck  the  Gaul  over  the  head  with  his  ivory  scep- 
tre. Instantly  the  spell  of  reverence  was  broken,  and  rage  and  the  thirst  of 
blood  succeeded  to  it.  The  Gaul  cut  down  the  old  Papirius  with  his  sword ;  his 
comrades  were  kindled  at  the  sight,  and  all  the  old  men,  according  to  their  vow, 
were  offered  up  as  victims  to  the  powers  of  death. 

The  enemy  now  turned  their  attention  to  the  Capitol.  But  the  appearance  of 
Blockade  of  the  Capi-  tne  Capitoline  Hill  in  the  fourth  century  of  Rome  can  ill  be  judged 
of  by  that  view  which  travellers  obtain  of  its  present  condition. 
The  rock,  which  is  now  so  concealed  by  the  houses  built  up  against  it,  or  by 
artificial  slopings  of  the  ground,  as  to  be  only  visible  in  a  few  places,  formed  at 
that  time  a  natural  defence  of  precipitous  cliff  all  round  the  hill ;  and  there  was 
one  only  access  to  the  summit  from  below,  the  clivus  or  ascent  to  the  Capitol. 
By  this  single  approach  the  Gauls  tried  to  storm  the  citadel,  but  they  were  re- 
pulsed with  loss  ;48  and  after  this  attempt  they  contented  themselves  with  block- 
ading the  hill,  and  extending  their  devastations  over  the  neighboring  country  of 
Latium.  It  is  even  said  that  they  penetrated  into  the  south  of  Italy ;  and  a 
Gaulish  army  is  reported  to  have  reached  Apulia,49  whilst  a  portion  of  their  force 
was  still  engaged  in  blockading  the  Roman  garrison  in  the  Capitol. 

Meantime,  the  Romans  who  had  taken  refuge  at  Veii  had  recovered  from  their 
first  panic,  and  were  daily  becoming  more  and  more  reorganized. 

Night  assault   on   the    T  "  '.      ,  *  .       °.  ,1,1 

cajjijo^repuiMd  by  M.  It  was  desirable  that  a  communication  should  be  opened  between 
them  and  the  garrison  of  the  Capitol ;  and  a  young  man  named 
Pontius  Cominius50  undertook  the  adventure.  Accordingly,  he  set  out  from  Veii, 
swam  down  the  Tiber,  climbed  up  the  cliff  into  the  Capitol,  explained  to  the  gar- 
rison the  state  of  things  at  Veii,  and  returned  by  the  same  way  unhurt.  But 
when  the  morning  came,  the  Gauls  observed  marks  on  the  side  of  the  cliff,  which 
told  them  that  some  one  had  made  his  way  there,  either  up  or  down ;  and  the 
soil  had  in  places  been  freshly  trodden  away,  and  the  bushes  which  grew  here 
and  there  on  the  face  of  the  ascent  had  been  crushed  or  torn  from  their  hold,  as 
if  by  some  one  treading  on  them  or  clinging  to  them  for  support.  So,  being  thus 
made  aware  that  the  cliff  was  not  impracticable,  they  proceeded  by  night  to  scale 
it.  The  spot  being  supposed  to  be  inaccessible,  was  not  guarded ;  the  top  of  the 
rock  was  not  even  defended  by  a  wall.  In  silence  and  in  darkness  the  Gauls 
made  their  way  up  the  cliff;  no  sentinel  perceived  them ;  even  the  watch-dogs, 
said  the  story,51  heard  them  not,  and  gave  no  alarm.  But  on  the  part  of  the  hill 
by  which  the  enemy  were  ascending,  stood  the  temple  of  the  three  guardian  gods 
of  the  Capitol  and  of  Rome,  Jupiter,  Juno,  and  Minerva ;  and  in  this  precinct 
there  were  certain  geese  kept,  which  were  sacred  to  Juno  ;  and  even  amidst  their 
distress  for  food,  the  Romans,  said  the  old  story,  had  spared  the  birds  which  were 
protected  by  the  goddess.  So  now  in  the  hour  of  danger,  the  geese  heard  the 
sound  of  the  enemy,  and  began  to  cry  in  their  fear,  and  to  flap  their  wings ;  and 
M.  Manlius,  whose  house  was  in  the  Capitol  hard  by  the  temple,  was  aroused  by 
them ;  and  he  sprang  up  and  seized  sword  and  shield,  and  called  to  his  comrades, 

47  Primo  ut  deos  venerati  deinde  ut  homines    war  with  the  Greeks  of  southern  Italy.    He  en- 
despicati  iuterfecere.    Auctor  do  viris  illustr.    listed  some  of  them,  and  these  were  perhaps 
hi  Caraillo.  the  very  Gauls  whom  he  afterwards  sent  into 

48  Livy,  V.  43.  Greece  to  aid  the  Lacedsemonians  against  if* 
40  Diodorus,  XIV.  117.     It  was  apparently    minondas.     Justin,  XX.  5. 

this  portion  of  the  Gauls  which  offered  its  serv-        w  Diodorus,  XIV.  116. 

ices  to  Dionysius  while  he  was  engaged  in  his        "  Livy,  V.  47.    Diodorus,  XIV.  116. 


I 


CHAP.  XXIV,]  RETREAT  OF  THE  GAULS.  20S 

and  ran  to  the  edge  of  the  cliff.  And  behold  a  Gaul  had  just  reached  the  sum- 
mit, when  Marcus  rushed  upon  him  and  dashed  the  rim  of  his  shield  into  his 
face,  and  tumbled  him  down  the  rock.  The  Gaul,  as  he  fell,  bore  down  those 
who  were  mounting  behind  him ;  and  the  rest  were  dismayed,  and  dropped  their 
arms  to  cling  more  closely  to  the  rock,  and  so  the  Romans,  who  had  been  roused 
by  the  call  of  Marcus,  slaughtered  them  easily,  and  the  Capitol  was  saved.  Then 
all  so  honored  the  brave  deed  of  Marcus  Manlius,  that  each  man  gave  him  from 
his  own  scanty  store  one  day's  allowance  of  food,  namely,  half  a  pound  of  corn, 
and  a  measure  containing  five  ounces  in  weight  of  wine.52  Historically  true  in  the 
substance,  these  stories  are  yet,  in  their  details,  so  romantic,  that  I  insensibly,  in 
relating  them,  fall  into  the  tone  of  the  poetical  legends. 

Six  months,53  according  to  some  accounts,  seven  or  even  eight  months,54  accord- 
g  to  others,  did  the  Gauls  continue  to  blockade  the  Capitol.    The  TheGauu  receive  awm 
ickness  of  a  Roman  autumn  did  not,  we  are  told,  shake  them  from  ™nlTand°"aUee  tu°J 

eir  purpose ;  the  plunder  which  might  be  gained  in  other  yet  blockade- 
unwasted  districts  of  Italy,  did  not  tempt  them  to  abandon  it.     But  is  it  possible 
believe  that  barbarians  could  have  shown  such  perseverance,  or  that  in  one 
of  preparation,  provisions  could  have  been  carried  into  the  Capitol  in  suffi- 
ient  quantities  to  hold  out  even  for  a  small  garrison,  during  a  siege  of  six  or  eight 
months  ?55     Thus  much,  however,  may  safely  be  believed,  that  the  garrison  of 
the  Capitol  was  at  last  reduced  to  extremity  ;56  they  offered  to  ransom  themselves 
by  the  payment  of  a  large  sum  of  money,  and  the  Gauls  were  disposed,  it  is  said,57 
accept  the  offer,  because  they  heard  that  the  Venetians,  that  nation  of  Illyrian 
ilood  who  dwelt  around  the  northern  extremity  of  the  Adriatic,  had  made  an 
road  into  their  own  country  beyond  the  Apennines.     They  consented,  therefore, 
the  terms  offered  by  the  Romans ;  and  a  thousand  pounds'  weight  of  gold 
ere  to  be  collected  from  the  offerings  in  the  Capitoline  temple,  and  from  the 
asures  which  had  been  carried  into  the  Capitol  before  the  siege  from  every 
•art  of  Rome,  that  for  this  ransom  the  blockade  might  be  raised.     Even  in  ac- 
pting  these  terms,  the  Gaulish  leader  felt  that  he  was  admitting  to  mercy  ene- 
ies  whom  he  had  wholly  in  his  power.     His  weights,  said  the  Roman  story,68 
ere  unfair ;  the  Roman  tribune  of  the  soldiers,  Q.  Sulpicius,  complained  of  the 
ud,  but  the  Gaul  threw  his  heavy  broadsword  into  the  scale ;  and  when  the 
ibune  again  asked  what  he  meant,  he  replied  in  words  which  may  be  best  repre- 
nted  by  an  analogous  English  proverb,  "  It  means  that  the  weakest  must  go 
the  wall."59 

Thus,  according  to  the  true  version  of  this  famous  event,  the  Gauls  returned 
m  their  inroad  into  Italy  loaded  with  spoil  and  crowned  with 

m,  ,i  1  .       •,  >  i  Corruptions  of  the  true 

lory.     That  as  soon  as  they  were  known  to  be  retreating,  the  na-  story  of  the  retreat  of 
>ns  whom  they  had  overrun  should  have  recovered  their  courage, 
d  have  taken  every  opportunity  to  assail  them  on  their  march  home,  is  per- 
tly probable  ;  nor  need  we  doubt  that  these  attacks  were  sometimes  success- 
.1,  that  many  stragglers  were  cut  off,  and  much  plunder  retaken.     These  sto- 
ies  were  exaggerated,  as  was  natural ;  and  by  degrees  the  Romans  claimed  the 
lory  of  them  for  themselves.     We  can  almost  trace  the  gradual  fabrication  of 
that  monstrous  falsehood  which  in  its  perfected  shape  so  long  retained  its  hold 
on  Roman  history.     After  the  retreat  of  the  Gauls  from  Rome,  their  country- 

85  "  Quartarios  vini."  Livy,  V.  57.  The  M  If  the  Gauls  stayed  in  Eome  for  so  long  a 
quartarius,  or  the  fourth  part 'of  the  sextarius,  time,  they  must  have  left  it  in  the  middle  of  win- 
was  the  twenty-fourth  part  of  the  congius ;  and  ter.  Now  it  is  said  that  they  hastened  on  their 
as  the  congius  contained  ten  pounds'  weight  of  way  homewards,  because  their  own  country  was 
water,  the  quartarius  contained  five  ounces.  It  invaded  by  the  Venetians;  but  barbarians  would 
was  a  little  more  than  the  half  of  the  Greek  co-  scarcely  choose  the  depth  of  winter  for  an  enter- 
tyle.  prise  of  this  sort. 

M  Fionas,  I.  13.  5B  Diodorus,  XIV.  116. 

64  Poly  bias,  II.  22,  and  Plutarch  in  Camill.  30,  57  Pplybius,  II.  18. 

say,  "seven."     Servius.  Mn.  VIII.  652,  says  58  Livy,  V.  48. 

"  eight."  59  "  V»  victis  esse." 
14 


210  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXV 

men  who  had  advanced  into  Apulia,  returned  from  their  expedition,  and  founc 
the  Romans  in  too  weak  a  condition  to  do  them  any  harm  ;  but  as  they  were  on 
their  march  through  the  Roman  territory,  the  people  of  Ccere,  or  Agylla,  laid  an 
ambush  for  them,  and  cut  off,  it  is  said,  the  whole  party.60  To  enhance  the  merit 
of  this  success,  the  Gauls  who  were  cut  off  were  next  made  to  be  the  same  party 
who  had  besieged  the  Capitol  ;61  and  it  was  added  that  the  people  of  Caere  recov- 
ered the  very  gold  which  had  been  paid  for  the  ransom  of  Rome.  But  the 
glory  of  such  a  trophy  could  not  be  left  to  strangers  ;  the  victory  was  soon  trans- 
ferred to  the  Romans;  and  it  was  Camillus  who  found  the  Gauls,  a  long  time 
after  their  retreat  from  Rome,  employed  in  besieging  a  city02  in  alliance  with  the 
Romans,  who  defeated  them  utterly,  and  won  from  them  all  their  spoil.  Lastly, 
the  story  was  to  be  more  entirely  satisfactory  to  the  Roman  pride  ;  Rome63  was 
never  ransomed  at  all ;  Camillus  appeared  with  the  legions  from  Veii  just  as  the 
gold  was  being  weighed  out ;  as  dictator  he  annulled  the  shameful  bargain,  drove 
the  Gauls  out  of  Rome  at  the  sword's  point,  and  the  next  day  defeated  them  so 
totally  on  their  way  home,  eight  miles  from  Rome,  on  the  road  to  Gabii,  that  he 
left  not  a  single  man  alive  to  carry  to  their  countrymen  the  tidings  of  their  defeat. 
Such  a  falsification,  scarcely  to  be  paralleled  in  the  annals  of  any  other  people, 
justifies  the  strongest  suspicion  of  all  those  accounts  of  victories  and  triumphs 
which  appear  to  rest  in  any  degree  on  the  authority  of  the  family  memorials  of 
the  Roman  aristocracy. 

What  was  the  real-condition  of  Rome  and  the  neighboring  countries  after  this 
first  Gaulish  tempest  had  passed  away  ;  how  the  second  period  of  Roman  history 
begins  in  a  darkness  almost  as  thick  as  that  which  overhangs  the  beginnings  of 
the  first,  but  a  darkness  peopled  by  few  of  those  forms,  so  beautiful  though  so 
visionary,  which  gave  so  great  a  charm  to  the  times  of  the  kings ;  how  faintly  we 
can  trace  the  formation  of  that  great  fabric  of  dominion  and  policy  which,  when 
the  light  of  day  breaks,  we  find  well-nigh  in  its  complete  proportions,  it  will  be 
my  endeavor  to  make  appear  in  the  succeeding  portion  of  this  history. 


CHAPTER  XXV, 

HISTORY,  FOREIGN  AND  DOMESTIC,  FROM  THE  YEAR  365  TO  378— ROME  AFTER 
THE  RETREAT  OF  THE  GAULS— ITS  WEAKNESS,  AND  THE  GREAT  MISERY  OF 
THE  COMMONS—  POPULARITY  AND  DEATH  OF  M.  MANLIUS— WARS  WITH  THE 
NEIGHBORING  NATIONS. 


'A.3ijva(d)v  Ac  rb    Koivdv,  tirti5>)  avTdlg  oi  Pdpffapot   tit    rijf  xuipaf    a^rA^ov,    SitKo^ovTO    tiSuj    5$t» 
o  xaidas  Kai  yvvalKas  Kul  TIIV  iriptovaav  Kara<TK£v$v,  KUI  T>]V  irdXiv  avoiKo£opc.1v  iraptaKtvd^ovro. 

TlIUOYDIDKS,  I.  89. 

LIVY  begins  his  history  of  the  period  after  the  invasion  of  the  Gauls  by  con- 
The  Romnn  history  is  trasting  what  he  calls  its  greater  clearness  and  certainty  with  the 
•tin  full  of  uncertainty,  obscurity  of  the  period  which  had  preceded  it.  True  it  is,  that 

60  Diodorus,  XIV.  117.  home  till  the  first  beginning  of  spring,  Camillus 

61  Strabo,  V.  p.  220.  may  then  have  obtained  some  advantages  over 
M  Diodorus,  XIV.  117.    The  name  of  the  city  these  last  in  their  retreat,  and  may  have  ob- 
is wholly  corrupt,  OfterfaKiov.  tain  eel  a  triumph.    In  this  case  the  exaggeration 

83  Livy,  V.  49.     If  the  Gauls  who  were  be-  or  confusion  was  easy,  that  the  Gauls,  after  a 

sieging  the  Capitol  received  their  ransom,  and  stay  of  eight  months  in  Rome,  were  at  last  driven 

withdrow  from  Rome  before  the  end  of  the  au-  out  by  Camillus;   the  period  of  their  stay  in 

tuni,  while  others  of  their  countrymen  remained  Italy  being  mistaken  for  that  of  their  occupation 

in  Italy  through  the  winter,  and  did  not  return  of  Rome. 


CHAP.  XXV.] 


RESTORATION  OF  THE  CITY. 


211 


ere  was  no  subsequent  destruction  of  public  records  such  as  had  been  caused 
iy  the  burning  of  the  city ;  and  although  many  invaluable  monuments  perished 
the  great  fire  of  the  Capitol  in  the  times  of  Sylla,  yet  these  might  have  been,  and 
some  instances  we  know  that  they  had  been,  previously  consulted  by  historians, 
that  all  knowledge  of  their  contents  was  not  lost  to  the  writers  of  the  Au- 
tan  age.     Yet  still  no  period  of  Roman  history  since  the  first  institution  of 
e  tribunes  of  the  commons  is  really  more  obscure  than  the  thirty  years  imme- 
iately  following  the  retreat  of  the  Gauls.     And  the  reason  of  this  is,  that  when 
ere  are  no  independent  contemporary  historians,  the  mere  existence  of  public 
cuments  affords  no  security  for  the  preservation  of  a  real  knowledge  of  men 
d  actions.   The  documents  may  exist,  indeed,  but  they  give  no  evidence  :  they  are 
neglected  or  corrupted  at  pleasure  by  poets  and  panegyrists  ;  and  a  fictitious  story 
gains  firm  possession  of  the  public  mind,  because  there  is  no  one  to  take  the  pains 
of  promulgating  the  truth.     And  thus  it  has  happened  that  the  panegyrists  of 
Camillus  and  of  the  other  great  patrician  families,  finding  ready  belief  in  many 
instances  from  national  vanity,  have  so  disguised  the  real  course  of  events,  that 
no  other  period  of  Roman  history  is  it  more  difficult  to  restore  it. 
The  Gauls  were  gone,  and  the  ruins  of  Rome  were  possessed  again  by  the  Ro- 
ans.    The  Flamen  of  Quirinus  and  the  Vestal  Virgins  returned  The  Roman,  proceed  to 
m  Caere ;  and  the  eternal  fire,  unextinguished  by  the  late  ca-  £?Pf£e»m£iii?M 
mity,  was  restored  to  its  accustomed  place  in  the  temple  of  Vesta.  ,^e«  tftJS  t»^-~ 
ut  the  fugitives  who  had  fled  to  Veii  from  the  rout  at  the  Alia,  ™*"«R<™>> 
d  who  formed  a  large  proportion  of  the  Roman  people,  were  most  unwilling  to 
ve  the  city  which  for  several  months  had  been  their  only  country ;  at  Veii 
ey  had  houses  already  built,  and  perhaps  they  were  not  sorry  to  escape  from 
e  ascendency  of  the  patricians,  and  to  settle  themselves  in  a  new  city  of  which 
ey  would  be  the  original  citizens.1     Thus  Rome  was  threatened  anew  with  the 
-ngers  of  a  secession,  with  such  a  division  of  the  strength  of  the  commonwealth 
must  have  insured  its  ruin ;  for  some  of  the  patricians  would,  no  doubt,  have 
moved  to  Veii,  while  others,  with  their  clients,  would  as  certainly  have  remained 
Rome.     At  this  period  the  name  and  ability  of  Camillus  were  most  effectual 
putting  an  end  to  the  dissension,  and  in  determining  that  the  proposed  seces- 
sion to  Veii  should  be  utterly  abandoned  :  but  by  what  means  or  at  what  time  his 
exile  was  reversed  we  cannot  discover.     It  may  be  true,2  that  while  the  Gauls 
were  in  possession  of  Rome  he  had  encouraged  the  people  of  Ardea,  where  he 
"  ad  become  a  citizen,  to  take  up  arms  against  the  Gaulish  plundering  parties ; 
e  may  also,  in  sush  a  time  of  necessity,  have  been  chosen  commander  by  some 
f  the  Romans  who  had  fled  from  the  city,  and  with  them  he  may  have  done  good 
rvice,  both  in  cutting  off  the  enemy's  stragglers,  and,  perhaps,  in  harassing  their 
r  after  they  began  to  retreat.     And  if  after  these  exploits  he  had  led  back  his 
•ty  to  Rome  rather  than  to  Veii,  and  had  thus  proved  that  even  in  banishment 
heart  was  true  to  his  old  country,  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  would  have  been 
ived  as  joyfully  as  the  Athenians  under  similar  circumstances  received  Alci-, 
iades  ;3  his  exile  would  have  been  speedily  reversed,  and  his  entrance  into  Rome, 
"  e  Cicero's  in  after-times,  would  have  been  celebrated  with  general  rejoicings, 
till  more  would  this  have  been  the  case,  had  he  really  during  his  exile  repaired 
Veii,  and  brought  back  to  Rome  after  the  retreat  of  the  Gauls  any  consider- 


That  is,  they  would  be  the  burghers  or  pa- 
icians  of  Veii,  and  around  them  a  new  plebs 
•commons  would,  in  process  of  time,  be  formed, 
st  as  they  themselves  bad  grown  up  beside 
ic  patricians  of  Koine. 
2  See  Livy,  V.  43,  44. 

8  \Vhcu  Alcibiades  returned  to  Athens  in  the 
25th  year  of  the  Peloponnesian  war,  after  his  suc- 
cesses in  the  Hellespont  and  in  Thrace,  he  had 
never  been  formally  recalled  from  exile,  and 
doubted,  at  first,  it  is  said,  how  ho  should  be 


received.  But  a  sense  of  his  great  services,  and 
of  the  necessities  of  the  commonwealth,  over- 
powered all  other  considerations,  and  the  peo- 
ple did  receive  him  with  enthusiasm. — See  Xen- 
ophon,  Hellenic.  I.  4.  How  refreshing  is  it, 
after  the  vagueness  and  uncertainties  of  the  Ro- 
man traditions  to  turn  for  a  moment  to  the  nar- 
r  tive  of  a  contemporary  historian,  even  when, 
like  Xenrphon,  he  is  far  below  the  highest 
standard  of  excellence ! 


212  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CnAP.  X 

able  poition  of  the  soldiers  who  had  made  Veii  their  refuge.  Then  may  have 
followed  the  discussion  whether  these  soldiers  should  return  to  their  countrymen 
at  Veii,  or  whether  all  should  unite  once  more  at  Rome.  Then  Camillus  and  the 
patricians  opposed  to  the  secession  would  naturally  appeal  both  in  the  senate4 
and  the  forum  to  all  the  local  attachments  and  religious  feelings  of  which  Rome 
alone  could  be  the  object;  and  when  the  excitement  was  great,  and  the  smallest 
thing  would  incline  men's  wavering  minds  either  the  one  way  or  the  other,  it  may 
be  true5  that  they  received  as  an  omen  from  heaven  the  casual  words  of  a  centu- 
rion, who,  passing  through  the  comitium  with  his  century,  and  having  occasion 
to  halt  in  front  of  the  senate-house,  called  aloud  to  the  standard-bearer,  "Pitch8 
thy  standard  here,  for  this  is  the  best  place  to  stop  at." 

The  secession,  in  whatever  manner,  having  been  prevented,  and  the  mass  of 
The  remaining  monu-  the  commons  having  consented  to  remain  at  Rome,  although  many 
S?dt^jK>fc^  s^ll  refused  to  quit  Veii,  the  senate  proceeded  to  reconstruct,  as 
well  as  they  could,  the  shattered  fabric  of  the  commonwealth. 
The  sites  of  the  temples7  were  retraced  as  well  as  was  possible  amidst  the  ruins, 
their  limits  were  again  duly  fixed  by  the  augurs,  and  ceremonies  were  performed 
to  expiate  the  pollution  which  they  had  undergone  by  having  been  profaned  by 
the  barbarians.  Some  relics  which  it  was  impossible  to  replace,  were  said  to 
have  been  miraculously  preserved ;  the  lituns8  or  augural  crook  of  Romulus, 
with  which  he  was  supposed  to  have  marked  out  the  quarters  of  the  heavens, 
when  in  answer  to  his  augury  the  gods  sent  him  the  famous  sign  of  the  twelve 
vultures,  was  discovered  unhurt,  so  ran  the  tradition,  under  a  heap  of  ashes.  Then 
the  day9  in  which  the  route  of  the  Alia  had  taken  place,  the  day  after  the  ides 
of  July,  or  the  16th,  according  to  our  reckoning,  was  pronounced  by  the  pon- 
tifices  to  be  a  day  of  ill-omen  ;  and  no  sacrifice  could  acceptably  be  offered,  nor 
any  business  prosperously  done,  on  that  day  forever.  All10  remaining  records 
were  sought  for ;  the  laws  of  the  twelve  tables,  some  laws  ascribed  to  the  kings, 
and  some  treaties  with  foreign  nations,  such  as  those  with  Carthage  and  with  the 
Latins,  were  found  to  be  still  in  existence ;  and  parts  of  the  laws  were  again 
fixed  up  in  some  place  where  they  were  accessible  to  the  people  at  large ;  but 
the  sacred  or  religious  law,  it  is  said,  was  not  made  public ;  the  pontifices  alone 
were  to  be  acquainted  with  it.  The  city  was  to  be  rebuilt  with  all  diligence ;  at 
present  even  the  walls  had  been  partially  broken  down,  and  the  streets  were  a 
mere  heap  of  ashes.  There  was  no  plan  to  show  their  old  direction  :  men  built 
wherever  they  found  a  spot  clear  of  rubbish,  and  the  first  houses  so  erected,  de- 
termined in  great  measure  the  position  of  the  rest.  Each  citizen,  no  doubt,  built 
upon  his  own  hill,  and,  generally  speaking,  in  his  own  quarter  or  parish,  if  I  may 
use  the  expression,  according  to  the  division  of  the  city  marked  by  the  sacraria 
or  chapels  of  the  Argei.  But  within  these  limits,  the  old  distinctions  of  property 
were  not  duly  observed,  and  there  was  a  sort  of  scramble  for  the  ground  ;  so  that 
the  city  was  built  irregularly,  and  the  direction11  of  the  cloacse  did  not  correspond 
with  that  of  the  streets.  Meanwhile  the  government  offered  to  furnish12  roofing 
materials  for  the  new  houses  at  the  public  expense  :  and  Niebuhr  conjectures 
that  these  were  chiefly  obtained  by  unroofing  the  houses  of  Veii,  and  thus  ren- 
dering the  proposed  seat  of  the  secession  uninhabitable,  while  it  was  made  to 

4  See  the  speech  ascribed  to  Camillus  in  Livy,  "  Livy,  V.  55,  tegula  publice  prsebita  est.  We 

V.  51-54.  know  from  Cornelius  IS  epos,  quoted  by  Pliny, 

6  The  story  is  given  by  Livy,  V.  55,  and  by  Hist.  Natur.  XVI.  10,  §  36,  that  the  houses  in 
Plutarch,  Camillus,  32.     *  Koine  were  roofed  with  wood  (shingles),  down 

8  Signifer,  statue  signum  hie  manebimus  op-  to  the  time  of  the  war  with  Pyrrhus.     Either, 

time.  then,  tegula  is  a  general  word  in  this  passage  of 

7  Livy,  V.  50.  Livy,  signifying  roofing  materials,  whether  of 

8  Plutarch,  Camillus,  32.    Dionysius,  XIV.  5.  shingles  or  of  tiles ;  or'if  it  mean  tiles  strictly, 
Fragm.  Mai.  we  must  suppose  that  the  people  did  not  lite 

*  Gellius,  V.  17.    Livy,  VI.  1.  the  labor  of  fetching  them  from  Veii,  and  pre- 

M  Livy,  VI.  1.  ferred  to  use  wood,  according  to  their  former 

u  Livy,  V.  55.  practice. 


CHAP.  XXV.]       NEIGHBORING  PEOPLE  ATTACK  THE  ROMANS.  213 

contribute  at  tne  same  time  to  the  rebuilding  of  Rome.  Stone  and  timber  might 
also  be  quarried  and  felled  by  any  man  from  any  public  lands,  provided  he  gave 
security  that  he  would  complete  his  house  within  the  year.  But  with  all  these 
aids  the  building  fell  heavily  upon  the  mass  of  the  people ;  it  was  delayed  also 
by  the  attacks  of  foreign  enemies :  the  securities  given  for  completing  it  within 
the  year  would  in  many  instances  be  forfeited ;  and  hence  began  again  the  old 
system  of  borrowing  from  the  patricians,  speedily  to  be  followed,  as  before,  by  a 
train  of  intolerable  distresses  and  oppressions. 

In  the  small  states  of  Greece  and  ancient  Italy,  the  loss  of  a  great  battle  caused 
a  sensible  diminution  of  the  population  of  free  citizens.  The  defeat  Foiir  new  tribe8  added 
at  the  Alia  had  been  bloody:  many  lives  must  have  been  lost  in  to the Roman peoi>le' 
after  skirmishes  with  the  Gauls,  and  in  their  devastations  of  the  surrounding 
country ;  and  many  fugitives  who  had  taken  refuge  in  the  neighboring  cities  may 
have  preferred  remaining  in  their  new  homes.  On  the  other  hand,  there  was  a 
large  subject13  population,  chiefly,  it  is  probable,  of  Tyrrhenian,  that  is,  of  Pclas- 
gian  origin,  in  the  recently  conquered  territories  of  Veii,  of  Capena,  and,  as  Livy 
adds,  of  Falerii.  From  these  it  was  resolved  to  make  up  the  losses  occasioned 
by  the  Gauls,  and  to  convert  subjects,  who  would  infallibly  have  soon  revolted, 
to  citizens,  who  would  be  a  most  seasonable  accession  of  strength.  Accwd- 
gly,  they  were  admitted  in  a  body  to  the  full  rights  of  Roman  citizens  :  each 
head  of  a  family  had  his  portion  of  seven  jugera  of  land  duly  granted  to  him  in 
full  property,  and  set  with  landmarks,  according  to  the  rules  of  the  agrimensores, 
which  constituted  the  legal  freehold  tenure  of  the  Romans ;  and  to  show  the  great 
umber  of  new  citizens  thus  admitted,  four  new  tribes14  were  formed  out  of  them, 
d  they  thus  constituted  nearly  a  sixth  part  of  the  whole  people  in  political 
eight,  and,  probably,  a  larger  proportion  in  point  of  actual  numbers.  The  tribes 
ere  thus  increased  from  twenty-one  to  twenty- five. 

I  have  noticed  these  measures  without  regard  to  the  exact  chronological  order 
which  they  are  said  to  have  occurred.     They  are  all  placed,  The  neighboring 
owever,  with  the  exception  of  the  creation  of  the  four  new  tribes,  |££  w 
the  first  year  after  the  retreat  of  the  Gauls:  in  that  year  the  «*«•  «« 
w  citizens  were  admitted,  and  received  their  grants  of  land  :  although  the  cre- 
tion  of  the  new  tribes,  in  which  they  might  exercise  their  franchise  politically  by 
oting  at  the  comitia,  is  said  to  have  happened  two  years15  later.     The  magistrates 
till,  as  before  the  Gaulish  invasion,  came  into  office  on  the  first  of  July  ;16  thus 
the  military  tribunes  who  had  commanded  at  the  siege  of  the  Capitol,  were  still 
in  office  for  some  months  after  the  retreat  of  the  Gauls ;  but  they  were  not 
llowed  to  hold  the  comitia17  for  the  election  of  their  successors,  because  of  the  sup- 
osed  ill-luck  of  their  magistracy ;  they  resigned  therefore,  and  the  comitia  were 
leld  by  an  interrex,  a  fact  which  of  itself  confutes  the  story  of  Camillus'  pretended 
"ictatorship :  for  had  he  been  dictator  throughout  the  year,  according  to  the 
les  of  his  exploits,18  the  comitia  would  naturally  have  been  held  by  him,  and 
here  would  have  been  no  need  of  an  interregnum.     But  immediately  after  the 
ppointment  of  the  new  tribunes,  that  is,  about  the  season  of  harvest,  the  favor- 
te  season  for  the  plundering  incursions  of  the  Peloponnesians  into  Attica,  the 

13  Livy,  VI.  4,  culls  the  new  citizens,  "  qui  mans  themselves,  and  their  language  and  reli- 

Veientium  Capenatiumque  ac  Faliscorum  per  ea  gion  both  bore  a  considerable  affinity  to  those 

bella  transfugerant  ad  Romanos.''     Individual  of  Komc. 

deserters  could  not  be  numerous  enough  to  form  14  Livy,  VI.  5. 

four  tribes ;  but  when  the  cities  of  Veil  and  Ca-  w  That  is,  it  took  place  at  the  next  census, 

pena  wci'e  hard-pressed,  their  territory,  inhab-  which  was  taken  in  the  year  368 ;  the  preceding 

ited  chiefly  by  a  subject  population,  itcpiotKot  in  censors  having  been  appointed  in  the  year  363. 

the  political  language  of  Greece,  would  bo  likely  Livy,  V.  31. 

to  revolt  or  submit  to  the  Romans.    The  new  18  They  continued  to  do  so,  it  is  said,  for  at 

citizens  could  scarcely  have  been  Etruscans,  as  least  sixty  years  after  this  period.    See  Livy. 

the  difference  of  language  would  then  have  pre-  VIII.  20. 

seated  a  serious  barrier  to  their  union  with  the  "  Livy,  VI.  1. 

Romans  ;  but  if  they  were  Tyrrhenian  Pelas-  1B  See  Livy,  VI.  1,  and  Plutarch,  Camillus,  31, 
gians,  they  were  of  the  same  stock  as  the  Ro- 


214  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP. 

Romans  were  alarmed  by  the  reports  of  hostile  attacks  on  every  side ;  their  for« 
lorn  condition,  it  is  said,  tempting  even  the  smallest  of  the  neighboring  states  to 
assail  them.  If  we  are  to  believe  one  tradition  which  has  accidentally  been  pre- 
served to  us,19  the  people  of  Ficulea,  Fidense,  and  other  places  round  about,  ap- 
peared in  arms  under  command  of  Livius  Postumius,  the  dictator,  as  he  is  called, 
of  the  Fidenatians,  and  caused  such  a  panic  that  the  Romans  fled  before  them ; 
and  the  anniversary  of  this  flight,  the  nones  or  7th  of  July,  was  celebrated  ever 
afterwards  under  the  name  of  the  day  of  the  people's  flight.20  This,  however,  is 
an  uncertain  story,21  in  some  respects  improbable,  and  connected  at  any  rate  with 
circumstances  which  are  clearly  fabulous.  It  is  more  credible  that  the  late  de- 
structive inroad  of  the  Gauls  should  have  shaken  all  old  political  relations,  and 
that  the  Romans  could  no  longer  rely  on  the  aid  of  the  Latins  and  Hernicans. 
Emboldened  by  their  knowledge  of  this,  the  Volscians  took  up  arms,  and  advanced 
into  Latium  as  far  as  the  neighborhood  of  Lanuvium,22  which  stood  on  a  sort  of 
spur  of  high  ground,  running  out  from  the  very  southern  extremity  of  the  Alban 
Hills.  Here  they  encountered  the  Roman  army  commanded  by  the  military  trib- 
unes, and  were  so  superior  in  numbers  that  they  presently  confined  the  Romans 
within  their  camp.  The  tidings  of  their  danger  were  carried  to  Rome  ;  Camillus 
was  named  dictator,  and  he,  taking  the  field  with  every  man  who  could  bear  arms, 
hastened  from  Rome  by  a  night-march,23  and  appeared  at  day-break  on  the  rear 
of  the  Volscians.  Then  the  Roman  army  under  the  military  tribunes  made  a 
sally,  and  the  Volscians,  attacked  both  in  front  and  rear,  were  totally  routed. 
Scarcely  was  this  danger  repelled,  when  the  dictator  learned  that  an  Etruscan 
army,  probably  from  Tarquinii,  had  attacked  the  Roman  frontier  on  the  opposite 
side,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Tiber,  and  was  besieging  Sutrium.  Camillus  has- 
tened to  its  aid,  but  on  his  way,24  said  the  story  of  his  exploits,  he  met  the  citizens 
of  Sutrium  in  forlorn  plight,  they  having  been  obliged  to  surrender  their  city,  and 
having  saved  nothing  but  their  lives;.  They  fell  on  their  knees  before  him,  told 
him  their  sad  case,  and  craved  his  assistance.  He  bade  them  be  of  good  cheer, 
saying  that  it  was  now  the  turn  of  the  Etruscans  to  wail  and  weep.  Then  he  ad- 
vanced upon  Sutrium,  and  found,  as  he  had  expected,  that  the  enemy  kept  no  watch, 
and  were  thinking  of  nothing  but  plunder :  he  instantly  forced  his  way  into  the 
place,  and  made  a  great  slaughter,  and  a  still  greater  number  of  prisoners  ;  and 
Sutrium  was  thus,  according  to  the  story,  "  lost  and  recovered  in  a  day  again."25 
It  is  impossible  to  tell  how  much  of  exaggeration  is  mixed  up  with  these  details  ; 
but  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  Camillus  by  his  genius  in  this  memorable 
year  did  truly  save  his  country  from  destruction.  The  enemies  of  Rome  were 
checked,  and  time  was  gained  for  the  state  to  recover  from  its  disorder  and  dis- 
tress, and  to  meet  its  rivals  on  more  equal  terms.  The  very  existence  of  the  Ro- 
man people  in  after-ages  provt-s  how  well  they  must  have  defended  themselves 

19  By  Varro.  Ling.  Lat.  VI.  18,  ea.  Miillcr,  of  Tutula  and  the  female  slaves,  which  is  evi- 
and  partly  by  Macrobius,  Saturnal.  I.  11.  dently  fabulous. , 

20  Poplifugia.  »  Diodorus,  ^IV.  117.    Livy,  VI.  2. 

21  It  is  uncertain,  because  a  different  account  23  The  resemblance  of  this  story  to  that  of 
of  the  origin  of  the  Poplifugia  is  given  by  Mac-  Cincinnatus  is  obvious,  and  is  very  suspicious, 
robius,  Saturnal.  III.  2,  and  by  Dionysius,  II.  Livy  merely  describes  the  victory  of  Camillus, 
56,  and  because  we  know  how  little  reliance  is  without  saying  any  thing  of  the  previous  danger. 


he  previous  danger. 

to 'be  placed  on  stories  pretending  to  account  Plutarch  makes  the  Latins  to  have  joined  tho 

for  the  origin  of  old  traditional  usages  or  festi-  Volscians,  but  he  expressly  says  that  Camillus 

vals.  It  is  improbable,  because  Fidense  had  been  marched  to  relieve  the  army  of  the  military  trib- 

taken  and  colonized  by  the  Romans  forty  years  lines,  which  was  besieged  by  the  enemy.— Ca 

earlier,  and  from  that  time  forward  plays  no  milluSj  34. 

part  in  history,  and  because  Ficulea  is  never  24  Livy,  VI.  3.   Plutarch,  Camillus,  35. 

mentioned  at  all  after  the  times  of  the  Roman  ^  The  very  passage  from  which  this  line  i» 

kings.  Nor  can  we  conceive  how  Fidense  should  taken,  in  Shakspeare's  Henry  VJ.  Part  I.  shows 

have  had  a  dictator,  which  was  a  title  peculiar  how  little  reliance  can  be  placed  on  a  poetical 

to  the  Latin  towns  ;  unless,  indeed,  we  suppose  version  of  events  in  themselves  historical.  The 

that  it  had  joined  some  Latin  confederacy  since  line  refers  to  the  capture  of  Rouen  by  the  Maid 

the  fall  of  the  Roman  power,  and  was  now  be-  of  Orleans,  and  its  recovery  by  Talbot  on  the 

come  Latin.     Further,  the  story  of  the  Fidena-  same  day ;  both  the  capture  and  recapture  being, 

tian  dictator  is  mixed  up  with  the  famous  legend  as  every  one  knows,  alike  purely  imaginary. 


CHAP.  XXV.] 


EXTENT  OF  THE  ROMAN  FRONTIER. 


215 


when  attacked  by  two  enemies  at  once  in  the  hour  of  their  most  extreme  help- 
lessness and  depression. 

It  were  a  mere  wearying  of  the  reader's  patience  to  follow  Livy  through  the 
Letails  of  the  petty  wars  of  this  period — details  which  cannot  be  regarded  as  his- 
>rical,  and  which,  even  though  true,  would  be  of  little  value.  It  will  be  enough 
trace  generally  Rome's  foreign  relations  down  to  the  time  of  her  great'internal 
generation. 

On  the  right  bank  of  the  Tiber,  the  Roman  frontier  neither  advanced  nor  re- 
led.     Nepete  and  Sutrium,  which  had  submitted  to  Rome  three 

*•  r  i         /**<        i*    i       •  •          9fi  i  ill          Extent  of  the    Komna 

four  years  before  the  Gaulish  invasion,    and  were  the  border  frontier,   its  limit  to- 
wns of  the  Roman  dominion,  were  twice,  according  to  the  story 
Camillas,  attacked  by  the  Etruscans ;  once,  as  we  have  seen,  in  366,  and  again 
369.     They  were  both,  according  to  the  same  authority,  taken  in  369,  and 
imediately  recovered.27     It  appears  that  the  Etruscans,  who  were  engaged  in 
lis  affair,  were  the  people  of  Tarquinii ;  and  finding  the  strength  of  Rome  greater 
jan  they  had  expected,  they  were  probably  glad  to  conclude  a  truce  for  a  cer- 
lin  number  of  years ;  which  was  no  less  welcome  to  the  Romans,  as  they  saw 
it  they  should  have  enemies  enough  on  their  hands  on  their  opposite  frontier. 
On  the  left  bank  of  the  Tiber  we  hear  of  wars  with  the  Volscians  generally, 
Imost  every  year,  and  particularly  with  the  people  of  Antium.  Its  limiu  on  the  Ieft 
"he  scene  of  action  was  commonly  the  neighborhood  of  Satricum,  bimk  of  the  Tlber- 
town  which  lay  between  Velitrae  and  Antium.28     Satricum  had  originally  been 
of  the  thirty  cities  of  the  Latins ;  it  had  then  been  conquered  by  the  ^Equi- 
and  Volscians,  had  afterwards  been  taken  by  the  Romans,  and  had  lastly,  a 
little  while  before  the  Gaulish  invasion,  revolted  from  them,29  and  was  now  again 
jcome  Yolscian.     It  is  said  to  have  been  retaken  by  Camillus  in  369,30  and  a 
>man  colony  was  sent  to  occupy  it  in  the  following  year.     Again,  however,  it 
ras  lost  in  373,31  and  held  for  five  years  by  the  Volscians  ;  after  which  time, 
rhen  the  people  of  Antium  made  peace  with  the  Romans,  and  Satricum  was  to 
lave  been  restored,  it  was  burned,  out  of  indignation  by  the  Latins,32  who  had 
m  allied  with  the  Antiatians  against  Rome,  and  now  found  themselves  deserted. 
?hus,  on  this  side,  the  Roman  frontier  had  considerably  receded  from  the  point 
rhich  it  had  reached  thirty  years  earlier.     Then  Anxur  had  been  conquered,  but 
low  even  Satricum  could  not  be  maintained,  a  place  less  than  thirty  miles  distant 
from  Rome.     The  loss  of  Anxur  is  nowhere  expressly  acknowledged ;  but  it  must 
have  fallen  either  in  the  year  358,  when  we  read  of  its  being  besieged  by  the 
Volscians  ;33  or  else  it  must  have  been  lost,  as  well  as  Bola,34  amidst  the  calamity 
)f  the  Gaulish  invasion ;  for  it  is  not  possible  that  it  could  have  been  retained  by 
the  Romans  wlr'.lst  the  Volscians  were  fighting  year  after  year  at  Satricum,  nearly 
"ive-and-twenty  miles  nearer  to  Rome. 

But  the  peculiar  feature  of  Rome's  foreign  relations,  after  the  retreat  of  the 
rauls,  consisted  in  her  altered  position  with  respect  to  the  Latins.  AUcred  relat;0ns   «t 
titherto,  during  all  the  wars  with  the^Equians  and  Volscians,  the  R««»- with  L.tium. 
lliance  of  the  Latins  and  the  Hernicans  with  the  Romans  had  remained  unbroken. 
It  is  true  that  some  of  the  thirty  Latin  cities  which  had  concluded  the  original 
treaty  with  Sp.  Cassius  in  261,  had  since  been  conquered  by  the  ^Equians  and 
Volscians  :35  and  thus  as  Niebuhr  supposes,  that  treaty  had  long  since  been  vir- 


30  See  chap,  xviii. 

77  Livy,  VI.  9,  10. 

28  Its  position  is  unknown :  the  Italian  anti- 
quaries nx  it  at  a  little  place  called  Conca,  on  the 
edge  of  the  Selva  di  Nettuno,  in  the  supposed 
line  of  the  old  road  from  Velitra)  to  Astura  and 
Antium.  But  nothing  exists  beyond  a  few 
shapeless  ruins,  which  can  determine  nothing. 
Westnhal,  p.  40. 

39  Diodorue,  XIV.  102. 

*  Livy,  VI.  8,  16. 


81  Livy,  VI.  22. 

32  Livy,  VI.  33. 

83  Livy,  V.  16. 

34  Camillus  is  made  to  recover  Bola  from  the 
JEquians,  in  the  year  366.  Livy,  VI.  2.  It 
must  therefore  have  been  previously  lost. 

85  Of  the  thirty  Latin  cities  enumerated  by 
Dionysius,  eight  are  mentioned  by  Livy  or  Di- 
onysius as  having  been  conquered  by  the  Vol- 
scians under  the  command  of  Coriolanus  ;  Vel- 
itrse  also  became  Volscian  in  the  course  of  tha 


216  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP,  XXV 

tually  at  an  end :  and  while  some  of  the  Latin  states  were  become  ./Equian  or 
Volscian,  or  had  drawn  around  themselves  a  distinct  confederacy  of  the  small 
towns  in  their  immediate  neighborhood ;  others,  like  Tusculum,  were,  from  the 
equal,  become  no  more  than  the  dependent  allies  of  Rome:  for  instance,  Prse- 
neste,  as  Niebuhr  thinks,  must  from  its  position  have  become  ^Equian,  and  Tibm 
stood  aloof,  and  formed  the  centre  of  a  small  confederacy  of  its  own.  It  does 
not,  however,  appear  to  me  that  we  are  compelled  to  adopt  this  supposition  by 
the  reason  of  the  case  ;  and  external  testimony,36  such  as  it  is,  seems  to  be  against 
it.  The  JEquians  may  have  poured  out  upon  the  Campagna  through  that  breach 
in  the  Apennine  wall  which  lies  open  close  below  Prseneste,  and  may  have  occu- 
pied Pedum  in  the  plain,  and  Lavici  on  the  roots  of  the  Alban  Hills ;  nay,  they 
may  have  even  taken  Bola  within  the  mountain-range  itself,  and  yet  the  impreg- 
nable strength  of  Prseneste,  which,  at  a  later  period,  so  long  defied  the  whole 
power  of  Sylla,  may  have  remained  in  perfect  security  ;  and  as  the  Hernicans 
were  unconquered,  and  yet  lay  quite  on  the  rear  of  the  ^Equians  when  they  estab- 
lished themselves  on  Algidus,  so  Tibur  and  Prseneste,  safe  in  their  mountain- 
holds,  may  have  continued  to  belong  to  Latium,  though  almost  isolated  from  the 
mass  of  the  Latin  people  by  the  conquests  of  the  Opican  nations.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  very  likely  that  amid  the  ruin  of  the  Latin  cities  around  them,  many 
small  Latin  communities  may  have  gathered  under  their  protection ;  and  that 
thus  the  disproportion  in  strength  between  them  and  the  other  remaining  states 
of  the  Latin  confederacy  would  have  become  greater  than  it  had  been  before. 
This  of  itself,  when  Rome  had  been  so  crushed  by  the  Gauls,  would  lead  to  an 
altered  relation  between  them  and  the  Romans.  By  the  treaty  concluded  with 
Sp.  Cassius,  Rome  stood  as  one  contracting  party,  and  the  whole  Latin  confeder- 
acy as  another :  of  the  plunder  or  conquest  made  by  the  allied  nations,  the  share 
of  Rome  alone  was  to  be  equal  to  that  of  all  the  Latin  cities  together  ;  the  allied 
armies  were  to  be  commanded  alternately  by  a  Roman  and  a  Latin ;  but  each 
particular  Latin  state  would  enjoy  the  command  many  times  less  often  than  Rome. 
Thus  when  Rome  had  sunk  in  power,  and  Prseneste  had  risen,  it  would  seem  fair 
that  they  should  stand  towards  each  other  on  a  different  footing ;  that  Prseneste 
should  be  no  longer  a  mere  single  member  of  the  state  of  Latium,  but  should 
itself  treat  as  state  to  state  with  Rome. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  we  find  that  after  the  Gaulish  invasion,  the  treaty  of  Sp. 
war.  with  the  Latin  Cassius,  both  with  the  Latins  and  Hernicans,  was  either  imperfectly 
•tates.-prteneste.  observed,  or  altogether  violated  for  a  period  of  nearly  thirty  years. 
Latin  and  Hernican  volunteers  in  great  numbers  are  said  to  have  joined  the 
armies  of  the  Volscians  ;37  then  the  Latins  generally,  without  any  mention  of  par- 
ticular states,  are  described  as  at  open  war  with  Rome,38  in  alliance  with  the  Vol- 
scians ;  and  Lanuvium,39  and  above  all,  Prseneste,40  are  especially  noticed  as  tak- 
ing a  prominent  part  in  these  hostilities.  On  the  other  hand,  Tusculum,41  though 
on  one  occasion  suspected,  remained  generally  true  to  Rome  :  and  so  also  did 

wars  with  the  Opican  nations ;  and  others  of  the  as  their  share  of  the  spoil  in  842.    (LivylV.  51.) 

thirty  which  are  not  noticed  again  in  history,  The  Latin  and  Hernican  lands  are  ravaged  by 

were,  in  all  probability,  dest  -oyed.  the  jEquians  or  Volscians  in  346  (Livy,  IV. 

18  Livy  says  that  "  the  Latins  and  Ilernicans,  55),  in  845  (id.  IV.  58),  and  the  Hernican  lands 

since  the  battle  at  the  lake  Eegillus,  had  re-  in  342.     (Id.  IV.  51.)    The  Latins  and  Herni- 

rnained  faithful  to  Rome  for  nearly  a  century  cans  announce  the  intended  invasion  of  the 

without  interruption."    VI.  2.     This,  as  a  gen-  Opican  nations  in  332  and  324  (Livy,  IV.  26,  37), 

eral  statement,  and  one  clearly  in  some  respects  and  in  292  it  is  expressly  mentioned  that  the 

'inaccurate,  may  not  be  entitled  to  much  weight ;  lands  ravaged  by  the  Volscians  were  those  of 

but  a  variety  of  incidental  notices  in  the  ac-  the  Pranestines,  Gabians,  and  Tusculans  (Livy, 

counts  of  the  several  years,  seem  to  imply  that  III.  8) :  the  three  people  belonging  all  alike  at 

the  alliance  between  the  three  nations,  Romans,  that  period  to  the  Latin  confederacy. 

Latins,  and  Hernicans,  lasted  without  any  ma-  v  Livy,  VI.  7,  13. 

terial  change  down  to  the  Gaulish  war.     Latins  18  Livy,  VI.  80,  32,  83. 

and  Hernicans  joined  Camillus  against  Veii  in  39  Livy,  VI.  21. 

859.     (Livy,  V.  19.)     Ferentinum,  when  taken  40  Livy,  V.  21,  22,  27,  et  seq.  30. 

from  the  Volscians,  was  given  to  the  Hernicaus  41  Livy,  VI.  21,  25,  26. 


eroal  distress.  Suf- 
ferings of  the  Roman 
commons. 


IAP.XXV.]  INTERNAL  DISTRESS. 

habit  and  Lavici.42     It  may  be  well  conceived  how  greatly  this  altered  disposition 
the  Latins  added  to  the  distress  of  the  Roman  commons.     For  some  years  past 
ium  had  borne  the  brunt  of  the  ravaging  incursions  of  the  ^Equians  and  Vol- 
jians  ;  its  aid  had  enabled  the  Roma/is  to  carry  the  war  at  times  into  the  ene- 
ries'  country,  while  their  own  territory  had  rested  in  security.     But  now  we  read 
the  Roman  territory  being  ravaged  in  all  directions  by  the  Volscu.ns  ;43  and  on 
occasion44  the  Prsenestines,  having  laid  waste  the  country  between  the  Tiber 
id  the  Anio,  a  quarter  most  likely  to  have  escaped  the  attacks  of  other  enemies, 
last  even  crossed  the  Anio,  and  advanced  as  far  as  the  very  walls  of  Rome. 
rnder  such  circumstances  any  gleam  of  victory  would  be  doubly  welcomed  ;  and 
inscription  in  the  Capitol45  long  recorded  the  successful  campaign  of  T.  Quinc- 
tius  Cincinnatus,  who  having  been  appointed  dictator  to  repel  this  invasion  of  the 
'rsenestines,  marched  out  against  them,  defeated  them  in  a  battle  on  the  very 
banks  of  the  ill-omened  Alia,  chased  them  into  their  own  country,  and  stormed 
nine  of  their  townships  in  as  many  days.     But  such  successes,  like  those  with 
which  the  Saxon  kings  of  England  sometimes  relieved  the  disasters  of  the  Danish 
invasions,  were  attended  by  no  permanent  fruits.     The  Prsenestines  were  in  the 
field  again  the  very  next  year  ;46  and  the  aspect  of  the  Roman  foreign  affairs  con- 
tinued to  be  overclouded  down  to  the  very  end  of  that  period  with  which  we  are 
mcerned  in  the  present  chapter. 

But  the  prospect  at  home  was  not  overclouded  merely ;  it  was  the  very  deep- 
>t  darkness  of  misery.     It  has  been  well  said  that  long  periods  of 
sneral  suffering  make  far  less  impression  on  our  minds,  than  the 
lort  sharp  struggle  in  which  a  few  distinguished  individuals  per- 
sh ;  not  that  we  over-estimate  the  horror  and  the  guilt  of  times  of  open  blood- 
~iedding,  but  we  are  much  too  patient  to  the  greater  misery  and  greater  sin 
'  periods  of  quiet  legalized  oppression ;  of  that  most  deadly  of  all  evils,  when 
iw,  and  even  religion  herself,  are  false  to  their  divine  origin  and  purpose,  and 
leir  voice  is  no  longer  the  voice  of  God,  but  of  his  enemy.     In  such  cases  the 
vil  derives  advantage,  in  a  manner,  from  the  very  amount  of  its  own  enormity, 
fo  pen  can  record,  no  volume  can  contain,  the  details  of  the  daily  and  hourly 
ifferings  of  a  whole  people,  endured  without  intermission,  through  the  whole  life 
man,  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave.     The  mind  itself  can  scarcely  comprehend 
e  wide  range  of  the  mischief :  how  constant  poverty  and  insult,  long  endured 
the  natural  portion  of  a  degraded  caste,  bear  with  them  to  the  sufferers  some- 
ling  yet  worse  than  pain,  whether  of  the  body  or  the  feelings  ;  how  they  dull 
he  understanding  and  poison  the  morals ;  how  ignorance  and  ill-treatment  com- 
ined  are  the  parents  of  universal  suspicion;  how  from  oppression  is  produced 
ibitual  cowardice,  breaking  out  when  occasion  offers  into  merciless  cruelty  ;  how 
ives  become  naturally  liars  ;  how  they  whose  condition  denies  them  all  noble 
tvjoyments,  and  to  whom  looking  forward  is  only  despair,  plunge  themselves, 
tvith  a  brute's  recklessness,  into  the  lowest  sensual  pleasures ;  how  the  domestic 
itself,  the  last  sanctuary  of  human  virtue,  becomes  at  length  corrupted,  and 
the  place  of  natural  affection  and  parental  care,  there  is  tD  be  seen  only  self- 
ishness and  unkindness,  and  no  other  anxiety  on  the  part  of  the  parents  for  their 
children,  than  that  they  may,  by  fraud  or  by  violence,  prey  in  their  turn  upon 
that  society  which  they  have  found  their  bitterest  enemy.     Evils  like  these,  long 
working  in  the  heart  of  a  nation,  render  their  own  cure  impossible :  a  revolution 
may  execute  judgment  on  one  generation,  and  that,  perhaps,  the  very  one  which 

411  Livy,  VI.  21,  25,  26.    43  Livy,  VI.  81.  From  Jove  and  all  the  gods  this  favor  did  bo- 

«  Livy,'  VI.  28.  fall, 

*  Livy,  VI.  29,  and  Festus  in  "  Tricns."  The  That  Titus  Quinctus,  sometime  Eorae's  captain- 
inscription,  as   Niebuhr  has  restored  it,  ran  general, 

thus :  Nine  towns  did  in  nine  days  assault  and  toko 


Juppiter,  atque  Divi  omnes  hoc  dederunt,  withal. 

Ut  Titus  Quinctius  dictator  Eomanus  «•  Livy,  VI.  30. 

Oppida  novem  diebus  novem  caperet. 


218  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXT 

was  beginning  1o  see  and  to  repent  of  its  inherited  sins;  but  it  cannot  restore  life 
to  the  morally  dead ;  and  its  ill  success,  as  if  in  this  line  of  evils  no  curse  should 
be  wanting,  is  pleaded  by  other,  oppressors  as  a  defence  of  their  own  iniquity,  and 
a  reason  for  perpetuating  it  forever. 

But  it  was  the  blessing  of  Rome,  that  *this  course  of  evils  was,  in  her  case, 
can**  Of  the  distress;  checked  in  time,  when  it  had  brought  suffering  only  on  one  genera- 
ment 'o? '  toloi vent  debt-  ^on,  before  it  had  entailed  moral  corruption  on  the  remotest  pos- 
terity. Twenty  years47  of  poverty  and  oppression,  could  we  pre- 
sent to  ourselves  each  individual  case  of  misery,  would  seem  a  fearful  amount  of 
evil ;  but,  happily,  twenty  years'  suffering  in  the  life  of  a  nation  are  but  like  an 
attack  of  fever,  severe  indeed  while  it  lasts,  but  too  short  to  weaken  the  consti~ 
tution  permanently.  Mere  poverty,  moreover,  is  an  evil,  the  sense  of  which  varies 
greatly  according  to  differences  of  time  and  place ;  its  actual  privations  depend 
much  on  climate  ;  their  intolerableness  arises  from  contrast ;  where  none  are  ex- 
travagant or  luxurious,  poverty  must  almost  sink  to  beggary  before  its  sting  is 
felt  acutely.  The  actual  distress  endured  by  the  Roman  commons  in  the  loss  of 
their  houses,  and  the  destruction  of  their  cattle  and  fruit-trees,  few  of  which  could 
have  escaped  the  hands  of  the  Gauls  during  their  long  occupation  of  the  city  and 
territory  of  Rome,  although  severe  for  the  time,  would,  nevertheless,  have  been 
diminished  by  the  sense  of  its  being  the  common  portion,  and  would  in  time  have 
been  altogether  relieved.  But  the  attacks  of  foreign  enemies  rendered  the  trib- 
utum,  as  a  war-tax,  constant  and  heavy  ;  and  other  taxes  were  imposed  to  defray 
the  expense  of  building  up  the  rock  of  the  Capitol  with  large  blocks  of  stone,4* 
and  probably  of  rebuilding  the  temples  generally  ;  whilst  the  obligation  of  com- 
pleting the  houses  in  the  city  within  twelve  months,  was  a  pressure  on  the  means 
of  the  less  wealthy,  coming  at  the  very  time  when  they  were  least  able  to  meet 
it.  Thus,  as  we  have  seen,  debts  were  unavoidably  contracted ;  and  when  there 
was  a  general  demand  for  money,  it  was  not  possible  that  any  positive  law  could 
keep  the  rate  of  interest  low.  Whether  the  enactment  of  the  twelve  tables,  which 
fixed  its  yearly  rate  at  one-twelfth  of  the  principal,  was  actually  repealed,  or  only 
disregarded  by  common  consent,  we  cannot  tell,  but  the  re-enacting  that  rate49  a 
few  years  later  is  a  proof  that  at  this  period  it  was  not  observed  ;  and  it  is  ex- 
pressly mentioned  that  the  principal50  of  debts  was  sometimes  paid  many  times 
over  in  interest  before  they  were  of  five  years'  standing.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
repeat  the  details  of  the  extreme  severity  of  the  law  towards  insolvent  debtors ; 
they  have  been  already  noticed  ;  but  as  the  distress  was  far  greater  now  than  at 
any  former  time,  this  severity  must  have  been  more  extensively  felt  than  ever : 
every  patrician  house  was  become  a  private  jail ;  but  a  jail  in  which  the  pris- 
oners were  kept  to  hard  labor  for  the  jailer's  benefit,  or  were,  at  his  caprice, 
loaded  with  irons  and  subjected  to  the  lash. 

Imprisonment  for  debt  in  its  mildest  form,  and  amidst  the  manifold  money 
.  transactions  of  a  ereat  commercial  country,  in  which  the  debtor 

Aggravations    of   their  -  T  °.  .  .  .    ,  .         « "         .  , 

misery  from  particular  must  often  be  paying  the  penalty  of  his  own  imprudence,  is  yet 

beginning  to  shock  the  feelings  of  modern  times,  as  being  liable  to 

the  evil  of  confounding  together  misfortune   and  crime.     How  then  should  we 

regard  the  treatment  of  the  Roman  commons,  whose  debts  were  incurred  by  no 

47  The  period,  according  to  Niebuhr's  chro-    of  the  hill  towards  the  Forum,  where  the  re- 
nology,  was  one  of  eighteen  years,  from  365  to    mains  of  the  Tabularium  still  exist. 

883:  according  to  the  common  chronology,  it  The  "  saxum  quadratum"  of  the  Roman  wri- 

lasted  twenty-three  years,  from  365  to  388.  ters,  is  the  "  Steintuf  "  of  the  German  geplo- 

48  Livy,  VI.  4.     "  Capitolium  saxo  quadrato  gists ;  the  "  Tufa  litoide''  of  Brocchi :  it  is  a 
substructurnest."    This  must  mean  that  where  volcanic  conglomerate,   found  in  Rome  itself, 
the  clitf  had  been  proved  to  be  accessible,  and  and  is  the  stone  employed  in  the  Ctoaca. 

thus  have  been  more  or  less  of  an  inclined  plane,  49  Livy,  VII.  16. 

it  was  so  built  up  with  large  blocks  of  stone  as  60  Livy,  VI.  14.     "  Multiplici  jam  sorte  cxso- 

to  enlarge  the  upper  surface  of  the  hill,  and  luta,  mergentibus  semper  sortem  usuris."  This 

make  it  perpendicular  with  the  bottom  of  it.  is  said  of  the  year  370,  only  five  years  after  the 

Similar  (substructions  have  enlarged  the  surface  Gaulish  invasion. 


CHA?.  XXV.]  CONDUCT  OF  M.  MANLIUS.  219 

ult  of  their  own,  but  were  the  consequence  of  an  overwhelming  national  calam- 
,  and  of  the  want  of  consideration  shown  by  the  government  for  their  state  of 
stress  ?  Yet  it  is  remarkable  that  the  severity  of  the  law  in  itself  seems  even 
w  to  have  excited  no  complaint ;  nor  do  we  find  that  the  tribunes  extended 
eir  protection  to  the  multitude  of  innocent  debtors  who  were  daily  dragged  oft 
labor  amongst  slaves  in  their  creditor's  workhouse  ;  what  excited  general  dis- 
ntent  was,  in  the  first  place,  the  high  rate  of  interest  exacted  by  the  patricians, 
who  thus  seemed  to  make  their  profit  out  of  the  general  misery ;  and  next  the 
harshness  of  obliging  the  commons  to  pay  heavy  taxes  for  the  public  service, 
while  the  state's  domain  land,  the  natural  resource  in  extraordinary  national  emer- 
gencies, was  appropriated  to  the  benefit  of  individuals,  and  whilst  the  taxation 
itself  was  highly  arbitrary,  being  regulated  according  to  an  old  valuation  of  the 
property  of  the  citizens,51  and  making  no  allowance  for  the  enormous  losses  which 
had  since  so  greatly  reduced  its  amount.  Above  all,  there  was  the  intolerable 
suspicion  that  the  taxes  thus  hardly  wrung  from  the  people  were  corruptly  em- 
bezzled :  a  tax  had  been  imposed  to  replace  twofold  the  treasures  borrowed  from 
the  temples  to  purchase  the  retreat  of  the  Gauls ;  and  it  was  whispered62  that 
this  money,  instead  of  being  restored  to  the  gods,  was  secretly  kept  back  by  the 
patricians  for  their  own  use. 

Thus  the  evils  of  the  times  and  the  public  irritation  were  great ;  but  before 
they  found  their  true  and  wholesome  remedy,  they  gave  occasion  M>  Maniius  co7nes  for. 
to  one  of  those  false  shows  of  relief,  which  only  aggravate  the  dis-  S^^STWS 
ease.  M.  Maniius,  the  preserver  of  the  Capitol  from  the  Gauls,  §olvent  debtor"- 
was  jealous  of  the  high  reputation  of  Camillus,53  and  alienated  from  the  patricians 
generally,  because  his  share  of  the  high  offices  of  the  commonwealth  was  not 
such  as  his  merits  claimed.  Thus  he  was  ready  to  feel  indignant  at  the  sever- 
ities practised  against  the  debtors ;  and  his  better  feelings  also,  the  loftiness  of 
his  nature,  and  his  sympathy  with  brave  men,  were  all  shocked  by  the  scenes 
which  he  daily  witnessed.  One  day54  he  saw  a  centurion,  who  had  served  with 
him,  and  whom  he  knew  to  be  a  distinguished  soldier,  now  dragged  through  the 
Forum  on  his  way  to  his  creditor's  workhouse.  He  hastened  up,  protested  against 
the  indignity,  and  himself  paid  the  debt  on  the  spot,  and  redeemed  the  debtor. 
The  gratitude  and  the  popularity  which  this  act  won  for  him,  excited  him  to  go 
on  in  the  same  course  :  he  sold  by  public  auction  the  most  valuable55  part  of  his 
landed  property,  and  declared  that  he  would  never  see  a  fellow-citizen  made  a 
bondsman  for  debt,  so  long  as  he  had  the  means  of  relieving  him.  So  well  did 
he  fulfil  this  promise  that  he  was  said  to 'have  advanced  money  to  no  fewer  than 
four  hundred  debtors,  without  requiring  any  interest  to  be  paid  to  him  ;  and  thus 
to  have  discharged  their  debts,  and  saved  them  from  bondage.  Such  generosity  ob- 
tained for  him  the  unbounded  affection  of  the  people  ;  he  was  called  the  "  Father 
of  the  Commons ;"  and  his  house  in  the  Capitol  was  always  beset  by  a  multitude 
of  citizens,  to  whom  he  spoke  of  the  cruelty  of  their  creditors,  and  of  their  fraud 
md  sacrilege  in  appropriating  to  themselves  the  money  paid  by  the  people  to  re- 
ce  the  treasures  borrowed  from  the  gods  for  the  ransom  of  the  Capitol. 
A  dictator  had  been,56  already  appointed  early  in  the  year,  with  the  double 
rpose  of  employing  him  against  the  Volscians  abroad,  and,  if  need  should  be, 
inst  the  attempts  of  Maniius  at  home.  The  office  had  been  conferred  on  A. 

61  See  Niebuhr,  Vol.  II.  p.  675.  conquered  only  eleven  years  before.    But  the 

2  Livy,  VI.  14.  Ager  Veiens  came  down  to  the  Tiber,  and  por- 

3  Livy,  VI.  11.    Plutarch,  Camillus,  36.  tions  of  it  may  have  been  conquered  in  earlier 


64  Livy,  VI,  14.  One  is  rather  too  much  re-  wars,  or  even  in  the  earlier  years,  of  the  final 
minded  here  of  the  story  of  the  brave  old  cen-  war.  The  fundus  in  question  was,  probably,  a 
turion,  whose  hard  usage  from  his  creditors  ex-  "possessio,"  or  a  portion  of  the  domain  land 


cited  such  a  tumult  in  the  year  of  Home  259. —  held  by  occupation;    but  such  estates  were 

Sse  Livy,  II.  23.  bought  and  sold  amongst  individuals  as  if  they 

_"  Fund uni  in  Veienti,"  says  Livy,  "  caput  were  property,  subject  always  to  the  chance  ol 

patrimonii."    It  could  hardly,  then,  have  been  their  being  reclaimed  by  the  state. 

'  part  of  the  Veientian  territory  which  had  been  M  Livy,  VI.  11. 


220  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXV 

His  ambitions  pmotices.  Cornelius  Cossus,  perhaps  the  same  person  who,  in  his  consulship, 
StSmf^St&  eight-and-twenty  years  before,  had  taken  cognizance  of  the  mur- 
•nd  death.  ^er  Of  M  Postumius  by  his  soldiers ;  and  he  was  now  recalled 

from  the  field  to  check  the  apprehended  sedition.  He  summoned  Manlius57 
before  him,  called  upon  him  to  prove  his  charge  of  the  embezzlement  of  the 
sacred  money,  and  on  his  failing  to  do  so  threw  him  into  prison.  This  seems  to 
have  been  merely  the  exercise  of  that  power  of  arresting  dangerous  individuals, 
and  so  stopping  their  plans  for  a  season,  which  is  granted  to,  or  assumed  by,  all 
governments  in  perilous  times;  it  is  remarkable,  however,  that  the  imprisonment 
of  Manlius  did  not  expire  with  the  term  of  the  dictator's  office,  but  continued  till 
the  senate,  fearing,  it  is  said,  that  he  would  be  released  by  force,  passed  a  vote 
to  restore  him  to  his  liberty.  This  might  seem  to  have  been  an  act  of  weakness,  yet 
the  event  allows  us  to  attribute  it  to  a  wise  policy ;  for  Manlius,  when  released, 
indulged  in  language  more  violent  than  ever,  and  at  last,  if  we  can  rightly  inter- 
pret58 the  doubtful  language  of  the  annalists,  the  assemblages  at  his  house 
assumed  a  more  threatening  character ;  and  the  Capitol  was  occupied  by  him  and 
his  followers  as  a  stronghold  in  defiance  of  the  government,  as  it  was  many  years 
afterwards  by  the  tribune  L.  Saturninus.  That  his  motives  were  not  pure,  and 
that  his  purposes  were  treasonable,  seems  evident  from  several  circumstances. 
He  did  not  unite  with  the  tribunes,  the  natural  leaders  of  the  commons,  nor  con- 
cert with  them  any  definite  measure  for  the  redress  of  the  existing  evils.  This 
makes  a  wide  distinction  between  him  and  the  several  honest  popular  leaders  who, 
on  other  occasions,  had  opposed  the  aristocracy.  Volero,  Terentilius,  Duillius, 
Icilius,  Canuleius,  and  Trebonius,  had  each  come  forward  with  some  distinct 
measure  for  the  attainment  of  a  particular  end ;  but  of  Manlius  we  hear  nothing 
but  that  he  exercised  great  liberality  towards  distressed  individuals,  and  so  ac- 
quired an  immense  popularity ;  that  he  excited  the  passions  of  the  people  by 
vague  charges  and  invectives  against  the  aristocracy  ;  and  that  he  occupied  the 
Capitol  with  a  multitude  of  his  partisans.  It  marks  also  the  character  of  his 
proceedings,  that  the  tribunes,  forgetting  the  just  grievances  of  their  order,  joined 
the  patricians  against  him  ;  and  that  Q.  Publilius,59  whose  family  was  surpassed 
by  none  in  its  hereditary  zeal  for  the  true  liberties  of  the  commons,  came  forward 
to  impeach  him  of  high  treason.  What  follows  is  told  with  some  variations,  and 
the  real  details  cannot  be  recovered.  According  to  the  common  account,  Man- 
lius submitted  to  take  his  trial  before  the  centuries  in  the  Campus  Martius.  I 
have  already  shown  how  much  even  the  greatest  criminals  had  to  hope  from  the 
uncertainty  of  such  a  tribunal ;  how  much  weight  was  given  to  matters  foreign  to 
the  question  at  issue ;  how  a  strong  and  eloquent  appeal  to  the  feelings  of  the 
judges  might  overpower  the  clearest  evidence  of  the  prisoner's  guilt.  If  even 
the  decemvir  Appius  had  thought  his  acquittal  by  the  centuries  not  impossible, 
how  much  more  might  Manlius  expect  from  them  a  favorable  sentence  ?  Nor 
was  his  hope  deceived.  When  he  appeared  in  the  Field  of  Mars,  he  brought 
forward  four  hundred  debtors60  whom  he  had  relieved  from  bondage ;  he  exhib- 
ited the  spoils  of  thirty  enemies  whom  he  had  slain  in  personal  combat ;  he  showed 
forty  honorary  rewards  which  he  had  at  various  times  received  from  his  generals 
in  war ;  and  amongst  these,  eight  of  those  wreaths  of  oak,  the  famous  civic  crowns, 
which  were  given  for  saving  the  life  of  a  fellow- citizen  in  battle.  He  produced, 
besides,  some  of  the  very  men  whom  he  had  thus  saved,  living  witnesses  of  his 
services,  whose  tears  and  entreaties  in  behalf  of  their  preserver  might  strike  to 
the  hearts  of  all  who  saw  them.  Finally,  he  bared  his  own  breast,  covered  with 

67  Livy,  VI.  16.  w  Livy,  VI.  19.     This  Publilius  was  of  th« 

68  "  Senatus  de  secessione  in  domum  priva-  same  family  with  Publilius  Volero,  and  was  the 
tarn  plebis,  .  .  .  agitat." — Livy,  VI.  19.    The  dictator  Publilius  Philo  who  passed  the  famous 
word  "secessio"  is  either  an  exaggeration  or  popular  laws  which  bear  his  name  some  years 
denotes  a  positive  act  of  insurrection,  or,  to  afterwards. — Livy,  VIII.  12. 

speak  more  strictly,  of  a  withdrawal  of  allegiance        M  Livy,  VI.  20. 
from  the  existing  government. 


r.  XXV.] 


INCREASED  DISTRESS. 


221 


)norable  scars ;  and,  looking  up  to  the  Capitol,  which  rose  immediately  above 
Field  of  Mars,  he  implored  the  aid  of  those  gods  whose  temples  he  had 
»aved  from  barbarian  pollution,  and  bade  the  people  to  look  at  the  Capitol,  and 

len  give  their  judgment.  The  tribunes  saw  that  the  centuries,  thus  excited, 
would  never  find  him  guilty ;  and  the  trial  was  adjourned,61  not  to  be  brought 
forward  again  before  the  same  tribunal.  Yet  how  he  was  prevented  from  ap- 
)ealing  to  the  centuries  from  the  sentence  of  any  other  court  that  might  have 

mdemned  him,  does  not  appear.     Nothing  more  is  known  with  certainty  than 
that  Manlius  was  put  to  death  as  a  traitor  ;  the  very  manner62  of  his  execution, 
well  as  the  authority  by  which  he  was  condemned,  are  variously  reported. 

Jl  agree,  however,63  that  his  house  was  levelled  with  the  ground  ;  that  a  law 
was  passed  forbidding  any  one  from  henceforth  to  reside  within  the  precincts  of 
the  Capitol ;  and  that  the  members  of  the  Manlian  gens  shared  so  deeply  in  the 

eneral  sense  of  his  guilt,  as  to  make  it  a  rule  of  their  house,  that  no  Manlius 
should  ever  hereafter  receive  the  praenomen  of  Marcus. 

After  this  ill-omened  opposition  to  the  aristocracy,  their  power  was,  as  usual, 
only  the  more  confirmed.     For  four  years  the  distress  went  on  T 


nnrensed  distress :  the 
tribunes  nt  lust  venture 


ol 

?' 


increasing,  till  the  tribunes  of  the  year  375  (we  do  not  know  their  tointerfure  in 
names)  ventured  to  make  a  stand64  in  behalf  of  their  constituents.  the  commou8- 
Censors  had  been  appointed  in  this  year,  to  take  a  new  valuation  of  the  property 
of  the  citizens ;  but  one  of  them  having  died,  and  it  being  accounted  unlucky  to 
fill  up  the  place  of  a  deceased  censor,  his  colleague  went  out  of  office.     Two  cen- 
rs  were  then  elected,  but  the  augurs  pronounced  their  election  invalid,  and  they 
so  resigned  without  doing  any  business  ;  after  which  a  religious  objection  was 
ade  to  any  third  election,  as  if  the  gods  had  manifested  it  to  be  their  will  that 
here  should  be  no  censors  that  year.     This  so  provoked  the  tribunes,  that  when 
t  was  proposed  to  call  the  legions  into  the  field  against  the  people  of  Prseneste, 
"  ey  had  recourse  to  the  old  method  of  opposition  practised  by  the  tribunes  in 
he  preceding  century,  and  protected  every  citizen  in  refusing  to  enlist ;  nay,  they 
ent  still  further,  and  declared  that  they  would  once  for  all  redress  the  existing 
rievances,  by  forbidding  any  debtor  to  be  given  over  to  his  creditor's  power  by 
he  sentence  of  the  magistrate.     And  though  they  did  not  persevere  in  their  pui- 
se,  for  the  Prsenestines,65  by  a  sudden  inroad  up  to  the  very  gates  of  Rome, 
urnished  an  excuse  for  the  appointment  of  a  dictator,  and  made  the  war  seem  a 
matter  of  paramount  necessity,  yet  the  tribunes  withdrew  their  opposition  only 
on  some  compromise  ;  and  at  the  ensuing  election  of  military  tribunes,  three  out 
of  six  were,  for  the  first  time  since  the  Gaulish  invasion,  chosen  from  among  the 
lebeians. 

This  apparently  brought  some  relief  for  the  following  year ;  but  at  the  end  of 
only  one66  plebeian  was  elected  amongst  the  military  tribunes  ;    Thw-r     interference 
nd  the  year  377  was  only  marked  by  disappointment  of  all  the    soems  UI1!ivaili:is- 

Censors  were 


hoDCs  of  the  commons,  and  an  actual  increase  of  their  burdens. 


i 


61  Any  objection  of  a  religious  kind  on  the 
irt  of  the  augurs,  or  a  notice  "that  it  thun- 
dered," was  sufficient  to  break  up  the  comitia. 
C.  Rubin  us  was  saved  from  condemnation  by  a 
sudden  adjournment  produced  by  the  act  of  L. 
Metellus,  who  tore  down  the  standard  hoisted 
on  the  Janiculum.  and  thus,  according  to  an  old 
custom,  obliged  the  comitia  to  separate. 

02  Livy,  and  most  other  writers,  say  that  ho 
was  thrown  from  the  Tarpeian  rock.  Cornelius 
Ncpos  related  that  he  was  scourged  to  death. — 
See  Gellius,  XVII.  21,  §  24.  Again,  some  said, 
that  he  was  condemned  by  a  "  concilium  popu- 
li,"  held  in  the  Pcteline  grove  without  the  Porta 
Humentana;  others  said  that  he  was  condemned 
by  the  duumviri,  or  two  judges  created,  accord- 
ing to  the  old  law  ascribed  to  the  times  of  the 
kings,  for  the  purpose  of  trying  him  as  a  pub- 


lic enemy.  Further,  what  was  the  "  concilium 
populi,"  and  where  was  the  "Lucus  Peteli- 
nus  ?"  for  the  present  reading  of  "Porta  No- 
mentana"  in  the  editions  of  Livy,  is  a  mere  cor- 
rection of  Nardini,  and  not  to  be  admitted ;  in- 
asmuch as  there  was  no  Porta  Nomentana  before 
the  enlargement  of  the  Avails  by  Aurelian.  Then 
there  is  the  curious  story  recorded  by  Dion  Cas- 
sius,  and  which  Niebuhr  prefers  as  the  most 
authentic  of  all  the  accounts.  The  question  is 
too  long  to  be  discussed  here  :  I  have  thrown 
it  therefore  into  a  note  at  the  end  of  the  volume. 

63  Livy,  VI.  20.  Plutarch,  Camillus,  36.  Au"« 
tor.  de  Viris  illustr.  in  Manlio.  Dion  Cassiu-, 
Fragm.  Peiresc.  xxxi. 

01  Livy,  VI.  27. 

C6  Livy  VI.  28. 

r6  Livy,  VI.  81. 


222  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXTL 

again  elected,  but  a  war  with  the  Volscians  was  made  a  pretence  for  postponing 
the  census ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  although  the  censors  could  not  find  oppor- 
tunity for  relieving  the  distress  of  the  commons,  they  thought  it  necessary  to  con- 
tract for  the  building  of  a  part  of  the  city  wall  ;67  and  to  defray  the  expense  of 
this  work,  additional  taxes  were  imposed.  Accordingly,  in  this  and  the  following 
year,  the  amount  of  debt  in  the  state  continued  to  increase,  and 
the  number  of  insolvent  debtors  condemned  to  bondage  was 
greatly  multiplied  ;  while  a  sudden  dissolution  of  the  alliance  between  the  Latins 
and  Volscians,  and  the  conclusion  of  a  separate  peace  between  the  latter  and 
Rome,68  relieved  the  patricians  from  any  immediate  pressure  of  foreign  warfare, 
and  thus  deprived  the  opposition  of  the  tribunes  of  its  most  effectual  weapon. 

From  this  apparently  hopeless  condition  there  sprung  up  suddenly  a  prospect 
But  deliverance  i»,  not-  of  deliverance.  Again  we  have  conflicting  traditions,  idle  stories, 
withstanding, at  hand.  flnj  party  exaggerations  in  the  place  of  history.  But  the  result 
of  the  great  struggle  is  certain,  whatever  obscurity  hangs  over  the  details.  And 
L.  Sextius  and  C.  Licinius,  though  we  cannot  gain  a  distinct  knowledge  of  them 
as  individuals,  yet  deserve  to  be  recorded  amongst  the  greatest  benefactors  to 
the  cause  of  good  government  and  equal  law,  inasmuch  as  they  brought  forward 
and  carried  the  Licinian  laws. 


CHAPTER  XXVI, 

THE  LICINIAN  LAWS.— 378-384. 


"Les  mouvemens  qui  agitent  les  penples  peuvent  £trc  de  deux  sortes.  Les  uns  sont  produita 
par  une  cause  directe,  d'ou  resulte  un  effet  hnmediat.  Une  circonstance  quelconque  amenc  tine 
nation,  on  meine  une  partie  de  la  nation,  a  desirer  un  but  determine ;  1'enterprise  echoue  ou 

reussit Ce  sont  la  les  heureuses  revolutions ;  on  sait  ce  qu'on  veut.  on  marchc  vers 

tm  point  precis,  on  se  repose  quand  il  est  atteint." — BABANTE,  Tableau  de  la  Litterature  Fran<jaise 
pendant  le  Dixhuitieme  Siecle. 

Six  patrician  military  tribunes1  had  been  elected  at  the  comitia  for  the  year 
378,  and  had  entered  on  their  office  on  the  first  of  July.  The  coalition  between 
the  Latins  and  Volscians,  which  had  been  so  dangerous  to  Rome,  was  dissolved 
in  this  same  summer,  and  the  Volscians  of  Antium  made  a  separate  peace.2  Dur- 
ing the  auiumn  the  commons  seemed  to  have  utterly  lost  heart ;  the  patricians 
were  all  powerful  at  home,  and  fortune  seemed  disposed  to  favor  them  equally 
abroad  :  the  cause,  in  short,  appeared  so  hopeless  that  the  more  eminent  men3 
amongst  the  commons  were  discouraged  from  coming  for\vard  as  candidates, 
even  for  the  office  of  tribune  of  the  co.nmons  ;  the  tribune's  power,  they  thought, 
would  merely  expose  themselves  to  odium,  while  it  would  be  unable  to  effect  any 
good.  Thus  the  elderly  men,  who  generally  held  the  tribuneship,  now  abandoned 
the  helm  in  despair,  and  younger  men,  who  would  have  given  way  to  their  higher 
claims  under  other  circumstances,  now  found  themselves  called  upon  to  come 

67  Livy,  VI.  32.  on  that  very  spot,  Satricum,  which  they  had  con- 

88  Livy,  VI.  33.  quered  in  the  war  now  before  us,  and  which 

1  Livy,  VI.  32.  they  must  have  retained,  therefore,  at  the  pea( 

a  Livy,  VI.  33.    But  they  could  scarcely  have  of  378.    See  Livy,  VII.  27.    But  a  state  whL: 

made  an  absolute  surrender,  "  deditio,"  of  their  retains  even  its  conquests  at  the  end  of  a  war  i 

5ity  and  territory ;  for  we  hear  of  them  again  in  not  likely  to  make  at  that  same  time  an  absolut 

little  more  than  twenty  years,  as  an  indepen-  surrender  of  its  own  city  and  territory, 

icut  and  sovereign  people ;  planting  a  colony  3  Livy,  VI.  34. 


CHAP.  XXVI]  THE  THREE  LICINIAN  LAWS,  223 

forward,  and  brought  with  them  strength  and  spirits  better  fitted  for  times  so 
perilous.  At  the  election  in  December,  C.  Licinius  Stolo,  a  member  of  one  of 
the  richest4  and  most  distinguished  families  amongst  the  commons,  and  a  man  in 
the  full  vigor  of  life,  obtained  a  place  amongst  the  ten  tribunes,  and  L.  Sextius,  a 
foung  man  of  an  active  and  aspiring  spirit,  and  a  personal  friend  of  Licinius,  was 
sleeted  one  of  his  colleagues. 

Could  we  look  into  the  private  history  of  these  times,  we  should  find,  no  doubt, 
imono;st  the  Roman  patricians,  as  amongst  the  members  of  all  aris- 

,  /.  i  /•  •  •  Some  of  the  j-atriciam  _ 

;racies,  a  certain  number  ot  persons,  who,  from  various  motives,  «re  favorable  to  the 

•,..-,  /.  \  i  -PJ  ,,     ,  cause  oi  the  commons. 

re  opposed  to  the  majority  oi  their  o\vn  order.     By  some  of  these, 
jicinius  and  Sextius  were,  we  may  be  sure,  encouraged  and  supported ;  the 
Licinian  family  had  repeatedly  intermarried  with  patricians  :5  the  tribune  himself 
was  married  to  a  Fabia,  and  others  of  his  name  had  been  similarly  connected 
with  the  Manlii  and  the  Cornelii.     With  all  the  advantages  then  of  wealth  and 
connection  that  could  be  enjoyed  by  a  commoner,  Licinius  came  forward  to  re- 
dress the  grievances  of  his  order,  and  to  secure  their  rights  for  the  time  to  come. 
He  proposed  in  the  assembly  of  the  tribes,  in  conjunction  with  L.  Sextius, 
three  separate  laws.6     The  first  provided  a  strong  remedy  for  the  The  trib,,nes  p^pose 
reat  actual  evil,  the  overwhelming  pressure  of  debt.     It  enacted,  u»e  three  Licinianinv* 
that  whatever  had  been  already  paid  in  interest  should  be  deducted  from  the 
imount  of  the  principal;7  and  that  the  debt  thus  reduced  should  be  discharged 
in  three  years,  in  three  equal  instalments.     The  second  bill  was  intended  to  save 
e  commons,  when  their  debts  were  once  relieved,  from  the  necessity  of  running 
to  debt  again.     It  proposed  therefore  to  provide  for  the  poorer  citizens  by  giv- 
ng  them  grants  of  land  out  of  the  domain,  or  ager  publicus ;  and  in  order  to 
ve  land  enough  available  for  this  purpose,  it  restrained  the  right  of  the  occu- 
tion,  by  enacting  that  no  man  should  occupy  more  than  five  hundred  jugera 
the  public  land  in  tillage,8  nor  feed  more  than  a  hundred  oxen  and  five  hun- 
red  sheep  on  those  portions  of  it  which  were  left  in  pasture.     The  third  bill 
as  dictated  by  the  consciousness  that  the  enjoyment  of  property  is  neither  se- 
ure  in  itself,  nor  can  satisfy  the  wants  of  a  noble  mind,  without  being  united 
'ith  a  certain  portion  of  political  power.     The  commons,  as  an  order,  must  be 
"  to  a  level  with  the  patricians  ;  the  honors  of  their  country  must  be  laid 
open  to  them ;  they  must  have  an  opportunity  of  bequeathing  nobility  to  their 
children.     The  institution  of  the  military  tribuneship  was,  in  itself,  an  affront  to 
the  commons :  it  was  only  because  it  was  so  inferior  in  dignity  to  the  consulship, 
that  it  had  been  made  nominally  accessible  to  them.     The  bill  of  Licinius,  accord- 
ingly, did  away  with  the  military  tribuneship,  and  restored  the  consulship.9   That 
very  image  of  the  ancient  royalty,  with  all  its  sacredness  and  display  of  sovereign 
tate,  was  to  be  open  to  the  commons  no  less  than  to  the  patricians.     But  cxpe- 

4  This  appears  from  what  is  related  of  him        e  Livy,  VI.  35. 

terwards,  that  the  amount  of  public  land  in        *  "  Ut  deducto  eo  do  capite  quod  usuris  per- 

3  occupation  exceeded  the  measure  of  500  numeratum  esset,  id  quod  supercsset  triennio 

gem,  which  had  been  fixed  by  his  own  law.  sequis  portionibus  persolveretur." — Livy,   VI. 

iebuhr  observes  also  that  this  wealth  of  the  35. 

icinian  family  continued  to  the_latest  period  of  8  "Ne  quis  plus  quingenta  jugera  agri  pos- 
e  republic,  as  is  shown  by  the  immense  riches  sideret."  If  we  remember  the  legal  definition 
'M.  Licinius  Crassus.  of  posscssio,  quicquid  apprehendimus  cujus 
6  The  Licinius  who  was  a  military  tribune  in  proprietas  ad  nos  non  pertmet,  aut  ncc  pot'est 
ic  year  355  was  a  brother  of  Cn.  Cornelius ;  pertinere,  hoc  po^essioncm  apellamus,"  Do 
d  the  Licinius  who  was  master  of  the  horse-  Verbor.  Significat. ",  15  (Digest.  Lib.  L.  tit.  xvi.), 
men  in  38^-3  was  related  to  the  dictator  of  that  we  shall  see  that  it  was  needless  to  add  "pub- 
year,  P.  Manlius.  Livy,  V.  12,  VI.  39.  If  in  lici"  to  "  agri,"  because  the  only  land  which 
the  first  of  these  two  cases  we  suppose  with  men  ordinarily  occupied  without  its  being  their 
Borghesi  (Nuovi  Frammenti,  Parte  2,  p.  89).  own,  was  the  "ager  publicus." 
that  P.  Licinius  was  a  Cornelius  by  birth,  and  For  the  olanse  limiting  the  number  of  cattle 
adopted  into  the  family  of  the  Licinii,  it  shows  which  might  be  fed  on  the  public  pasture  land, 
no  less  the  high  eminence  of  the  Licinii  and  see  Appian,  de  Bell.  Civil.  1.  8. 
their  intimacy  with  the  noblest  patrician  houses,  9  "  Ne  tribunorum  militum  comitia  fiercnt, 
when  even  a  Cornelius  would  not  scruple  to  be-  consulumque  utiquc  alter  ex  plcbe  creareiur." — 
come  their  adopted  son.  Livy,  VI.  35. 


224  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXVI 

nence  bad  shown  that  it  was  not  enough  to  throw  it  open  merely ;  one  place 
must  be  secured  to  the  commons  by  law,  or  the  influence  of  the  patricians  at  the 
comitia  would  forever  exclude  them  from  it.  It  was  proposed,  therefore,  that 
one,  at  least,  of  the  two  consuls  should  of  necessity  be  elected  from  the  commons. 
This  last  law  requires  no  explanation ;  and  the  second,  since  Niebuhr  has 
operation  or  the  system  cleared  up  the  whole  subject  of  the  agrarian  laws,  is  equally  intel- 
ot -debtor  and  credit,  ijgible.  The  first,  however,  involves  in  it  some  difficulty;  for  if 
the  rate  of  interest  had  been  high,  and  a  debt  had  been  of  long  standing,  the 
sum  paid  in  interest  would  not  only  have  equalled,  but  must,  in  some  instances, 
have  actually  exceeded  the  amount  of  the  principal;  so  that  the  creditor,  far 
from  having  any  thing  more  to  receive,  would  rather  have  had  something  to  re- 
fund. To  explain  this,  Niebuhr  observes,  that  debts  were  ordinarily  settled  at 
the  end  of  one  year ;  and  that  if  a  debtor  could  not  then  pay,  he  was  in  the 
habit  of  borrowing  money  of  a  new  creditor  to  discharge  the  principal  and  inter- 
est of  his  first  account ;  a  proceeding  which,  from  its  frequency,  had  a  particu- 
lar name,  "  Versura."10  That  a  speedy  settlement  of  debts  was  the  ordinary 
practice,  may  indeed  be  collected  from  the  clause  in  this  very  Licinian  law  itself, 
which  required  the  whole  debt  remaining  after  the  deduction  of  the  already  paid 
interest  to  be  discharged  within  three  years ;  and  if  the  practice  of  versura  was 
often  repeated,  it  will  be  obvious  that  a  debtor  would  have  paid  his  original 
debt  many  times  over  in  interest,  although  not  under  that  name :  a  part  of  the 
principal  of  every  new  debt  being,  in  fact,  the  interest  of  the  preceding  one. 
Still,  as  the  distress  had  now  lasted  for  thirteen  years,  there  must  have  been  many 
who  could  not  have  gone  on  so  long  upon  this  system  ;  the  amount  of  their  debt 
must  have  so  exceeded  all  their  possible  means  of  payment,  that  no  new  creditor 
could  have  been  found  to  advance  them  the  money  to  discharge  it.  Under  these 
circumstances,  what  could  the  debtor  do  but  enter  into  a  nexum,  and  at  the  end 
of  a  certain  term,  on  failing  to  redeem  himself,  submit  to  be  given  over  as  a  bond- 
man to  his  creditor ;  or  else  try  to  procure  a  further  respite  by  offering  an  exor- 
bitant rate  of  interest  ?  In  this  latter  case  the  interest  so  paid  would,  undoubtedly, 
be  deducted  from  the  amount  of  the  principal,  and  thus  it  would  happen  that 
there  would  be  a  very  small  balance  left  for  the  creditor  still  to  receive.  But 
such  cases  would  be  very  few :  in  most  instances,  when  a  man's  credit  was  so 
exhausted  that  he  could  no  longer  practice  the  system  of  borrowing  from  a  new 
creditor  to  pay  his  old  one,  he  would  be  obliged  to  enter  into  a  nexum,  and  being 
still  insolvent,  would,  in  the  common  course  of  things,  become  his  creditor's  bond- 
man. Then  whilst  the  debtor  was  giving  his  creditor  all  the  benefit  of  his  labor, 
we  cannot  suppose  that  the  interest  of  the  debt  went  on  accumulating  also ;  and 
thus,  after  he  had  remained  some  years  in  bondage,  he  might  be  redeemed  by 
the  mere  payment  of  his  original  debt,  from  which  there  would  be  deducted  only 
that  interest  which  he  had  paid  before  he  had  been  consigned  to  his  creditor's 
power.  But  what  we  should  most  desire  would  be,  to  learn  the  fate  of  the  great 
mass  of  debtors,  who,  in  the  course  of  the  last  thirteen  years,  had  thus  been  re- 
duced to  slavery.  Was  there  any  limit  of  time  beyond  which  they  could  not  be 
redeemed?  or,  if  the  debt  were  never  paid,  did  they  or  their  posterity  ever 
recover  their  freedom  ?n  Are  we,  in  short,  to  believe  that  many  families  of  the 

10  Festus,  or  rather  Paulus,  in  "  Vcrstira."  gem  habet ;"  that  is,  he  could  not  be  killed  by 

11  There  is  a  well-known  passage  in  Quinc-  his  master,  nor  treated  by  him  absolutely  at  his 
tilian,  VII.  8,  §  27,  which  enters  into  the  dif-  discretion,  but  might  claim  the  protection  of 
fercnces  between  the  condition  of  a  slave  and  the  law  like  a  freeman ;  again,  he  could  inherit 
that  of  one  who  was  "addictus,"  or  given  over  property  and  acquire  property,  which  a  slavu 
to  his  creditor  into  bondage.    But  it  docs  not  could  not  (jo.     "Tribum  habet"  is  remarkable, 
specially  touch  the  questions  which  I  have  sug-  because  itjmplies  that  the  addictus  _  did  not 
gested.     Some  parts  of  it,  however,  are  re-  undergo  either   the  maxima  or  media  capitis 
markable.     "Ad  servum  nullo.  lex  pertinet:  deminutio;  he  could  not  lose  his  rights  of  citi- 
addictus  legem  habet.    Propria  liberi  qu»  nemo  zenship  if  he  retained  his  tribe.    But  were  these 
habet  nisi  liber,  preenomcn,  nomen,  cognomen,  rights  in  abeyance,  as  the  father's  power  over 
tribum ;  habet  hasc  addictus."     "  Addictus  le-  his  children  was  suspended  so  long  as  he  was 


)HAP.  XXVL]     ELECTION  OF  CURULE  MAGISTRATES  STOPPED. 


225 


Loman  commons,  during  this  period,  were  finally  lost  to  their  country  as  free 
itizens  ;  or  was  there  any  mitigation  of  the  extreme  rigor  of  their  fate,  and  did 

the  slave-debtor  ever  recover  his  personal  liberty  by  consenting  to  become  the 

client  of  his  master  ?     These  are  questions  to  which,  I  believe,  it  is  impossible 

to  give  satisfactory  answers. 

To  return,  however,  to  our  narrative ;  the  promulgation  of  the  three  Licinian 

)ills  provoked,  as  was  natural,  the  most  determined  opposition  on 

i  ft  •    ,  A         •       j.1        T_     iii  i         /•  i        •         *"e    t"bunes  itop  the 

ie  part  of  the  aristocracy.  Again  the  battle  was  to  be  fought  m  election  of  cumio  m* 
le  assembly  of  the  tribes  ;  the  great  object  of  the  patricians  was  8' 
prevent  the  bills  from  being  passed  there.  Some  of  the  tribunes  were  attached 
the  aristocratical  party,  and  these  were  persuaded  to  interpose  their  negative,12 
forbid  the  reading  of  the  bills  to  the  people,  and  thus  to  stop  them  from  ever 
>ing  put  to  the  vote.  Licinius  and  Sextius,  thus  baffled,  ana  being  unable  to 
jroceed  with  their  measures  directly,  determined  to  retaliate  by  obstructing,  in 
like  manner,  the  course  of  their  opponents.  When  the  month  of  July  arrived, 
and  the  military  tribunes  for  the  last  year  went  out  of  office,  Licinius  and  Sex- 
tius forbade  the  election  of  any  successors  to  them ;  they  would  allow  no  curule 
magistrates  to  be  appointed  ;  and  they  with  the  sediles  of  the  commons  remained 
for  a  time  the  only  magistrates  of  the  republic. 

But  that  this  time  continued  for  five  years,  according  to  the  common  report  of 
the  Roman  Fasti  and  historians,  is  a  thinof  altogether  incredible.13 

.  -,  c   r-  1  •     j i       /.  ,1  But  this  time  of  «n»r- 

An  anarchy  or  nve  years ;  so  long  a  period  of  the  most  extreme  po-  chydidnot  uwtforfiv. 

litical  excitement,  nay,  of  the  greatest  extremities  of  revolutionary  year 

violence ;  the  water  boiling,  as  it  were,  with  such  intensity,  and  yet  never  boiling 


a  prisoner  in  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  hut  re- 
turned to  him  as  soon  as  he  came  home  ?  or  can 
we  suppose  that  they  continued  to  exist,  and 
that  a  creditor  might  drive  his  addicti  into  the 
Forum  to  give  their  votes  as  he  should  require, 
and  that  such  votes  were  legal  ?  or  would  this 
he  one  of  the  many  cases  in  which  the  officer 
who  presided  at  the  comitia  exercised  his  dis- 
cretion in  objecting  to  them  whenever  he 
thought  proper,  or  receiving  them  if  it  suited 
the  interests  of  his  party? 

13  Livy,  VI.  35. 

13  It  is  utterly  impossible  to  ascertain  the  real 
chronology  of  this  period.  The  story  of  the  five 
years'  anarchy  arose  probably  from  an  exagger- 
ated interpretation  of  some  expressions  in  the 
annalists,  "  that  for  five  years  the  tribunes  went 
on  obstructing  the  elections,"  meaning,  that 
whilst  the  contest  lasted,  this  was  their  weap- 
on, which  they  used  from  time  to  time,  and 
never  relinquished  it  without  stipulating  for 
some  concession  in  turn.  Afterwards,  when 
the  date  of  the  Gaulish  invasion  had  been  fixed 
to  the  2d  year  of  the  98th  Olympiad,  and  this 
was  assumed  as  certain,  the  existence  of  the  five 
years'  anarchy  was  no  longer  questioned.  The 
Fasti  Capitotim  acknowledge  them  as  well  as 
Livy  ;  so  also  does  Dionysius,  for  he  speaks  of 
the  ten  years'  tribunesh'ip  of  Licinius.  (XIV. 
22.  Fragm.  Mai.)  And  Poly  bins  implies  them, 
where  he  gives  the  dates  of  the  several  inva- 
sions of  the  Gauls,  II.  18.  The  later  writers, 
such  as  Eutropius,  Cassidorus,  and  Rufus  Fes- 
tus,  make  the  anarchy  to  have  lasted  for  four 
vcais.  So  also  does  Zonaras;  but  then  these 
four  years  are  with  him  the  whole  period  of  the 
struggle,  for  he  makes  them  to  be  followed  im- 
mediately by  the  dictatorship  of  Camillus,  and 
the  pretended  Gaulish  invasion.  They  are  then 
the  years  which,  in  the  common  Fasti,  follow 
the  five  pretended  years  of  anarchy ;  and  which 
are  marked  by  four' colleges  of  military  tribunes. 

15 


It  is  to  be  observed,  that  about  forty  years  af- 
terwards we  still  find  the  consular  year  spoken 
of  as  beginning  on  the  1st  of  July  (Livy,  VIII. 
20),  which  requires  us  to  suppose  either  that 
one  whole  year  passed  without  military  trib- 
unes, and  that  the  elections  were  not  again 
delayed  ;  or  that  in  the  course  of  the  five  years' 
struggle,  the  elections  were  each  year  delayed 
for  a  time,  so  that  at  the  end  of  the  period  the 
time  lost  in  the  several  years,  when  added  to- 
gether, amounted  to  just  a  year  in  all,  or,  final- 
ly, we  must  believe  that  there  was  no  period  of 
anarchy  at  all;  that  the  tribunes  every  year 
threatened  to  stop  the  elections,  but  allowed 
them,  from  consideration  for  the  public  service, 
to  be  held  as  usual,  stipulating,  perhaps,  for 
the  election  of  certain  individuals  known  to  be 
either  favorable  to  their  claims,  or,  at  least,  not 
violently  adverse  to  them.  Borghesi  thinks 
that  one  college  of  military  tribunes  has  been 
omitted  by  Livy  in  the  year  preceding  the  be- 
ginning of  the  anarchy,  and  he  has  restored  it, 
partly  from  Diodorus,  and  partly  from  conjec- 
ture. Thus  he  places  the  election  of  L.  Sex- 
tius as  the  first  plebeian  consul,  exactly  four- 
and-twenty  years  after  the  invasion  of  the 
Gauls.  Striking  out  the  five  years  of  pretended 
anarchy,  the  consulship  of  L.  Sextius  falls  nine- 
teen years  after  the  invasion  of  the  Gauls, 
which  agrees  exactly  with  the  chronology  of 
Diodorus,  when  his  confusions  have  been  cor- 
rected, and  the  Gaulish  invasion  brought  to  its 
true  date,  according  to  his  system,  that  is,  to 
the  third  year  of  the  99th  Olympiad.  It  agrees 
also  with  the  statement  of  Orosius,  III.  1,  4; 
and  this  is  the  nearest  approximation  to  the 
truth  at  which  I  think  it  is  possible  to  arrive ; 
namely,  to  fix  the  consulship  of  L.  Sextius  in 
the  2d  year  of  the  104th  Olympiad,  which  is  the 
date  of  the  battle  of  Mantinea,  and  of  the  death 
of  Epaminondas,  363-2,  u.  c. 


226  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXVI 

over ;  a  knot  so  perplexing,  which  none  untied,  and  yet  none  were  tempted  tc 
cut ;  a  livelong  strife,  neither  pacified  by  any  compromise,  nor  exasperated  into 
open  violence,  requires  far  better  testimony  than  that  of  the  Roman  annalist 
removed  two  hundred  years  from  the  period  of  the  struggle,  to  induce  us  to 
admit  it  as  historical.  What  would  have  become  of  the  ordinary  course  of  busi- 
ness, if  for  five  years  the  supreme  courts  of  law  had  been  closed,  and  the  praetor's 
or  praetorian  tribune's  judgment-seat  so  long  left  empty  ?  Where  was  the  rest- 
less enmity  of  the  Latins,  who,  down  to  the  beginning  of  this  pretended  anarchy, 
are  described  as  so  relentless  in  their  hostilities,  and  who  again  appear  in  arms 
as  soon  as  it  is  over  ?  Unless  the  circumstances  of  the  struggle  were  very  differ- 
ent from  all  the  representations  of  them  which  have  reached  our  times,  we  can 
scarcely  doubt  that  the  Fasti,  followed  by  Diodorus  and  Orosius,  have  preserved 
the  truer  account  of  these  disputes  ;  that  one  year  at  the  most,  perhaps  even 
that  not  continuously,  but  at  different  intervals,  was  passed  without  curule  ma- 
gistrates ;  that  the  consulship  of  the  first  plebeian  consul  is  to  be  placed  not 
twenty-four  but  nineteen  years  only  after  the  invasion  of  the  Gauls. 

The  length  of  the  struggle,  even  when  reduced  in  all  from  ten  years  to  five,  is 
Mmt»ry  tribunes  again  sufficiently  memorable.  The  tribunes  had  prevented  the  election 
of  any  curule  magistrates ;  whether  this  state  of  things  really 
lasted  for  a  whole  year,  or  only  for  a  few  weeks,  it  is  not  possible  to  determine  ; 
but  it  was  ended  by  a  fresh  attack  of  the  Latins  on  the  old  allies  of  Rome,  the  people 
of  Tusculum  ;14  the  call  for  aid  on  the  part  of  the  Tusculans  could  not  be  resisted ; 
the  tribunes  withdrew  their  veto,  and  the  comitia  for  the  election  of  military  trib- 
unes were  duly  held ;  but  care  was  taken  that  only  moderate  men,  or  men 
friendly  to  the  popular  cause,  should  be  chosen ;  there  were  two  Valerii,  the 
very  name  of  whose  house  was  an  assurance  to  the  commons,  and  a  third  tribune 
was  Ser.  Sulpicius,  connected  by  marriage  with  C.  Licinius,  and  with  his  patrician 
supporter,  M.  Fabius.  After  all,  they  were  not  allowed  to  enlist  the  soldiers  for 
the  legions  without  much  opposition,  nor  probably  without  some  stipulation  on 
the  part  of  the  senate,  that  the  military  tribunes  should  not,  like  M.  Postumius, 
abuse  their  power  by  visiting  on  their  soldiers  in  the  field  the  political  offences 
of  the  commons  at  Rome.  When  the  army  did  at  last  march,  Tusculum  was 
relieved,  and  Velitrag,  which  had  been  foremost  in  the  attack  upon  it,  was  besieged 
in  its  turn  ;  but  the  siege  was  not  speedily  ended,  and  the  year  came  to  a  close 
before  the  place  was  reduced. 

Meanwhile  the  popular  cause  was  gaining  ground  :  amongst  the  new  military 
,  u  tr^unes  was  ^«  Fabius  Ambustus,15  the  father-in-law  of  Licinius, 
0'"  ""*  anc^  ^ie  zeal°us  supporter  of  his  bills,  an  advantage  which  more 
than  counterbalanced  the  danger  threatened  by  the  appointment  of 
two  zealous  members  of  the  aristocratical  party.  These  were  A.  Cornelius  Cossus, 
who  had  been  named  dictator  some  years  before  to  oppose  the  designs  of  M.  Man- 
lius,  and  Q.  Quinctius  Cincinnatus,  of  the  house  of  that  Cincinnatus,  who,  in  his  con- 
sulship, had  proposed  to  repeal  the  laws  passed  in  favor  of  the  commons  at  Rome, 
by  the  votes  of  his  soldiers,  in  an  assembly  to  be  held  in  the  field  beyond  the 
protection  of  the  tribunes,  and  who  in  his  dictatorship  had  defended  the  murder 
of  Sp.  Maelius.  Besides,  the  patrician  interest  in  the  college  of  the  tribunes  of 
the  commons  was  becoming  weaker  and  weaker ;  not  only  were  Licinius  and 
Sextius  continually  re-elected,  but  three  others  of  their  colleagues,  it  is  said,  now 
espoused  their  cause,  and  the  remaining  five,  who  had  still  pledged  their  veto  to 
the  patricians,  so  felt  the  difficulty  of  their  position  as  to  be  obliged  to  lower 
their  tone :  their  veto  now  professed  only  to  suspend  the  discussion  of  the  bills, 
and  not  to  forbid  it  altogether :  "  A  large  proportion  of  the  people,"16  they  said, 
"  were  engaged  in  foreign  service  at  Velitrae  :  so  great  a  question  must  be  decided 
in  a  full  assembly ;  till,  therefore,  the  legions  should  return  home,  the  bills  must 

H  Livy,  VI.  36  K  Livy,  VI.  36.  M  Livy,  VI.  86. 


CHAP.  XXVI]     GROWING  STRENGTH  OF  THE  POPULAR  CAUSE.  22? 

not  be  brought  forward."  In  such  contests  as  these,  delay  is  an  advantage  to 
the  resisting  party  when  the  assailants  are  not  keen  in  their  attack,  so  that  it  may 
be  possible  to  divert  them  from  it  by  exhausting  their  patience ;  but  when  they 
are  thoroughly  in  earnest,  the  flood  gathers  into  a  stronger  head  the  longer  it  is 
opposed,  and  breaks  in  at  last  more  overwhelmingly.  So  Licinius  finding  hh 
three  bills  thus  pertinaciously  resisted,  now  proceeded  to  add  to  them  a  fourth,11 
enacting  that  the  two  keepers  of  the  Sibylline  books  should  be  superseded  for 
the  future  by  a  commission  of  ten,  and  that  these  ten  should  be  chosen  alike 
from  the  patricians  and  from  the  commons.  The  notion  of  a  plebeian  consul  was 
most  objected  to  on  religious  grounds ;  a  plebeian,  it  was  said,  could  not  take  the 
auspices,  because  his  order  could  exercise  no  office  connected  with  the  service  of 
the  gods.  Licinius  resolved  to  destroy  this  objection  most  effectually,  by  attack- 
ing the  religious  exclusion  itself.  So  far  was  he  from  allowing  that  a  plebeian 
could  not  be  consul  because  he  could  not  be  a  priest,  that  he  claimed  for  his 
order  a  share  in  the  priestly  offices  as  such ;  he  required  a  distinct  acknowledg- 
ment that  the  service  of  the  gods  might  be  directed,  and  the:r  pleasure  made 
known,  by  plebeian  ministers  as  rightfully  as  by  patricians.  Perhaps,  too,  he 
had  another  and  more  immediate  object ;  in  seasons  of  extreme  public  danger,  it 
was  usual  to  consult  the  Sibylline  books,  and  the  keepers  of  them  reported  the 
answer  which  they  found  applicable  to  the  emergency.  Licinius  might  fear  that 
this  oracle,  if  left  solely  in  the  keeping  of  his  adversaries,  might  be  unfairly  tam- 
pered with  ;  and  its  answers  shaped  according  to  their  interests.  It  was  thus 
especially  desirable  that  some  of  the  commons  should  be  made  acquainted  with 
their  contents,  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  any  forgery. 

New  military  tribunes,18  it  is  said,  came  into  office  before  the  army  came  home 
from  Velitrse.  This  would  be  equally  true  whether  we  suppose  M.  Camiiiu8  and  p. 
that  the  soldiers  came  home  to  the  harvest  in  July  and  August,  Mknlius  dictator8- 
or  remained  in  the  field  till  the  close  of  the  autumn.  Amongst  the  new  military 
tribunes  we  again  find  Ser.  Sulpicius,  and  also  Ser.  Cornelius  Maluginensis,  a 
man  so  distinguished  that  he  had  already  filled  the  same  office  six  times  before.19 
When  the  Licinian  bills  were  again  brought  forward,  the  popular  feeling  in  their 
favor  was  so  strong  as  to  make  it  apparent  that  the  tribunes  opposed  to  them 
would  find  it  impossible  to  persist  in  interposing  their  negative ;  the  patricians 
accordingly  had  recourse  to  their  last  expedient ;  it  was  pretended  that  the  war 
with  Velitrae  required  a  dictator,  and  then  Camillus,  the  bitterest  enemy  of  the 
commons,  was  appointed  to  fill  that  office.  It  appears  that  he  issued  a  proclama- 
tion20 summoning  the  citizens  within  the  military  age  to  enlist  and  follow  him  to 
the  field  ;  whether  his  object  was  any  thing  more  than  delay  must  remain  doubt- 
ful ;  but  his  edict  was  utterly  disregarded,  and  the  senate,  to  allay  the  storm, 
called  upon  him  to  resign  his  dictatorship.  The  Fasti  recorded,  that  P.  Manlius 
Capitolinus  was  named  dictator  shortly  after,  for  the  avowed  purpose  of  putting 
an  end  to  the  domestic  disturbances  ;21  no  record,  however,  remains  to  us  of  any 
thing  that  he  did  in  his  office  ;  but  it  is  evident  that  he  was  disposed  to  take  no 
violent  steps  against  the  commons,  for  one  branch  of  the  Licinian  family  were 
his  relations,  and  from  them  he  chose  C.  Licinius  Calvus,  though  a  plebeian,  to 
be  his  master  of  the  horsemen.  As  if  to  show  still  further  that  the  contest  was 
drawing  to  a  close,  the  bill22  relating  to  the  keepers  of  the  Sibylline  books  was 
passed  before  the  end  of  this  year ;  but  the  other  three  were  still  delayed  a  little 
longer.  Every  nerve  was,  doubtless,  strained  by  the  patricians  Jo  preserve  the 
exclusive  possession  of  the  consulship,  and  this  was  naturally  thr,  point  to  which 

»  Livy,  VI.  37.  Kardloyov.— Camillus,   89.     And   BO  the  Fasti 

Livy,  VI.  38.  Capitolini;  for  the  beginning  of  the  lino  may 

This  appears  from  the  fragments  of  the  be  safely  restored  as  Sigonius  has  supplied  it, 

Fasti  Capitolini.  "  Ob  JEdictnm  in  milites  ex  S.  C.  abdicarunt." 

80  Livy  says,  that  he  only  threatened  to  issue  21  "  Seditionisse  dandse  et  rei  gerendse  can- 

ttch  a  proclamation,  VI.  38.     But  Plutarch  sa." 

•peaks  of  it  as  actually  issued,  -npoiypu^t  oroaTtas  "  Livy,  VI.  42. 


HISTORY  OF  ROME.  !  [CHAP.  XX VI 

the  mass  of  the  commons  attached  the  least  importance,  while  they  eagerly 
desired  to  pass  the  other  two  bills,  relating  to  the  public  land,  and  to  the  debts. 
But  the  tribunes,  being  well  aware  of  this  feeling,  and  being  anxious,  on  personal 
as  well  as  public  grounds,  to  secure  the  great  point  of  an  equal  share  of  the 
highest  magistracies,  had  resolved  only  to  bring  forward  the  three  bills  together, 
to  be  altogether  either  accepted  or  rejected.  The  more  violent23  of  the  aristo- 
cratical  party  remonstrated  with  hypocritical  indignation  against  the  arrogance 
of  the  tribunes,  in  thus  dictating  to  the  commons  ;  and  against  their  selfishness, 
in  refusing  to  bring  forward  bills  for  the  good  of  their  whole  order  without  stipu- 
lating at  the  same  time  for  the  gratification  of  their  own  ambition.  But  Licinius, 
'trusting  that  the  people  would  have  the  sense  to  reject  the  pretended  sympathy 
of  their  worst  enemies,  persevered  in  his  purpose ;  and  told  the  commons  in 
homely  language,24  "  that  they  must  be  content  to  eat  if  they  wished  to  drink." 

There  is  nothing  viler  than  the  spirit  which  actuates  the  vulgar  of  an  aristoc- 
on  what  ground,  the  racy  ;  we  cannot  sympathize  with  mere  pride  and  selfishness,  with 
Sypoppo°JedhtheaLl-"  the  mere  desire  of  keeping  the  good  things  of  life  to  themselves, 
with  the  grasping  monopoly  of  honors  and  power  without  noble- 
ness of  mind  to  appreciate  the  true  value  of  either.  All  can  conceive  from  what 
motive,  with  what  temper,  and  in  what  language,  the  coarser  spirits  of  the  aris- 
tocratical  party  opposed  the  Licinian  bills.  But  in  all  the  uncorrupted  aristoc- 
racies of  the  ancient  world,  there  was  another  and  a  very  different  element  also ; 
there  were  men  who  opposed  the  advance  of  the  popular  party  on  the  highest 
and  purest  principles ;  who  regarded  it  as  leading,  in  the  end,  to  a  general  law- 
lessness, to  a  contempt  for  the  institutions  and  moral  feelings  of  men,  and  to  a 
disbelief  in  the  providence  of  the  gods.  Such  men  must  have  existed  amongst 
the  Roman  patricians ;  and  their  views  are  well  deserving  of  the  notice  of  pos- 
terity. When  Ser.  Cornelius  Maluginensis  in  his  seventh  military  tribuneship 
opposed  Licinius  and  Sextius  in  the  assembly  of  the  tribes,  he  might  have  ex- 
pressed his  feelings  in  something  like  the  following  language,  and  the  soberest 
and  wisest  of  the  commons  themselves  would  have  been  touched  with  a  fore- 
boding fear,  while  they  could  not  help  acknowledging  that  it  was  partly  just : — 2S 

"  I  know,  Quiretes,  that  ye  account  as  an  enemy  to  your  order  whoever  will 
speech  of  ser.  Come-  n°t  agree  to  the  passing  of  these  three  ordinances  proposed  by 
iius  Maiugbensis.  y0ur  tribunes,  Caius  Licinius  and  Lucius  Sextius.  And  it  may  be 
that  some  who  have  spoken  against  them,  are,  in  truth,  not  greatly  your  well- 
wishers  ;  so  that  it  is  no  marvel  if  your  ill  opinion  of  these  should  reach  also  to 
others  who  may  appear  to  be  treading  in  their  steps.  But  I  stand  here  before 
you  as  one  who  has  been  now,  for  the  seventh  time,  chosen  by  you  one  of  the 
tribunes  of  the  soldiers  ; — six  times  have  ye  tried  me  before,  in  peace  and  in  war, 
and  if  ye  had  ever  found  me  to  be  your  enemy,  it  had  been  ill  done  in  you  to 
have  tried  me  yet  again  this  seventh  time.  But  if  ye  have  believed  me  to  have 
sought  your  good  in  times  past,  even  believe  this  same  thing  of  me  now,  though 

28  See  the  language  which  Livy  has  put  into  on  the  view  of  human  affairs  which  I  have  as- 

the  mouth  of  Appius  Claudius,  VI.  40,  41.  cribed  to  Ser.  Maluginensis.    And  this  view  is 

24  Eijrwj/,  is  oiiK  uv  irloiev  el  /n;  tydyotev.     Dion  exceedingly  deserving  of  notice,  because  it  so 
Cassius,  Fragm.  Peiresc.  33,  as  corrected  by  strongly  illustrates  one  of  the  great  uses  of  the 
-Keitnar.  Christian  revelation;  namely,  that  it  provides 

25  I  am  far  from  wishing  to  introduce  into  a  fixed  moral  standard  independently  of  human 
history  the  practice  of  writing  fictitious  speeches,  law,  and  therefore  allows  human  law  to  be  al- 
as a  mere  variety  upon  the  narrative,  or  an  oc-  tered  as  circumstances  may  require,  without 
casion  for  displaying  the  eloquence  of  the  his-  the  danger  of  destroying  thereby  the  greatest 
torian.     But  when  the  peculiar  views  of  any  sanction  of  human  conduct.     I  have  not,  then, 
party  or  time  require  to  be  represented,  it  seems  put  modern  arguments  into  the  mouth  of  a 
to  me  better  to  do  this  dramatically,  by  making  Koman  of  the  fourth  century  of  Rome;  but  I 
vone  of  the  characters  of  the  story  express  them  have  made  him  deliver  arguments  not  only 
in  the  first  person,  than  to  state  as  a  matter  of  which  might  have  been,  but  which  were  un- 
fact,  that  such  and  such  views  were  entertained,  doubtedly  used  then,  and  which  are  so  charac 
I  believe  it  to  be  perfectly  true,  that  the  better  teristic  of  ancient  times,  that  they  could  not  b« 
part  of  the  opposition  to  the  advance  of  popular  repeated  now  without  absurdity. 

principles  in  the  ancient  world  was  grounded 


A 


CHAP.  XXVI]      SPEECH  OF  SER.  CORNELIUS  MALIJGINENSIS.  220 

I  may  speak  that  which  in  the  present  disposition  of  your  minds  ye  may  per- 
chance not  willingly  hear. 

"Now,  as  regarding  the  ordinances  for  the  relief  of  poor  debtors,  and  for 
restraining  the  occupation  of  the  public  land,  I  could  be  well  content  that  the} 
should  pass.  I  know  that  ye  have  borne  much,  and  not  through  any  fault  of 
yours  ;  and  if  any  peaceable  way  can  be  found  out  whereby  ye  may  have  relief, 
it  will  be  more  welcome  to  no  man  than  to  me.  I  like  not  the  taking  of  usury, 
and  I  think  that  ye  may  well  be  lightened  of  some  part  of  the  burden  of  your 
taxes  by  our  turning  the  fruits  of  the  public  land  to  the  service  of  the  common- 
wealth. But  if  ye  ask  me,  Why  then  dost  thou  oppose  these  ordinances  ?  I 
must  truly  bid  }'>ou  go  to  your  tribunes,  Cains  and  Lucius,  and  demand  of  them 
your  answer.26  They  can  tell  you  that  they  will  not  suffer  me  to  give  my  vote 
for  these  ordinances,  nor  will  they  suffer  you  to  have  your  will.  For  they  hav6 
said  that  these  ordinances  shall  not  have  our  votes,  neither  yours  nor  mine,  unless 
we  will  vote  also  for  a  third  ordinance,  which  they  have  bound  to  them  so  closely, 
as  that  none,  they  say,  shall  tear  them  asunder.  Now,  as  touching  this  third 
ordinance,  Quirites,  I  will  deal  honestly  with  you :  there  is  not  the  thing  in  all 
the  world  so  precious  or  so  terrible  as  shall  move  me,  either  for  love  or  for  fear* 
to  give  my  vote  in  its  behalf. 

"  What  is  there,  then,  ye  will  say  to  me,  in  this  third  ordinance  which  thou  so 
mislikest  ?  I  will  answer  you  in  few  words.  I  mislike  the  changing  of  the  laws 
of  our  fathers,  especially  when  these  laws  have  respect  to  the  worship  of  the 
gods.  Many  things,  I  know,  are  ordered  wisely  for  one  generation,  which,  not-- 
withstanding, are  by  another  generation  no  less  wisely  ordered  otherwise.  There 
is  room  in  human  affairs  for  change ;  there  is  room  also  for  unchangeableness. 
And  where  shall  we  seek  for  that  which  is  unchangeable,  but  in  those  great  laws 
which  are  the  very  foundation  of  the  commonwealth  ;  most  of  all  in  those  which, 
having  to  do  with  the  immortal  gods,  should  be  also  themselves  immortal.  Now 
belongs  to  these  laws  that  the  office  of  consul,27  which  is  as  it  were  the  shadow 
of  the  majesty  of  Jove  himself,  should  be  held  only  by  men  of  the  houses  of  the 
patricians.  Ye  know  how  that  none  but  the  patricians  may  take  any  office  of 
priesthood  for  the  worship  of  the  gods  of  Rome,  nor  interpret  the  will  of  the 
gods  by  augury.  For  the  gods  being  themselves  many,  have  set  also  upon 
earth  many  races  of  men  and  many  orders  ;  and  one  race  may  not  take  to  itself 
the  law  of  another  race,  nor  one  order  the  law  of  another  order.  Each  has  its 
own  law,  which  was  given  to  it  from  the  beginning ;  and  if  we  change  these  the 
whole  world  will  be  full  of  confusion.  It  is  our  boast28  that  we  Romans  havd 
reater  power  over  our  children  than  the  men  of  any  ather  nation :  with  us  the 
n  is  ever,  so  long  as  he  lives,  subject  to  his  father's  will,  except  his  father  be 
leased  to  give  him  his  freedom.  Now,  if  a  son  were  to  ask  why  he  should  not, 
hen  he  is  come  to  full  age,  be  free  from  his  father's  authority,  what  answer 
ould  we  give  than  this,  that  the  law  of  the  Romans  gave  to  fathers  this  power 
ver  their  children,  that  to  this  law  he  had  been  born,  as  surely  as  to  those  other 
laws  of  his  nature  which  appointed  him  to  be  neither  a  god  nor  a  beast,  but  a 
man.  These  laws  are  not  of  to-day,  nor  of  yesterday ;  we  know  of  no  time  when 

This  attack  on  the  tribunes  for  their  re-  ments  used  against  the  Canuleian  "bills,  IV.  2-6, 
fiisal  to  separate  the  three  bills  from  each  other  and  again  in  the  speech  of  Appius  against  the 
is  put  by  Livy  into  the  mouth  of  Appius  Clau-  Licinian  bills,  VI.  41.  The  principle  implied  in 
d'rj.s,  VII.  40.  It  would,  of  course,  be  pressed  this  argument  is  not  to  be  found  in  Livy,  but 
by  all  the  opponents  of  the  measures  ;  and  it  is  is  important  to  be  stated,  because  it  is  as  char- 
top  much  to  expect  that  even  the  best  of  the  actenstic  of  polytheism,  as  the  opposite  prin- 
aristocratical  party  would  have  scrupled  to  avail  ciple,  that  all  men  are  equal  before  God,  except 
themselves  of  it,  although  they  would  have  BO  far  as  their  own  conduct  creates  a  diff'er- 
dwelt  on  this  point  in  a  verv  different  manner  ence  between  them,  is  characteristic  of  Chris- 
froia  their  more  violent  associates.  tianity. 

a  The  religious  argument,  that  a  plebeian  *  "  Fere  enim  nulli  alii  sunt  homines,  qui 

ld_  not  be  created  consul  without  profana-  talem  in  filios  suos  habent  potestatem  qualeir 

is  to  be  found  twice  in  Livy,  in  the  argu-  nos  habemus." — Gaius,  Institut.  I.  §  55. 


230  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXVI 

they  have  not  been :  may  neither  we  nor  our  children  ever  see  that  time  when 
they  shall  have  ceased  to  be ! 

"  But  if  the  mere  will  of  the  men  of  this  generation  can  set  aside  these  laws  * 
if,  breaking  through  that  order  which  the  gods  have  given  to  us,  we  elect  foi 
consuls  those  whom  the  gods  allow  not ;  see  what  will  be  the  end.  Within  these 
fifteen  years  four  tribes  of  strangers  have  been  added  to  the  commons  of  this 
city.  Ye  know,  also,  that  many  enfranchised  slaves,  men  with  no  race,  with  no 
law,  I  had  well-nigh  said  with  no  gods,  are,  from  time  to  time,  enrolled  amongst 
our  citizens.  If  all  these  are  admitted  into  our  commonwealth,  to  become  Ro- 
mans, and  to  live  according  to  the  laws  of  the  Romans,  it  is  well.  But  if  we  may 
alter  these  laws ;  if  strangers  come  among  us  not  to  receive  our  custom,  but  to 
give  us  theirs,  what  thing  is  there  so  surely  fixed  in  car  state,  that  it  shall  not  be 
torn  up  at  our  fancy  ?  what  law  will  be  left  for  us  to  follow,  save  the  law  of  our 
own  fancies  ?  Truly,  if  the  gods  had  sent  down  one  from  heaven  to  declare  to  us 
their  will ;  if,  as  our  own  laws  were  written  by  the  decemvirs  upon  the  twelve 
tables,  so  there  were  any  tables  to  be  found  on  which  the  gods  had  written  their 
laws  for  all  mankind,  then  we  might  change  our  own  laws  as  we  would,  and  the 
law  of  the  gods  would  still  be  a  guide  for  us.  But  as  the  gods  speak  to  us,  and 
will  speak  only  through  the  laws29  of  our  fathers,  if  we  once  dare  to  cast  these 
aside,  there  is  no  stay  or  rest  for  us  any  more ;  we  must  wander  in  confusion  forever. 

"  Nor  is  it  a  little  thing  that  by  breaking  through  the  law  of  our  fathers,  and 
choosing  men  of  the  commons  for  consuls,  we  shall  declare  that  riches30  are  to  be 
honored  above  that  rule  of  order  which  the  gods  have  given  to  us.  Riches,  even 
now,  can  do  much  for  their  possessor,  but  they  cannot  raise  him  beyond  the 
order  in  which  he  was  born ;  they  cannot  buy  for  him — shame  were  it  if  they 
could  ! — the  sovereign  state  of  the  consulship,  nor  the  right  to  offer  sacrifice  to 
the  gods  of  Rome.  But  once  let  a  plebeian  be  consul,  and  riches  will  be  the 
only  god  which  we  shall  all  worship.  For  then  he  who  has  money  will  need  no 
other  help  to  raise  him  from  the  lowest  rank  to  the  highest.  And  then  we  may 
suffer  such  an  evil  as  that  which  is  now  pressing  upon  the  cities  of  the  Greeks 
in  the  great  island  of  Sicily.  There  may  arise  a  man  from  the  lowest  of  the 
people  with  much  craft  and  great  riches,  and  make  himself  what  the  Greeks 
call  a  tyrant.31  Ye  scarcely  know  what  the  name  means  ;  a  vile  person  seizing 
upon  the  state  and  power  of  a  king,  trampling  upon  all  law,  confounding  all 
order,  persecuting  the  noble  and  good,  encouraging  the  evil,  robbing  the  rich, 
insulting  the  poor,  living  for  himself  alone32  and  for  his  own  desires,  neither 
fearing  the  gods,  nor  regarding  men.  This  is  the  curse  with  which  the  gods 
have  fitly  punished  other  people  for  desiring  freedom  more  than  the  law  of  their 
fathers  gave  them.  May  we  never  commit  the  like  folly  to  bring  upon  ourselves 
such  a  punishment ! 

"  Therefore,  Quirites,  unless  your  tribunes  can  find  for  us  another  law  of  the 
gods  to  guide  us  in  the  place  of  that  law  which  they  are  destroying,  I  cannot  con- 
sent to  that  ordinance  which  they  are  so  zealously  calling  upon  us  to  pass.  Not 
because  I  am  proud,  not  because  I  love  not  the  commons,  but  because,  above  all 
things  else  on  earth,  I  love  and  honor  law ;  and  if  we  pull  down  law  and  exalt35 

39  To??  tpwrwcri  ITU?  fo?  iroittv  7)  ntpl  Overlap  ?)  xcpl  the  increasing  honor  paid  to  riches  in  compari- 

Trfoydvwv  depantias  rj  Ttepl  aAAou  nvbs  TWV  roiodrtav,  son  with   the   declining    estimation  of  noble 

.  .   .  ft  HvQia  v6m$  ie6\t(j)savaipu  iroiovvTas  £t»o-£/?wf  birth. 

av  iroutv. — Xenophon,    Memorab.    I.   3,    §    1.  31  Thucyd.  I.  13.     AurarwT/jOa?  Sf  yiyvoptvrit 

Compare  the  language  of  Archidamus,  and  of  rrjs  '  EAAaioj  ical  T&V  xp^a'rwi/  rf/v  /crjjo-iv  en  /mA« 

Cleon  in  Thucydides,  I.  84,  III.  37,  and  the  ar-  Ao»>  }}  irpdrepov  irotov/j/i"?;  r«  iroAAu  rupavi/i'taj  h 

gument  against  any  alteration  in  the  laws  given  ra«j  TrdAeo-i  KaQioravro,  rSiv  rpotrdiW  ftei£dv<*v  yt- 

by  Aristotle  in  his  review  of  the  theoretical  yvo^fvwv. 

commonwealth  of  Hippodamus.     'O  yap  vdpos  ^  Thucyd.  1. 17.    To  ty'  lavrtiv  pdvov  Trpoopu- 

Icrxiiv  ovtitfjiiuv  ex£l  ^pos  ro  irtiOcoOai,  irXfiv  xapd  ri  fievoi,ES  re  TO  via/ia  icai  is  TO  TOV  ttitov  OIKOV  av^siv  6t' 

I9o$.  TOVTO  f>'  oil  yiyvcTai  ti  /u;  (5m  vpovov  7rA»j0oj. —  ilff^aXt/aj  ovov  i&vvavTo  ftu\iaTa  raj  irdAnf  WKOVV.— • * 

Politic.  II.  6.  Compare  the  description  of  a  tyrant  in  Herodo- 

30  Compare  the  sentiments  of  Theognis  and  tus,  III.  80,  and  V.  92. 

Pindar  on  this  point,  who  constantly  lament  33  This  is  what  Archidamus  and  Cleon,  stnk- 


CHAP.  XXVL]      THE  LAST  COLLEGE  OF  MILITARY  TRIBUNES.  231 

our  own  will  in  the  place  of  it,  truth,  and  modesty,  and  soberness,  and  all  virtw 
will  perish  from  amongst  us ;  and  falsehood,  and  insolence,  and  licentiousness 
and  all  other  wickedness  will  possess  us  wholly.  And  instead  of  that  greatei 
freedom  which  ye  long  for,  the  end  will  be  faction  and  civil  bloodshed,34  and,  last 
of  all,  that  which  is  worse  than  all  the  rest,  a  lawless  tyranny." 

To  such  language  as  this  the  tribunes  might  have  replied  by  denying  that  its 
principle  was  applicable  to  the  particular  point  at  issue :  they  whlxt  wag  to  be  M-lA  in 
might  have  urged  that  the  admission  of  the  commons  to  the  con-  SSS'of'tU^S^Ri 
sulship  was  not  against  the  original  and  unalterable  laws  of  the  Ser- Cornellu8- 
Romans,  inasmuch  as  strangers  had  been  admitted  even  to  be  kings  at  Rome  ; 
and  the  good  king  Servius,  whose  memory  was  so  fondly  cherished  by  the  peo- 
ple, was,  according  to  one  tradition,  not  only  a  stranger  by  birth,  but  a  slave. 
And  further  they  might  have  answered,  that  the  law  of  intermarriage  between 
the  patricians  and  commons  was  a  breaking  down  cf  the  distinction  of  orders,  and 
implied  that  there  was  no  such  difference  between  them  as  to  make  it  profane  in 
either  to  exercise  the  functions  of  the  other.  But  as  to  the  principle  itself,  there 
is  no  doubt  that  it  did  contain  much  truth.  The  ancient  heathen  world  craved, 
what  all  men  must  crave,  an  authoritative  rule  of  conduct ;  and  not  finding  it 
elsewhere,  they  imagined  it  to  exist  in  the  fundamental  and  original  laws  of  each 
particular  race  or  people.  To  destroy  this  sanction  without  having  any  thing  to 
substitute  in  its  place  was  deeply  perilous ;  and  reason  has  been  but  too  seldom 
possessed  of  power  sufficient  to  recommend  its  truths  to  the  mass  of  mankind 
by  their  own  sole  authority.  On  the  other  hand,  good  and  wise  men  could  not 
but  see  that  national  law  was  evidently,  in  many  cases,  directly  opposed  to  divine 
law  ;35  and  that  obedience  and  respect  for  it  were  absolutely  injurious  to  men's 
moral  nature  ;  they  felt  sure,  moreover,  that  the  very  truth  was  discoverable  by 
man,  and  trusted  that  it  must  at  last  force  its  way  if  the  ground  were  but  cleared 
for  its  reception.  They  hoped,  besides,  as  was  the  case  with  Aristotle,  that  by 
gaining  the  ear  of  statesmen  they  might  see  a  system  of  national  education  estab- 
lished,36 which  would  give  truth  all  the  power  of  habit ;  and  knowing  too  that 
universal  law,  that  if  man  does  not  grow  better  he  must  grow  worse,  and  that  to 
remain  absolutely  unchanged  is  impossible  ;  they  ventured  to  advance  towards  a 
higher  excellence,  even  amidst  the  known  dangers  of  the  attempt,  in  the  faith 
that  God  would,  sooner  or  later,  point  out  the  means  of  overcoming  them. 

The  events  of  the  last  year  of  this  long  struggle  are  even  more  obscure  than 
those  of  the  years  preceding  it.  P.  Manlius,37  the  late  dictator  P.  Valerius,  who 
had  been  five  times  tribune  before,  two  Gornelii,  Aulus  and  Marcus,  the  one  of 

ing  specimens  of  the  noblest  and  vilest  advo-  tragedy  of  the  "  Seven  Chiefs  who  warred  on' 

cates  of  an  unchanged  system,  as  opposed  to  one  Thebes"  with  the  expression  of  the   opposite 

of  continual  progress,  call  u  the  wishing  to  be  sentiment,  which  is  evidently  uttered  from  his 

wiser  than  the  laws."    Archidamus  boasts  that  heart.     Half  of  the  chorus  go  with  Antigone  to 

the  Spartans  were  trained  aua&tcrtoov  T&V  v6n<av  bury  Polynices  in  defiance  of  the  king's  decree  j 

rrjs  lircpo\l>ta$. — Thucyd.  I.  84.     Cleon  describes  urging  in  their  justification: — 
good  citizens  as  men  who  amarovvrts  rfj  il-  lav  Kal  yap  yevty 

TWJ/  j-vviaet,  iiftuQfffrcpoi  r&v  v6^<av  a^iovcrtv  tivai. — •  KOIVOV  r<5(T  a^of,  Kal  irdhis  aAAwy 

Thucyd.  111.  37.  a'AAor'  inaivet  ra  tiKaia. 

34  So  Theognis,  But  the  other  half  follow  the  bouy  orEteoclea, 

K.vpvc,  Kvtt  ir6\is  %?>£'  SiSotKa  fif  ui]  TIKT)  avtipa  whose  funeral  was  sanctioned  by  the  law,  ex- 

EvdvvrTipa  KtiKrjt  vfipios  vutriprjs.  claiming: — 

'E*  TWI;  yilp  oracrjj  e<77i,  Kal  fu<pv\ot  $6voi  avtip&v  '  j//^ci?  <5'  apa  Tu»5',  waircp  re  TTuAtJ 

Mouvapx«S  •-£  KoXei  n/jiroTe  rrjie  a&ot.     39-51.  Kal  rd  Siicaiov  ^vve-rraivil. 

<J5  Hence  the  distinction  insisted  on  by  the  nt.ra  yap  pdKapas  Kal  Aids  h\i>v 

philosophers  between  universal  and  municipal  otic  Kufy«W  ijpvl-c  Tr6\iv 

law,  between  natural  and  political  justice. — See  ^  'varpaKrjvai,  UTI&'  d\XoSa7r£>v 

Aristotle,  Ethics,  V.  7,  Rhetoric,  I.  14.    Hence  Kvuan  ^WTWV 

the  interest  of  the  story  of  Antigone,  who  is  KaranXvaQnvai  rd  ftdXtara. 

represented  as  breaking  the  law  of  her  country  30  Ethic.  Nicomach.  X.  9.     'EK  viov  tie  ayoyrjt 

because  it  was  at  variance  with  the  law  of  the  <5p0i/?  rv\tlv  wpd$  apcr^v  xabrrrbv,  fifi  VK&  roiovrott 

gods :  Sophocles  invests  her  character  with  all  rpiKptvra  vd^oi?   .    .   .  <5id  vd^ats  fat  Terd\dai 

the  sacredness  of  a  martyr  5  but  ^Eschylus,  who  rpo</>>/v  Kal  rd  (xirrj&tvuaTa  '  VVK  co-rut  yup 

more  entirely  identified  the  laws  of  the  land  with  avvf,Qt]  y^vdntva. 

the  highest  standard  of  human  virtue,  ends  his  "  Livy,  VI.  42. 


232  HISTORY  OF  ROME  [CnAr.  XX  VL 

twt  college  of  miiiuiy  the  family  of  Cossus,  the  other  of  that  of  the  Maluginenses ;  M;  Ge 
w'ntT.t*'  iStuution^f  ganius  Macerinus,  and  L.  Veturius,  formed  the  last  college  of  mili- 
the  Pr*tor.hip.  tary  tribunes  which  was  to  be  known  in  Rome.  Manlius  and  Vale- 

rius were  likely  to  favor  the  bills  ;  of  Veturius  we  know  little  ;  but  the  two  Cor- 
nelii38  and  Geganius,  if  they  were  true  to  the  political  sentiments  of  their  families, 
would  be  strongly  opposed  to  them.  But  the  story  of  this  year  is  again  per- 
plexed by  an  alleged  dictatorship  of  M.  Camillus,  and  a  pretended  inroad  of  the 
Gauls  into  Latium.  It  is  said  that  an  alarm  of  an  approaching  invasion  from  the 
Gauls  led  to  the  appointment  of  Camillus  ;  and  this  may  be  true  ;  for  the  senate 
would  gladly  avail  themselves  of  the  slightest  rumor  as  an  excuse  for  investing 
him  with  absolute  power ;  but  that  the  Gauls  really  did  invade  Latium  at  this 
time,  and  were  defeated  by  Camillus  in  a  bloody  battle39  near  Alba,  seems  to  be 
merely  a  fabrication  of  the  memorials  of  the  house  of  the  Furii,  the  last  which 
occurs  in  the  story  of  Camillus,  and  not  the  least  scrupulous.  Setting  aside  this 
pretended  Gaulish  war,  the  annalists  merely  related,  that  after  most  violent  con- 
tests, the  Licinian  bills  were  carried  ;40  this  must  have  taken  place  before  the  tribunes 
went  out  of  office  in  December ;  and  apparently  they  were  not  again  re-elected, 
as  if  in  the  full  confidence  that  the  battle  was  won.  But  when  the  comitia  for 
the  election  of  consuls  were  held,  according  to  the  new  law,  and  the  centuries 
had  chosen  L.  Sextius  to  be  the  first  plebeian  consul,  the  storm  broke  out  again 
with  more  violence  than  ever,  owing  to  the  refusal  of  the  curise  to  confirm  the 
election  and  invest  him  with  the  imperium.  No  particulars  are  recorded  of  the 
following  crisis ;  matters,  it  is  said,  came  almost  to  a  secession  of  the  commons, 
and  "  to  other  terrible  threats  of  civil  contentions  ;"41  words  which  seem  to  mean 
that  the  secession  would  not  have  been  confined  to  mere  passive  resistance,  but 
would  have  led  to  an  actual  civil  war.  But  Camillus,  who  was  still,  it  is  said, 
dictator,  acted  on  this  occasion,  if  we  may  believe  any  story  of  which  he  is  the 
subject,  the  part  of  mediator ;  both  sides  made  some  concessions :  the  patricians 
wero  to  confirm  the  election  of  the  plebeian  consul ;  but  the  ordinary  judicial 
power  was  to  be  separated  from  the  consul's  office,  and  conferred  from  hence- 

•je  ipj:e  ^wo  Cornelii  Malugincnses  were  rnent  which  clearly  refers  to  it,  IV.  7,  and  it  is 
amongst  the  most  zealous  supporters  of  the  sec-  implied,  I  think,  in  the  short  summary  of  Flo- 
ond  decernvirate,  one  of  them  being  actually  a  rus,  I.  13.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  the  no- 
colleague  of  Appius  Claudius,  at  a  time  when  torious  falsehood  of  the  other  stories  of  Gaulish 
even  the  patricians  themselves  were  generally  victories  gained  by  Camillus ;  there  is  the  posi- 
disgusted  with  it;  and  a  Cornelius  Cossus  had  tive  statement  of  Polybius,  that  the  Gauls  did 
been  appointed  dictator  to  oppose  the  supposed  not  invade  Latium  again  till  thirty  years  after 
designs  of  Manlius.  The  consulship  of  M.  Ge-  their  first  irruption  ;  and  that  when  they  did 
ganius  Macerinus,  two  years  after  the  end  of  come,  and  advanced  to  Alba,  the  scene  ofCa- 
the  decernvirate,  is  marked  as  the  period  at  millus'  pretended  victory  over  them,  the  lio- 
which  the  reaction  in  favor  of  the  patricians  be-  mans  did  not  dare  to  meet  them  in  the  field.- - 
gan;  and  the  consuls  of  that  year  are  contrasted  Polyb.  II.  18.  There  is  also  the  statement  of 
with  those  of  the  year  preceding,  who  are  de-  Aristotle,  quoted  by  Plutarch,  Camillus,  22,  and 
scribed  as  moderate  men,  not  much  inclined  to  agreeing  so  completely  with  Polybius,  "that 
either  party.  And  M.  Geganius  was  one  of  those  Kome  was  delivered  from  the  Gauls  bv  Lucius ; 
censors  who  treated  the  dictator  Mam.  ^Emilius  that  is,  by  Lucius  Camillus,  the  son  of  Marcus, 
with  such  unjust  severity,  because  he  had  who  repelled  the  Gauls  in  the  year  406  (or  more 
abridged  the  duration  of  the  censor's  office.  properly  401),  the  first  time,  according  to  Poly- 

89  The  Fasti  Capitolini  state  that  Camillus  was  bins,  that  the  Komans  ever  did  meet  them  with 

appointed  dictator  this  year,  "  rei  gerundse  can-  advantage.    Finally,  the  common  stories  of  this 

Bfl/'  that  is,  "  to  command  an  army  in  the  field,"  pretended  war  are  at  variance  with  one  another, 

as  distinguished  from  the  other  objects  for  some  placing  the  famous  combat  of  T.  Manlius 

which  a  dictator  was    sometimes   appointed,  with  the  Gaulish  giant  in  this  year,  and  making 

such  as,  "seditionis  sedandse  causa,"  "comiti-  the  Gauls  advance  as  far  as  the  Anio ;  while 

orum  habendorum  causa,"  or  "clavi  figendi  others  laid  the  scene  of  Camillus' victory  on  the 

caus4."    But  as  the  fragments  of  the  Fasti  are  Alban  Hills,  and  placed  the  combat  of  Manlius 

in  this  place  very  much  mutilated,  we  cannot  ten  years  later.    I  believe,  therefore,  that  the 

tell  whether  they  contained  any  mention  of  his  accounts  of  this  last  dictatorship  of  Camillus  are 

victory  and   triumph    over  the  Gauls  or  no.  as  little  to  be  relied  on  as  those  of  his  pretended 

Probably,  however,  they  did,  for  the  story  seems  defeat  of  Brennus,  and  freeing  Koine  from  the 

fco  have  established  itself  in  the  Koman  history  shame  of  paying  a  ransom, 
very  generally;  it  is  mentioned  by  Livy,  by        w  Livy,  \I.  42. 

Plutarch,  by  Dionysius  in  the  fragments  of  his         *  "  Terribilesque  alias  minas  civiliuin  certa- 

14th  book,  "by  Zonaras,  by  Appian,  in  a  frag-  minum."— Livy,  VI.  42. 


r.  XXVI.]  THE  LICINIAN  BILLS  BECOME  LAWS.  233 

forth  on  a  new  magistrate,  who  was  always  to  be  a  patrician,  and  who  being  ap- 
pointed without  a  colleague  was  not  to  be  called  consul  but  praetor ;  a  title  of 
high  dignity,  which  had  been  anciently  borne  by  the  consuls,  and  expressed  par- 
ticularly their  supreme  power,  as  the  captains  or  leaders  of  the  commonwealth. 
The  first  person  who  filled  this  new  office42  was  Sp.  Camillus,  the  son  of  the  dic- 
tator ;  a  compliment  which  his  old  father  well  deserved,  if  the  last  public  act  of 
life  of  more  than  fourscore  years  was  the  reconciling  of  the  quarrels  of  his 

utrymen,  and  the  bringing  a  struggle  of  five  years  to  a  peaceful  and  happy 
lination. 

This  union  of  the  two  orders  was  acknowledged  also  in  the  religious  ceremo- 
of  the  republic.     A  temple43  was  built  on  the  Capitoline  Hill  Instit,,(ion  of  the  cu- 

•king  towards  the  Forum,  and  dedicated  to  "  Concord  ;"  and  a  rule  ^dileship- 
fourth  day  was  added  to  the  three  hitherto  devoted  to  the  celebration  of  the  great 
or  Roman  games ;  as  if  to  signify  that  the  commons  were  from  henceforth  to 
take  their  place  as  a  part  of  the  Roman  people,  by  the  side  of  the  three  old  pa- 
trician tribes,  the  Ramnenses,  Titienses,  and  Luceres.  To  preside  at  these  gamos, 
two  new  magistrates  were  appointed  under  the  name  of  Curule  JEdiles ;  and  these 
were  to  be  elected  in  alternate  years  from  the  patricians  and  from  the  commons. 
Their  other  duties  and  powers  it  is  very  difficult  to  define  ;  but  it  appears  that 
they  exercised  for  a  time44  the  jurisdiction  which  had  formerly  belonged  to  the 
Quaestores  Parricidii,  that  they  tried  criminals  for  various  offences,  and  if  their 
sentence  were  appealed  against,  they  appeared  as  prosecutors  of  the  appellant 
before  the  comitia  of  the  centuries. 

Thus,  with  no  recorded  instance  of  bloodshed  committed  by  either  party,  the 
five  years'  conflict  upon  the  Licinian  bills  was  happily  ended.  The  compietion  of  tho 
From  this  time  forward  the  consulship  continued  without  inter-  form  of  the  co"slituti<">- 
ruption  to  the  end  of  the  republic ;  and,  with  the  exception  of  a  short  period  to 
be  hereafter  noticed,  it  was  duly  shared  by  the  commons.  The  form  of  the  con- 
stitution, such  as  we  find  it  described  in  those  times  which  began  to  have  a  con- 
temporary literature,  was  now  in  its  leading  points  completed ;  but  many  years 
must  yet  elapse  before  we  can  do  more  than  trace  the  outline  of  institutions  and 
of  actions ;  the  spirit  and  character  of  the  times,  and  still  more  of  particular 
individuals,  must  yet,  for  another  century,  be  discerned  but  dimly. 

43  Livy,  VII.  1.  riod  of  the  empire  possessed  even  the  "impe- 

43  Plutarch,  Camillus,  42.    Livy,  VI.  42.  rium."    Savigny,  Gcschichte  des  Eom.  Kechts 

44  See  Niebuhr,  Vol.  III.  p.  42,  and  seqq.  im  Mittelalt.    Vol.  I.  p.  36.    The  two  Scipios 
To  what  is  there  said,  it  may  be  added  that  the  of  the  fifth  century,  whose  tombs  and  epitaphs 
title  JSdilis  was  common  amongst  the  magis-  have  been  preserved  to  us,  have  their  sedile- 
trates  of  the  municipia  and  colonies  at  a  later  ships  as  well  as  their  censorships  and  consul- 
period;  that  we  meet  frequently,  in  inscriptions,  ships  recorded.    This  seems  to  imply  that  tho 
with  the  title  t(  JSdilis  juri  dicundo,"  that  the  office  then  was  held  in  higher  estimation  than 
sediles  in  the  municipia  had  a  "tribunal,"  or  when  Cicero  could  call  the  curule  ^Edile  "  p  \ullo 
judgment-seat,  as  a  mark  of  their  high  dignity ;  amplius  quain  privatus." — Verr.  Act.  I.  13. 
and  as  Savigny  thinks,  they  in  the  earlier  pe- 


CHAPTER  XXVII, 

GENEKAL  HISTOEY,  DOMESTIC  AND  FOEEIGN,  FEOM  THE  ADMISSION  OF  THB 
COMMONS  TO  THE  CONSULSHIP  TO  THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  FIEST  SAMNITF 
WAE— EVASION  OF  THE  LICINIAN  LAWS— WAES  WITH  THE  GAULS,  TAE 
QUINIENSIANS,  AND  VOLSCIANS.— A.  U.  C.  889-412,  LIVY;  3S4-40r,  NIEBUHR. 


Xpdvos  TCKvovrai  vvKTag 

iv  ais  T«  vvv  fy/JHpwva  fie^twpaTa 

<tKpoD  \6yov. 
SOPHOCLES,  (Edip.  Colon,  v.  617. 


THE  first  plebeian  consulship  coincides,  as  nearly  as  the  chronology  can  be 
chronology  of  the  Li-  ascertained,  with  the  great  battle  of  Mantinea  and  the  death  ot 
Epaminondas.  At  this  point  Xenophon  ended  his  Grecian  history  ; 
and  as  the  writings  of  Theopompus  and  of  the  authors  who  followed  him  have 
not  been  preserved  to  us,  we  here  lose  the  line  of  contemporary  historians  in 
Greece,  after  having  enjoyed  their  guidance  during  a  period  of  nearly  one  hun- 
dred and  forty  years.  More  than  that  length  of  time  must  still  elapse  before  we 
can  gain  the  assistance  of  a  contemporary  writer,  even  though  a  foreigner,  for 
any  part  of  the  history  of  Rome. 

But  as  I  have  before  observed  that  the  Greek  poets,  long  before  the  time  of 
contrast  between  our  Herodotus,  have  done  more  than  any  mere  annalists  could  have 
owtoMd of°tfhe  RO°.  done  to  acquaint  us  with  the  most  valuable  part  of  history,  that 
mans  at  this  period.  which  relates  to  a  people's  mental  powers  and  habits  of  thinking, 
so,  when  we  close  the  Hellenics  of  Xenophon,  we  find  in  the  great  orators  and 
philosophers  of  the  next  half  century  more  than  enough  to  compensate  for  the 
want  of  regular  historians.  What  contemporary  record  of  mere  battles  and  sieges, 
of  wars  and  factions,  could  afford  such  fulness  of  knowledge  as  to  the  real  state 
of  Greece,  in  all  points  that  are  most  instructive,  as  we  derive  from  the  pam- 
phlets, as  they  may  be  called,  of  Isocrates,  from  the  dialogues  of  Plato,  the  moral 
and  political  treatises  of  Aristotle,  and  the  various  public  and  private  orations  of 
Isseus,  vEschines,  and  Demosthenes  ?  It  is  when  we  think  of  the  overflowing 
wealth  of  Greece,  that  we  feel  most  keenly  the  absolute  poverty  of  Rome.  The 
fifth  century  from  the  foundation  of  the  city  produced  neither  historian,  poet, 
orator,  nor  philosopher ;  its  whole  surviving  literature  consists  of  three  or  four 
lines  of  a  monumental  inscription,  and  a  short  decree  of  the  senate,  the  date  of 
which  is  not,  however,  ascertained.  I  cannot  too  often  remind  the  reader  of  the 
total  want  of  all  materials  for  a  lively  picture  of  the  Roman  character  and  man- 
ners under  which  we  unavoidably  labor.  Still  we  are,  as  it  were,  working  our 
way  to  light;  the  greatness  of  Rome  is  beginning  to  unfold  itself;  we  are  ap- 
proaching the  Samnite  and  the  Latin  wars,  of  which  the  first  trained  the  Romans 
to  perfection  in  all  military  virtues,  by  opposing  to  them  the  bravest  and  most 
unwearied  of  enemies ;  while  the  latter  consolidated  forever  the  mass  of  their 
power  near  home,  by  securing  to  them  the  aid  of  the  most  faithful  of  allies.  And 
the  great  domestic  struggles  are  almost  ended  ;  what  required  direct  interference 
has  been,  for  the  most  part,  remedied ;  it  must  be  left  for  time  to  complete  the 
union  of  the  two  orders  of  the  commonwealth,  now  that  they  have  been  freed 
from  those  positive  causes  of  irritation  which  kept  them  so  long  not  only  distinct 
from  each  other,  but  at  enmity. 


p.  XXVII] 


EFFECTS  OF  THE  LICINIAN  LAWS. 


235 


We  have  seen  the  Licinian  bills  become  laws  of  the  land ;  we  have  next  to 
.eavor  to  trace  their  results ;  to  see  how  far  they  were  fairly  Effectg  of  th,  J>UM« 
rried  into  effect,  and  what  was  their  success  in  remedying  the  laws- 
ils  which  had  made  them  appear  to  be  necessary. 

I.  The  Licinian  law,  which  opened  the  consulship  to  the  commons,  was  regu- 
ly  observed  during  a  period  of  eleven  years.1     After  that  time  ?.  of  the  ]llw  re9pac, 

patricians  ventured  to  disregard  it,  so  that  in  the  fifteen  fol-  in(r  the  COMuUhiP- 
wing  years,  down  to  the  great  Latin  war,  it  was  violated  six  or  seven  severa* 
But  after  the  Latin  war  it  was  observed  regularly,  and  we  can  only  find 
e  or  two  doubtful  instances  of  a  violation  of  it.     In  the  twenty  years  of  ple- 
ian  consulship  which  occur  before  the  Latin  war,  there  appear,  however,  the 
names  of  only  eight  plebeian  families ;  the  Sextii,  the  Genucii,  the  Licinii,  the 
Poetelii,  the  Popillii,  the  Plautii,  the  Marcii,  and  the  Decii :  two  of  these,  the 
Marcii3  and  the  Popillii,  enjoyed  the  consulship  four  times  each  ;  the  Genucii4  and 
Plautii  obtained  it  three  times  each ;  the  Licinii  and  Poetelii  twice  each ;  and  the 
Sextii  and  Decii  once  each.     Of  the  individual  consuls  none  were  eminent,  except 
M.  Popillius  Lcenas,  C.  Marcius  Rutilus,  and  P.  Decius  Mus ;  the  two  former 
were  each  four  times  elected  consul,  and  C.  Marcius  obtained  besides  the  offices 
dictator5  and  censor,  being  the  first  commoner  who  attained  to  either  of  them, 
e  fame  of  P.  Decius  has  been  still  greater,  and  more  enduring  ;  his  self-devo- 
n  in  the  Latin  war  placed  him  in  the  fond  remembrance  of  his  countrymen  on 
level  with  the  greatest  names  of  Roman  history,  and  from  that  time  forward 
could  not  be  denied  that  commoners  were  to  be  found  as  worthy  of  the  con- 
ship  as  the  proudest  and  noblest  of  the  Fabii  or  the  Cornelii. 
Thus  it  appears  that  the  Licinian  law  was  not  passed  till  the  state  of  the  com- 
onwealth  was  ripe  for  it.    There  were  families  amongst  the  com-  It  wag  a  gensonabie  and 
ons  fit  to  receive  the  highest  nobility  ;  whilst,  on  the  other  hand,  ^oie«om.me"u«. 
sound  was  the  public  feeling,  that  we  read  of  no  mere  demagogue  raised  to 
e  consulship  as  the  reward  of  his  turbulence  and  faction ;  even  the  two  tribunes 
ho  had  conducted  the  long  contest  with  the  patricians  were  each  only  once 
ted  consul,  and  none  of  the  other  plebeian  consuls  are  known  to  have  been 
ibunes  at  all.    No  constitutional  reform  could  be  more  happy  than  this  ;  nothing 
could  be  more  just  or  more  salutary  than  to  open  the  honors  of  the  state  to  an 
order  sufficiently  advanced  to  be  capable  of  wielding  political  power,  but  retaining 
so  much  simplicity  and  soberness  of  mind  as  to  be  in  no  danger  of  abusing  it. 

II.  It  has  ever  been  found  that  social  evils  are  far  more  difficult  to  cure  than 
such  as  are  merely  political.     It  was  easier  to  adjust  the  political  2.  or  the  Agrarian 

lations  of  the  patricians  and  commons,  than  the  social  relations  law- 
the  great  and  the  humble,  the  creditor  and  the  debtor.     We  are  told  that  the 
rian  law  of  Licinius  was  carried  ;  but  what  amount  of  public  land  was  allotted 
er  it  to  the  poorer  commons  we  have  no  means  of  discovering.    Niebuhr  con- 
cludes from  a  passage  in  Laurentius  Lydus,6  that  now  as  in  the  time  of  Ti.  Gracchus 


1  Livy,  VII.  18. 

3  That  is  to  say,  in  the  year  400,  when  a  Snl- 
picius  and  Valerius  were  consuls,  and  in  the 
two  following  years ;  again  in  404,  when  a  Sul- 
picius  and  a  Quinctius  were  elected ;  then  in 
406,  in  410,  and  lastly,  in  412.     This  would 
amount  to  seven  instances,  but  in  the  year  401 
some  annals  made  a  plebeian,  M.  Popillius,  the 
colleague  of  M.  Fabius ;  although  most  author- 
ities give  this  as  a  year  of  two  patrician  con- 
suls.    See  Livy,  VII.  18. 

'  C.  Marcius  Kutilus  was  consul  in  398,  in 
403,  in  411,  and  413.  And  M.  Popillius 
Lsenas  was  consul  in  396,  in  399,  in  405,  and  in 
407. 

4  One  of  the  Genucian  family  was  consul  in 
890,  392,  and  393,  and  a  Plautius  was  consul  in 
897,  in  403,  and  in  414. 


8  He  was  dictator  in  399  (Livy,  VII.  17),  and 
censor  in  404  (Livy,  VII.  22). 

8  De  Magistratibus,  I.  35.  Etra  lirl  irtvratTlav 
ava.px.iav  f<Wr$x«  ^  TroXtTevfJta  '  KOI  rd  boiirbv  rptti 
vofioQirag  Kal  ^ncaaraj  npofiXridi'ivai  rrpb$  Pflaxv  avu- 
(3i0r]K£  fiia  rits  fy$vA/ou?  ordatif.  Niebuhr  thinks 
that  this  is  taken  from  Junius  Gracchanus,  and 
that  it  relates  to  the  period  immediately  follow- 
ing the  anarchy.  But  Lydus,  whose  confusions 
and  blunders  make  his  authority  very  suspi- 
cious, intended,  I  believe,  only  to  notice  all  tho 
extraordinary  magistrates  who  had  at  any  time 
been  appointed  at  Eome  ;  and  thus  after  men- 
tioning the  famous  decemvirs,  he  goes  on  to 
speak  of  the  ppntifices,  and  sediles,  as  being  in 
some  sort  magistrates  ;  and  then  he  names  the 
military  tribunes,  and  the  five  years'  anarchy, 
as  another  anomalous  period;  and  lastly,  the 


236  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHIP.  XX VII 

a  commission  of  three  persons  was  appointed,  with  those  large  powers  ordinarily 
granted  to  a  Roman  commission,  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  into  effect  the  new 
agrarian  law,  and  that  Licinius  himself  was  one  of  these  commissioners,  which 
would  account  for  his  not  having  been  chosen  rather  than  Sextius  to  be  the  first 
plebeian  consul.  It  would  be  the  business  of  this  commission  to  take  away  all 
public  land  occupied  by  any  individual  above  the  prescribed  amount  of  five  hun- 
dred jugera,  and  from  the  land  thus  become  disposable,  to  assign  portions  to  the 
poorer  citizens.  But  their  task  would  not  be  easy ;  for  attempts  of  every  sort 
would  be  made  to  defeat  or  to  evade  the  law :  land  which  had  passed  by  pur- 
chase from  one  occupier  to  another,  and  which  had  been  possessed  without  dis- 
pute for  many  years,  would  acquire,  even  in  the  eyes  of  unconcerned  persons, 
something  of  the  character  of  property ;  while  in  the  feeling  of  those  who  held 
it,  to  take  it  from  them  without  offering  them  any  compensation  was  no  better 
than  robbery.  Besides,  the  occupation  of  the  public  land  had  been  for  some 
time  past,  probably  since  the  period  of  the  last  war  with  Veii,  permitted  to  the 
commons  as  well  as  to  the  patricians ;  so  that  the  occupiers  were  a  larger  and 
more  influential  body  of  men  than  they  had  ever  been  before,  and  the  commis- 
sioners must  have  found  it  proportionably  hard  to  compel  them  to  observe  the 
letter  of  the  law. 

Thus,  although  we  are  told1  that  the  patricians  and  commons,  when  the  law 
Difficulties  m  carrying  was  passed,  had  solemnly  sworn  to  observe  it,  and  though  a 
penalty  had  been  denounced  against  any  violation  of  it,  yet  the 
commission,  it  seems,  found  it  impossible  to  carry  it  into  effect.  The  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  a  speedy  settlement  were  indeed  manifold.  In  the  first  place,  many 
of  the  occupiers  emancipated  their  sons,8  and  then  made  over  to  them  the  land  in 
their  occupation  beyond  the  legal  amount  of  five  hundred  jugera;  and  in  the 
same  way  probably  their  sheep  and  oxen,  which  were  fed  on  the  public  pasture 
land,  were  also  entered  in  the  names  of  their  emancipated  sons,  when  they  ex- 
ceeded the  number  fixed  by  the  law.  In  this  manner  large  portions  of  land 
must  have  been  retained  in  private  hands,  which  the  law  had  expected  to  make 
available  for  allotments  to  the  commons.  But  further,  the  occupiers  urged  that 
they  had  laid  out  money  of  their  own  on  the  land  which  they  occupied  ;  they  had 
erected  buildings  on  it  and  planted  trees ;  were  they  to  lose  these  without 
receiving  any  equivalent  ?  They  were  willing  to  resign  what  belonged  to  the 
state,  but  the  improvements  of  the  property  had  been  made  at  their  own  expense, 
and  on  these  the  state  could  have  no  claim.  Besides,  it  was  not  always  easy  to 
ascertain  what  was  public  land  and  what  was  private ;  for  portions  of  both  being 
held  by  the  same  persons,  the  boundary  stones  which,  according  to  Roman  prac- 
tice, were  to  serve  as  so  sure  a  mark  of  private  property  had  been  taken  up,  or 
suffered  to  be  destroyed ;  and  in  the  want  of  any  regular  surveys  of  the  ground, 
the  uncertainty  and  occasions  of  litigation  were  endless.  In  short,  we  may  sup- 
pose that,  generally  speaking,  the  occupiers  retained  their  land,  either  in  their 
sons'  names  or  in  their  own,  and  that  the  agrarian  law  of  Licinius  did  but  little 
towards  relieving  the  distress  of  the  commons. 

We  are  told  that  nine  years  after  the  first  plebeian  consulship,  in  the  yt 
c.  Licinius  himself  IB  398,9  C.  Licinius  was  himself  impeached  by  M.  Popiliius  Laenj 

prosecuted  for  evading  ....  ,  ...  /•        i         •  •    1    A    J   1_«  .   1  i 

ft.  one  of  the  curule  sediles,  for  having  violated  his  own  law  by  occu- 

pying a  thousand  jugera  of  the  public  land,  half  of  which  he  held  in  his  son's 

government  of  the   triumvirs,  by  whom  he  effect.    And  the  powers  of  such  a  commissk 

means,  I  believe,  no  othsr  persons  than  the  fa-  as  may  be  seen  from  Cicero's  speeches  agaii 

mous  triumviri  reipublicae  constituendae,  Au-  the  agrarian  law  of  Kullus,  were  very  great  ar 

gustus,  Antonius,  and  Lepidus.    But  although  very  important ;  and  it  is  extremely  probab 

I  do  not  think  that  Lydus  spoke  of  any  extra-  that  Licinius  would  be  appointed  one  of  it 

ordinary  commissioners    appointed    after  the  members,  almost  as  a  matter  of  course, 
passing  of  the  Licinian  laws,  yet  an  agrarian        7  Appian,  Bell.  Civil.  I.  8. 
taw  on  an  extensive  scale  necessarily  implied  a        8  Appian,  Bell.  Civil.  I.  8.     Livy,  VII.  16. 
commission,  whether  of  three,  five,  ten,  or  even        *  Livy,  VII.  16. 
fifteen  members,  to  carry  its  provisions  into 


CHAP.  XXVII]         THE  LAW  FOR  THE  RELIEF  OF  DEBTORS.  237 

name,  having  emancipated  him  in  order  to  evade  the  law.  Licinius  was  con- 
demned to  pay  a  fine  of  ten  thousand  ases  ;  but  in  the  meagerness  of  our  knowl- 
edge of  these  times,  we  cannot  tell  in  what  spirit  the  prosecution  was  conducted  ; 
whether  it  originated  in  personal  feelings  of  enmity  to  Licinius,  or  whether  it  was 
merely  one  out  of  a  number  of  other  prosecutions  carried  on  with  the  intention 
of  trying  once  more  to  carry  the  agrarian  law  into  full  effect.  We  know  nothing 
of  the  character  of  M.  Popillius  ;  but  from  his  having  been  chosen  four  times 
consul,  and  once  curule  sedile,  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  conceive  that  he  could 
have  been  particularly  obnoxious  to  the  patricians  ;  whereas  we  know  that  they 
never  forgave  any  man  who  was  an  active  supporter  of  an  agrarian  law.  I  am 
inclined  to  think  therefore  that  the  prosecution  of  Licinius10  was  rather  instigated 
by  a  desire  to  lower  his  credit,  and  to  punish  him  for  his  obnoxious  laws,  than  by 
any  wish  to  see  those  laws  enforced  more  strictly. 

III.  The  failure  of  the  agrarian  law  was  of  itself  sufficient  to  prevent  the  suc- 
cess of  the  third  of  the  Licinian  bills,  that  for  the  relief  of  dis- 

T  ,.  ,        ,  •  3.  Of  the  law  for  t«« 

tressed  debtors.  It  was  something,  no  doubt,  to  free  them  from  *rt*<*ti*K****i* 
the  double  burden  of  both  interest  and  principal,  by  deducting 
from  the  principal  of  every  debt  what  had  been  already  paid  in  interest,  and  to 
allow  a  lengthened  term  of  payment,  during  which  they  might  be  free  from  the 
extremest  severity  of  the  law.  But  to  men  who  had  nothing,  and  had  no  means 
of  earning  any  thing,  this  lengthened  term  was  but  a  respite,  and  their  debts,  even 
when  reduced  by  the  deduction  of  the  interest  already  paid,  were  more  than 
they  were  able  to  discharge.  Grants  of  public  land  made  at  such  a  moment  might 
have  delivered  them  from  their  difficulties  ;  but  as  these  were  withheld,  the  evil 
after  a  short  pause  returned  with  all  its  former  virulence.  The  Licinian  law  was 
not  prospective,  nor  did  it  lay  any  restriction  on  the  amount  of  interest  which 
might  be  legally  demanded.  Accordingly,  to  pay  their  reduced  debt  within  the 
term  fixed  by  the  law,  the  debtors  were  obliged  to  incur  fresh  obligations,  and  to 
give  such  interest  as  their  creditors  might  choose  to  demand.  Things  grew  worse 
and  worse,  till  in  the  year  398,  nine  years  after  the  passing  of  the  Licinian  laws, 
a  bill  was  brought  forward  by  two11  of  the  tribunes,  M.  Duilius  and  L.  Msenius, 
to  restore  the  limitation  of  interest  formerly  fixed  by  the  twelve  tables,  namely, 
the  rate  of  the  twelfth  part  of  the  sum  borrowed,  fcenus  unciarium.  But  still 
this  did  not  reach  the  root  of  the  evil  ;  the  very  principal  itself  could  not  be 
paid,  and  the  number  of  nexi,  or  persons  who  were  pledged  to  their  creditors, 
and  were  to  become  their  slaves  if  the  debt  was  not  discharged  within  a  certain 
time,  went  on  continually  increasing. 

At  length,  in  the  year  403,  fourteen  years  after  the  passing  of  the  Licinian 
ws,  the  consuls,  P.  Valerius  and  C.  Marcius  Rutilus,  the  latter  commission  or  five  np- 
n'mself  a  plebeian,  the  former  a  member  of  that  family  which  had  5£^;pI£Je£5S 
always  been  eminent  amongst  the  patricians  for  its  constant  zeal  f°'mt" 

w  We  should  be  glad,  however,  to  be  able  to  but  it  is  too  common  ;  and  Licinius  may  well 

excuse  the  conduct  of  Licinius,  which  cannot  have  deceived  himself  by  it.  His  enemies  would 

be  justified  by  any  want  of  sincerity  in  the  mo-  naturally  triumph  in  his  violation  of  his  own 

tives  of  his  prosecutor.    Ti.  Gracchus  made  it  law,  and  would  care  little  though  they  them- 

a  provision  of  his  agrarian  law  that  the  commis-  selves  had  set  him  the  example  of  breaking  it. 

sioncrs  for  enforcing  it  should  be  a  permanent  "  Livy,  VII.  16.     It  is  pleasant  to  observe 

magistracy,  to  be  filled  up  by  new  elections  the  traces  of  an  hereditary  political  character  in 

from  year  to  year.    And  it  was  this  very  clause  so  many  of  the  Eoman  families.    The  Mcenii 


bly  not  renewed  after  the  first  year,  and  then  the  decemvirs'  tyranny,  has  already  been  no- 

thc  law  became  powerless.    It  is  possible  that  ticcd  ;  and  another  Duilius  was  appointed  one 

the  evasion  of  it  practised  by  Licinius  was  very  of  the  five  commissioners  in  403,  for  the  relief 

-_r  'ncrally  adopted  ;  and  he  may  have  excused  of  the  distressed  commons,  and  distinguished 

himself  by  that  common  sophism,  that  as  the  himself  in  that  office  by  his  impartiality  and 

evil  could  not  be  prevented,  he  might  as  well  diligence.     We  have  seen  also  a  Mamius  taking 

share  in  the  benefits  to  be  derived  from  it.  part  with  the  patricians  against  the  dangerous 

This  is  not  conscientious  reasoning  certainly,  designs  of  M.  Manlius  ;    and  C.  Msenius,  the 


238  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXVII. 

for  the  welfare  of  the  commons,  determined  that  the  government  should  itself 
interfere  to  relieve  a  distress  so  great  and  so  inveterate.  Five  commissioners  were 
appointed,12  three  plebeians  and  two  patricians,  with  the  title  of  mensarii,  or 
bankers.  These  established  their  banks  or  tables  in  the  Forum,  like  ordinary 
bankers,  and  offered  in  the  name  of  the  government  to  accommodate  the  debtors 
with  ready  money  on  the  most  liberal  terms.  It  appears  that  one  cause  of  the 
prevailing  distress  was  the  scarcity  of  the  circulating  medium.13  A  debtor,  there- 
fore, even  though  he  possessed  property  in  land,  might  yet  be  practically  insol- 
vent, inasmuch  as  he  could  not,  except  at  an  enormous  loss,  convert  his  land  into 
money.  Here,  therefore,  the  five  commissioners  interposed  :  they  furnished  the 
debtor  with  ready  money,  when  he  had  any  property  to  offer  as  a  security,  or 
any  friend  who  would  be  security  for  him  ;  and  they  ordered  that  land  and  cattle 
should  be  received  in  payment  at  a  certain  valuation.  In  this  manner  much 
property,  which  had  hitherto  been  unavailable,  was  brought  into  circulation  ;  land 
and  cattle  became  legal  tender  at  a  certain  fixed  rate  of  value ;  and  thus  a  great 
amount  of  debt  was  liquidated,  and,  as  Livy  adds,  U  the  satisfaction  of  the  credit- 
or as  well  as  of  the  debtor.  If  he  had  any  authority  for  saying  this,  the  fact  is 
remarkable,  for  when  the  dictator  Caesar  remedied  the  evils  arising  from  a  scarci- 
ty of  money,  during  the  civil  wars,  by  nearly  a  similar  arrangement,  he  was  ac- 
cused of  making  the  creditors  sustain  a  loss  of  25  per  cent.  ;u  and  men  are  so 
apt  to  regard  money  as  the  only  standard  of  value,  that  this  feeling  is  still  very 
general ;  and  he  who  should  pay  his  creditor  a  less  sum  in  actual  money  than  he 
had  borrowed,  would  be  thought  to  have  defrauded  him  of  his  due,  although, 
from  an  increase  in  the  value  of  money,  what  he  paid  might  really  be  fully  equal  in 
its  command  over  other  commodities,  to  the  sum  which  he  had  originally  received. 

After  all,  however,  although  these  proceedings  of  the  five  commissioners  were 

well  calculated  to  relieve  the  embarrassments  of  those  debtors, 

tempted™but"w7th  fn-  who,  being  really  solvent,  were  yet  unable,  owing  to  peculiar 

causes,  to  convert  their  property  into  money,  yet  the  case  of  the 

insolvent  debtors  was  not  affected  by  them.     Five  years  afterwards,  in  408,  the 

interest  of  money  was  still  further  reduced  to  the  twenty-fourth  part  of  the  sum 

borrowed,  or  4J  per  cent.;15  and  in  411,  several  persons  were  brought  to  trial 

for  a  breach  of  the  law,16  and   condemned  to  pay  fourfold,  as  in  an  action  for 

furtum  manifestum. 

Thus  palliatives  of  the  existing  evil  had  been  sufficiently  tried  ;  but  a'l  were 
found  to  be  inadequate.  The  mischief  came  to  a  head  in  the  year  413,  and 
could  be  stopped  only  by  the  most  decisive  remedies ;  but  the  disturbances  of 
that  year  so  affected  the  whole  state  of  the  commonwealth,  and  were  again  so 
much  mixed  up  with  political  grievances,  that  an  account  of  them  will  be  more 
fitly  reserved  for  another  place,  when  we  shall  have  reached  that  period  in  the 
course  of  our  general  narrative. 

upright  dictator  in  the  second  Samnite  war,  this  period  the  Gauls  had  been  plundering  the 

was  a  worthy  representative  of  the  family  char-  country  round  Kome  during  four  consecutive 

auter.  years  ;  and  the  terror  of  such  an  enemy  could 

u  Livy,  VII.  21.     Their  names  were  C.  Dui-  not  but  depreciate  the  value  of  land  exposed  tc 

lius,  alluded  to  in  the  preceding  note  ;  P.  De-  their  ravages,  while  money  could  be  kept  safely 

ciurt  Mus,  who  devoted  himself  in  the  Latin  within  the  walls  of  cities  which  the  Gauls  did 

war ;   Q.  Publilius  Philo,  eminent  both  as  a  not  attempt  to  besiege ;  and  at  such  seasons  of 

general,  and  as  the  author  of  the  famous  laws  alarm  the  practice  of  hoarding  money  is  always 

which  bear  his  name ;  Ti.  ^Emilius,  one  of  the  more  or  less  prevalent,  so  that  the  circulating 

rr.ost  moderate  of  the  patricians,  the  colleague  medium  becomes  perceptibly  scarcer,  and,  ac- 

of  Q.  Publilius  in  his  consulship,  and  the  man  cordingly,  rises  in  value.    If,  added  to  these 

who  named  him  dictator;  and  M.  Papirius,  of  causes,  the  demands  of  commerce  had  already 

whom  nothing,  I  believe,  is  known.  begun  to  draw  away  the  copper  of  Italy  into 

13  Whethcr^that  great  rise  in  the  price  of  cop-  Greece  and  Asia,  the  difficulty  of  selling  land  to 

per  had  yet  begun,  which  led  to  the  successive  pay  a  debt  contracted  when  money  was  more 

depreciations  of  the  as,  it  is  not  possible  to  as-  plentiful  most  have  been  proportionally  greater, 

certain;  but  without  taking  this  into  the  ac-  M  Suetonius,  Julius  Ciesar,  c.  42. 

count,  other  and  more  temporary  causes  tended  5  Livy,  VJI.  27. 

to  raise  the  value  of  money  at  this  time  at  Rome,  w  Livy,  VII.   28.      Cato  de  re  rustic^,   ab 

is  compared  with  that  of  land.     A  little  before  initio. 


CHAP.  XXVII.]  THE  PCETELIAN  LAW.  236 

I  propose,  then,  first,  to  take  a  general  view  of  the  internal  state  of  the  com- 
monwealth, during  the  period  which  intervened  between  the  pass-  Generni 
ing  of  the  Licinian  laws  and  the  first  Samnite  war,  and  then  to  iOTyftou 
trace  its  foreign  relations  within  the  same  space  of  time. 

The  first  part  of  our  task  has  been  nearly  completed  already,  in  the  view 
which  has  been  given  of  the  effects  of  the  three  Licinian  laws.  One  or  two 
points,  however,  may  still  require  to  be  noticed. 

Between  389  and  412  we  find  the  remarkable  number  of  fourteen  dictator- 
ships. Four  of  these  dictators  are  expressly  said  to  have  been  Frequent  dictatorship. 
named  with  a  political  object,17  that  they  might  preside  at  the  ^ vheir object- 
election  of  consuls,  and  prevent  the  observance  of  the  Licinian  law.  Two  more,18 
those  of  402  and  403,  although  nominally  appointed  to  command  against  a  for- 
eign enemy,  were  yet  really  named  for  political  purposes  ;  and  two,19  those  of 
392  and  411,  were  appointed  to  perform  a  religious  ceremony.  Of  the  remain* 
ing  six,  three  were  named  during  the  alarm  of  the  Gaulish  invasion  in  394,  395, 
and  397  ;20  and  the  other  three  were  chosen  in  393,  399,  and  410,  to  act  against 
the  Hernicans,  the  Tarquiniensians,  and  the  Auruncans.21  But  even  in  these  last 
appointments  there  was  something  of  a  political  feeling :  they  prevented  a  pie- 

ian  consul  from  obtaining  the  glory  of  defeating  the  enemy,  and  notwithstand- 
ig  the  Licinian  law,  kept  the  executive  government  in  the  hands  of  a  patrician ; 
and  it  is  expressly  mentioned,  that  App.  Claudius  was  named  dictator  in  393,  to 
conduct  the  Hernican  Avar,  because  he  had  been  so  active  in  opposing  the  bills  of 
inius. 

It  is  thus  evident  that  a  soreness  of  feeling  continued  to  exist  between  the  p;i- 
ians  and  commons ;  and  that  the  former  could  not  yet  recon-  prete]inn  iaw  a?ain*t 

e  themselves  to  the  inevitable  change  which  was  in  progress.  thraLSmBwch«! 

e  attack  of  the  Tiburtians  in  396,  is  said  to 'have  stopped  a  BPectiugthei:oi*ni6iup. 

ing  quarrel  between  the  two  orders;22  the  inactivity  of  the  dictator,  C.  Sul- 
picius,  in  the  early  part  of  the  campaign  of  397,  was  ascribed  to  the  policy  of  tin- 
patricians,23  who  wished  to  keep  the  commons  as  long  as  possible  in  the  field,  to 
prevent  them  from  passing  any  measures  adverse  to  the  patrician  interest  in  the 
Forum.  The  Pcetelian  law  passed  in  that  same  year,  and  brought  forward  by  C. 
Pcetelius,24  one  of  the  tribunes,  with  the  sanction  of  the  patricians,  appears  alsc 
to  have  been  intended  indirectly  to  undermine  the  Licinian  law  with  respect  tc 
the  consulship.  Its  professed  object  was  to  put  down  canvassing,  "ambitus," 
and  ambitus  here  seems  to  be  taken  in  its  literal  sense,  not  as  implying  any 
bribery,  but  simply  the  practice  of  going  round  to  the  several  markets  and  meet- 
ings, held,  for  whatever  purpose,  in  the  country,  and  thus  acquiring  an  interest 
among  the  country  tribes.  It  is  expressly  said,  that  this  law  was  directed  against 
plebeian  candidates  ;  and  this  is  natural ;  for  men  whose  names  did  not  yet  com- 
mand respect  from  their  old  nobility,  were  obliged  to  rely  on  their  personal 
recommendations,  and  a  simple  plebeian,  if  unknown  to  the  country  voters, 
could  ill  compete  with  the  influence  of  an  old  patrician  family,  strong  not  only  in 
its  ancient  fame,  but  in  the  actual  votes  of  its  own  clients,  and  of  those  of  the 
other  patricians,  a  body  of  men  who  would  be  mostly  resident  in  Rome.  Be- 

n  M.  Fabius  in  404  (Livy,  VII.  22),  L.  Furius  »  T.  Quinctius  in  394  (Livy,  VII.  9,  Fasti 

Camillus  in  405  (Livy,  VII.  24),  t.  Manlius  Capitol.),  Q.  Servilius  Ahala  in  395  (Livy,  VII. 

Torquatus  in  406  (Livy,  VII.  26),  and  another,  11,  Fasti  Capitol.),  and  C.  Sulpicius  Peticus  in 

whose  name  is  unknown,  in  407  ;  the  fragments  397  ^Livy,  VII.  12,  Fasti  Capitol.    Appian  do 

of  the  Fasti  Capitolim  only  containing  under  rebus  Gall.  1). 

this  year  the  words,  21  App.  Claudius  in  393  (Livy,  VII.  6,  Fasti 

"Diet.  Capitol.),  C.  Marcius  Rutiius  in  399  (Livy,  VII. 

Comit.  Habend.  Caus  .  .  ."  17,  Fasti  Captol.),  and  L.  Furius  CuiuiLus  in 

18  T.  Manlius  in  402  (Livy,  VII.  19\  and  C.  410  (Livy,  VII.  28). 

Julius  in  403  (Livy,  VII.  21).  ™  Livy,  VII.  12. 

L.  Manlius  in  392,  "  clavi  figendi  causa"  »  Livy,  VII.  13. 

Livy,  VII.  3,  and  Fasti  Capitol),  and  P.  Va-  =*  Livy,  VII.  15. 
lerms,  "  feriarum  constituendarum  causa,"  in 
411  (Livy  VII.  28). 


240  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXVIL 

sides,  if  he  had  not  an  opportunity  of  canvassing  the  country  tribes  generally,  his 
interest  might  not  extend  beyond  his  own  immediate  neighborhood,  and  thus  the 
total  number  of  his  votes  in  any  given  tribe  might  not  be  sufficient  to  give  him 
the  legal  vote  of  that  tribe,  and  two  patrician  candidates  might  obtain  a  majority 
of  suffrages,  merely  because  no  one  plebeian  candidate  had  any  general  interest 
in  his  favor.  This  seems  to  have  been  the  way  in  which  the  Licinian  law  was 
set  aside  three  years  afterwards,  in  400.  The  majority  of  votes  was  in  favor  of 
two  patrician  candidates  ;  one  of  these  was  a  Valerius,  and  his  name  was  sure  to 
be  popular  amongst  the  commons  ;  whilst  the  plebeian  candidates,  debarred  from 
genera]  canvassing  by  the  Poetelian  law,  had  each  of  them  probably  so  small  a 
number  of  votes  in  his  favor,  that  they  would  not  have  been  duly  elected  accord- 
ing to  the  Roman  law,  even  had  there  been  no  candidate  standing  against  them. 
Thus  the  interrex,25  M.  Fabius,  was  enabled  to  say  that  the  people  had  them- 
selves set  aside  the  Licinian  law ;  inasmuch  as  there  was  a  legal  majority  in  favoi 
of  two  patrician  candidates,  and  only  a  small  minority  for  any  plebeian. 

An  event  occurred  in  the  year  398,  which  very  properly  alarmed  the  tribunes, 
Law  «de  vices;™  eo-  although  it  does  not  seem  to  have  originated  in  any  evil  intention. 
t^^nssedTy'o^of  One  of  the  consuls,  On.  Manlius,26  was  in  the  field  with  a  consular 
the  anmes  in  the  field.  armVj  ^o  carry  on  the  war  against  the  Tarquiniensians  and  Falis- 
cans  ;  his  colleague,  C.  Marcius  Rutilus,  was  engaged  with  the  Privernatians,  and 
enriching  his  army,  it  is  said,  with  the  plunder  of  the  enemy's*  country,  which 
had  been  for  many  years  untouched  by  the  ravages  of  war.  It  is  probable  that 
the  soldiers  on  this  occasion  made  prisoners  of  many  Privernatian  families,  and 
released  them  again  on  the  payment  of  a  large  ransom.  But  prisoners  taken  in 
war,  becoming,  according  to  ancient  law,  the  slaves  of  the  captor,  his  release  of 
a  prisoner  upon  ransom  was,  in  fact,  the  manumission  of  a  slave.  Accordingly, 
Cn.  Manlius  called  his  soldiers  together  in  the  camp  near  Sutrium,  according  to 
their  tribes,  and,  as  if  they  were  assembled  in  regular  comitia,  he  proposed  to 
them  a  law,  that  five  per  cent,  on  the  value  of  any  emancipated  slave  should  be 
paid  by  his  master  into  the  public  treasury.27  It  might  be  argued  that  the  state 
ought  not  to  lose  all  benefit  from  the  plunder  acquired  by  its  soldiers  ;  and  that, 
especially,  if  a  soldier  set  an  enemy  at  liberty  for  the  sake  of  his  ransom,  some 
compensation  should  be  made  to  his  country,  whom  his  act  might  be  supposed 
to  injure.  There  was  some  plausibility  in  this,  and  the  army  of  Manlius  might 
have  felt  also  some  jealousy  at  the  better  fortune  of  their  comrades,  and  might 
have  known  that  their  own  general  would  not,  like  C.  Marcius,  give  up  to  them 
the  full  benefit  of  such  plunder  as  they  might  acquire  from  the  Etruscans.  Ac- 
cordingly the  law  was  passed  in  the  camp,  and  received  the  ready  sanction  of  the 
curise  and  the  senate  at  Rome.  But  the  tribunes,  dreading  the  precedent  of  a 
law  passed  at  a  distance  from  Rome,  beyond  the  range  of  the  tribunes'  protec- 
tion, and  where  every  citizen  was  subject  to  the  absolute  power  of  his  general, 
declared  it  to  be  a  capital  offence,  if  any  one  should  for  the  future  summon  the 
tribes  in  their  comitia  in  any  other  than  their  accustomed  place  of  meeting.28 
Their  bill  to  this  effect  was  sure  of  the  support  of  Marcius  and  his  army  ;  and  its 
principle  was  so  clearly  just,  that  it  was  passed,  so  far  as  we  hear,  without  meet- 
ing any  opposition. 

The  years  390,  391,  and  392,  were  marked  by  a  pestilence,29  which  is  said  to 


j^iv^Vj      v  1.1.     0.1.  J.£IU.LUO    uicuttu,     jn     uuv—  _ 

dccim  tubulis  legem  esse,  lit  quodcunque  pos-  laws  were  in  force  in  some  of  our  West  Indian 

tremum  populus  jussisset,   id   jus  ratumque  islands,  at  once  to  restrain  emancipation,  and  to 

esset ;  iussum  populi  et  suffragia  esse."  prevent  the  slave  from  becoming  a  burden  upon 

26  Livy,  VII.  16.  -"'-   s*rf"  --'-  J 


86  Livy,  VII.  17.     "  Fabius  aiebat,  in  duo-    forward  in  such  an  irregular  manner.     Similar 

laws  were  in  force  in  some  of  our  West  Indian 
islands,  at  once  to  restrain  emancipation,  and  to 
prevent  the  slave  from  becoming  a  burden  upon 
the  public,  if  the  state  received  nothing  as  a 

27  "  Legem  de  vicesim4  eorum  qui  manumit-    compensation   for  the    contingency  of  l>eing 
tercntur."    The  time  and  place  at  which  the    obliged  to  maintain  him  as  a  freeman, 
law  was  passed  justify  the  explanation  which  I        28  "  Ne  quis  postea  populum  sevocaret."  Cora- 
have  given  of  its  meaning;  for  had  the  object    pare  the  well-known  sense  ofsecessio. 
been  merely  to  check  the  increase  of  the  class        29  Livy,  VII.  1,  2. 
of  freedmeu  it  would  scarcely  have  been  brought 


.  XXVIL] 


DEATH  OF  CAMILLUS. 


241 


ve  been  very  generally  fatal;  and  in  391,  the  Tiber  rose  to  an 
usual  height,  overflowed  the  Circus  Maximus,30  and  put  a  stop  st 
the  games  which  were  going  on  there  at  that  very  time,  as  a 
pitiation  of  the  wrath  of  heaven.  It  is  difficult  to  say  whether  it  was  a  simi- 
flood  two  years  afterwards,  or  the  shock  of  an  earthquake,  which  gave  occa- 
L  to  the  famous  legend  of  the  filling  up  of  the  Curtian  lake  in  the  Forum.  All 
w  how  the  gulf,  which  had  suddenly  yawned  wide  and  deep  in  the  midst  of 
Forum,31  could  be  filled  up  by  no  human  power,  till  the  gods  at  last  declared, 
t  the  best  and  true  strength  of  the  Roman  commonwealth  must  be  devoted 
an  offering  to  the  gulf;  so  should  the  state  exist  and  nourish  forever.  While 
n  were  asking,  what  is  the  true  strength  of  Rome  ?  a  noble  youth,  named  M. 
urtius,  whose  valiant  deeds  had  made  him  famous,  said  that  it  were  a  shame  to- 
k  that  the  true  strength  of  Rome  could  lie  in  aught  else  but  in  the  arms  and 
the  valor  of  her  children ;  and  he  put  on  his  armor  and  mounted  his  horse, 
d  plunged  into  the  gulf.  All  the  assembled  multitude  threw  their  offerings 
to  it  after  him,  and  the  gulf  was  closed,  but  the  place  bore  his  name  forever, 
were  vain  to  inquire  at  what  period  and  upon  what  foundation  this  remark- 
le  story  was  first  originated.12 

The  first  year  of  the  pestilence  was  marked  by  the  death  of  M.  Camillus.83    In 
m  we  seem  to  lose  the  last  relic  of  early  Rome,  the  last  hero 
l--)se  glory  belongs  rather  to  romance  than  to  history.     But  the 
e  of  the  stories  connected  with  him  proves  the  high  estimation  in  which  he 
held  when  living ;  and  it  was  a  beautiful  conclusion  to  his  long  life,  that  his 
public  action  was  that  of  a  peacemaker,  his  last  interference  in  political  con- 
ts  was  that  of  a  patriot  and  not  of  a  partisan.     The  glory  of  his  hame  was 
ported  for  one  generation  by  his  son,  L.  Furius,  and  then  sank  forever. 
The  same  period  of  pestilence  was  also  noted  as  the  era  at  which  the  first  and 
plest  form  of  dramatic  entertainments34  was  introduced  at  Rome. 
mongst  the  games  ordered  to  be  celebrated  in  the  hope  of  pro-  ?tlge  toting  wdlu* 
tiating  the  gods,  one,  it  is  said,  consisting  of  a  dance  in  dumb 
ow,  as  an  accompaniment  to  the  music  of  the  flute,  was,  for  the  first  time, 
trod  need  from  Etruria.     The  dumb  show  was  afterwards  succeeded  by  a  song 
which  the  dance  was  suited  to  the  words ;  then  came  a  dialogue,  and,  last  of 
a  regular  acted  story ;  but  here  the  Romans  did  but  translate  or  imitate  the 
atists  of  Greece,  and  nothing  in  literature  is  less  original,  and  therefore  less 
luable  than  the  tragic  and  comic  drama  of  Rome. 

What  power  of  imagination  can  complete  these  few  isolated  facts  into  the  full 
icture  of  the  life  of  a  people  during  three  and  twenty  years  ?  who  can  repre- 
:nt  to  himself  the  Senate  or  the  Forum,  such  as  they  were  at  this  period,  either 
' )  outward  forms  and  scenes,  or  as  to  the  men  who  frequented  them  ?    Much 
can  we  conceive  what  was  passing  in  the  interior  of  every  family,  and  realize 
ourselves  the  names  of  our  scanty  history — the  Fabii,  the  Valerii,  the  Sulpi- 
,  or  the  Marcii,  as  they  were  talking  and  acting  in  the  ordinary  relations  of  life, 
—d  or  at  home.     A  period,  of  which  there  remains  no  contemporary  litera- 
has  virtually  perished  from  the  memory  of  after  ages  ;  some  scattered  bones 
of  the  skeleton  may  be  left,  but  the  face,  figure,  and  mind  of  the  living  man  are 
lost  to  us  beyond  recall. 

In  times  so  imperfectly  known  as  those  with  which  we  are  now  engaged,  the 


*  Livy,  VII.  3. 
81  Livy,  VII.  6. 


Valerius  Maximus,  V.  6.  §  2. 


. 

Another  story  derived  the  name  of  the 
Curtian  lake  in  the  Forum  from  one  Curtius 
Alcttius,  a  soldier  of  Tatius,  the  king  of  the  Sa- 
bines  :  who,  in  the  battle  between  Tatius  and 

I^mulns,  had  been  nearly  lost  in  a  piece  of  bog- 
ground  between  the  Capitoline  and  Palatine 
Livy,  I.  12,  13.    A  spot  in  the  centre  of 


the  Forum,  marked  out  by  an  altar,  was  known, 
even  in  the  times  of  the  emperors,  by  the  name 
of  the  Curtian  lake  :  Galba  was  thrown  out  of 
his  litter  and  murdered  close  to  it.  (Tacitus, 
Hist.  I.  41.)  But,  the  real  origin  of  the  namo 
being  unknown,  various  stories,  as  is  usual, 
were  invented  to  explain  it. 

33  Livy,  VII.  1. 

34  Livy,  VII.  2. 


242  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CnAP.XXVIl 

Foreign  hutory  of  geographical  order  of  events  is  far  more  instructive  than  the  chro- 
8I2-  nological.  I  propose,  therefore,  to  trace  successively  the  relations 
of  Rome  with  the  several  neighboring  states,  from  389  to  412,  beginning  with 
the  wars  with  the  Etruscans,  who  were  divided  by  the  Tiber  from  the  Latins, 
Volscians,  and  Hernicans. 

I.  The  people  of  Tarquinii,  sometimes  aided  by  the  Faliscans,  were  engaged 
won  with  Tarquinii  m  wars  with  Rome  during  a  period  of  eight  years,  from  396  to  404. 
•mi  th«  Faineant.        What  may  have  been  the  cause  of  quarrel  is  unknown,  if  it  were 
any  thing  more  than  the  ordinary  enmity  between  two  neighboring  nations,  and 
the  disputes  which  are  forever  occurring  on  their  common  border.     But  the  war 
is  rendered  remarkable  by  the  specimens  displayed  in  it  of  the  character  and  in- 
fluence of  the  Etruscan  religion.     The  Roman  consul,  C.  Fabius,35  having  been 
defeated  in  a  battle  in  the  year  397,  the  Tarquinians  sacrificed  to  their  gods  three 
hundred  and  seven  Roman  soldiers,  who  had  been  taken  prisoners  in  the  action ; 
and  two  years  afterwards,  when  the  Faliscans  had  joined  them,  the  priests  of 
both  cities,  with  long  snake-like  ribbons  of  various  colors  twisted  in  their  hair, 
and  brandishing  burning  torches  in  their  hands,36  fought  in  the  front  of  their 
army,  and  struck  such  terror  into  the  Roman  soldiers,  that  they  drove  them  back 
in  confusion  to  their  camp.     The  Etruscai  priests,  it  should  be  remembered, 
were  also  the  chiefs  or  lucumones  of  the  nation,  and  they  acted  on  this  occasion, 
and  with  equal  success,  the  same  part  which  the  two  Decii  performed  for  Rome 
in  the  Latin  and  Etruscan  wars  of  a  later  period.     Full  of  confidence  in  the  sup- 
port of  the  gods,  the  Etruscans  followed  up  their  victory ;  they  entered  the  Ro- 
man territory  and  spread  their  devastations  over  the  whole  country  on  the  right 
bank  of  the  Tiber  as  far  as  the  sea.     It  was  to  meet  this  danger  that  C.  Marcius37 
was  appointed  dictator ;  he  was  named,  we  must  suppose,  by  the  plebeian  con- 
sul of  that  year,  M.  Popillius  Laenas,  and  was  the  first  plebeian  who  ever  ob- 
tained the  dictatorship.     His  appointment  gave  great  offence  to  the  patricians, 
and  was  proportionally  acceptable  to  his  own  order;  all  his  commands  were 
zealously  obeyed ;  he  repelled  the  invaders,  and,  like  the  popular  consuls  of  the 
year  305,  he  obtained  a  triumph  by  a  vote  of  the  people  when  the  senate  refused 
to  grant  it. 

In  the  year  401,  the  Roman  annalists  say  that  the  butchery  of  the  Roman 
peace  concluded  for  prisoners  by  the  Tarquinians  four  years  before  was  signally 
avenged;  the  Tarquinians  were  defeated  in  a  great  battle,  and 
three  hundred  and  fifty-eight  of  the  noblest  of  the  prisoners  were  sent  to  Rome, 
and  there  scourged  and  beheaded  in  the  Forum.33  The  war  lingered  on,  how- 
ever, for  three  years  more ;  and  was  then  ended  by  a  peace  concluded  for  forty 
years.39  No  conquests  of  towns  or  territory  are  recorded,  and  thus  the  Roman 
frontier  still  remained  on  the  side  of  Etruria  in  the  same  position  as  it  had  been 
for  the  last  forty  years,  since  the  conquest  of  Veii,  Nepete,  and  Sutrium. 

II.  Far  more  complicated  was  the  scene  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Tiber.    There 
wan  in  Lntium         great  changes  took  place ;  the  relations  of  the  several  people  to  one 

another  were  materially  altered  ;  some  nations  almost  vanish  out 
of  history,  whilst  Rome  saw  her  territory  enlarged,  her  population  of  citizens  in- 
creased, her  power  and  influence  strengthened  and  extended  beyond  all  former 
example.  But  the  causes  and  circumstances  of  these  changes  are  partly  dis- 
guised by  the  dishonesty,  and  partly  omitted  through  the  mere  meagerness  of  the 
Roman  historians.  Out  of  'the  confusion  of  Livy's  narrative  we  must  endeavor, 
if  possible,  to  obtain  a  clear  and  consistent  outline  of  the  events  of  a  period  which 
contributed,  in  no  small  degree,  to  determine  the  future  destinies  of  Rome  and 
the  world.  , 

In  the  year  394,  according  to  the  common  chronology,  the  Gauls  again  dp- 

»  Livy,  VII.  15.  »  Livy,  VII.  19. 

*  Livy,  VII.  17.  *  Livy,  VII.  £2. 

»  Livy,  VII.  17. 


CHAP.  XXVIL]  GAULISH  INVASIONS.  243 

peared  in  Latium.     This  inroad  lasted,  according  to  the  Roman 

annals,  for  four  years,  and  was  ended,  as  they  pretend,  by  the 

total  destruction  of  the  invaders  in  the  year  397.     Eight  years  afterwards,  in 

405,  we  hear  of  another  invasion ;  but  this  new  attack  was  completely  defeated 

in  the  following  year,  and  from  that  time  forward  we  never  again  find  the  Gauls 

in  Latium. 

The  dates  of  these  two  invasions  are,  no  doubt,  correctly  given.  They  are  con- 
firmed by  Polybius,40  although  in  all  other  points  his  account  dif-  Account  ?f  them  Eive« 
fers  widely  from  that  of  the  Roman  writers.  The  Gauls  penetrated  by  Polybiut- 
into  the  heart  of  Latium  thirty  years  after  their  first  attack  on  Rome ;  they  ap- 
peared at  Alba,  but  the  Romans,  surprised  by  the  suddenness  of  their  inroad, 
and  unable  to  collect  their  allies  together,  did  not  venture  to  meet  them  in  the 
field.  Twelve  years  afterwards,  continues  Polybius,  they  came  again  ;  but  the 
Romans  had  now  timely  notice  of  their  coming  ;  their  allies  had  joined  them,  and 
they  marched  out  boldly  to  give  the  enemy  battle.  The  Gauls  were  dismayed 
by  this  display  of  confidence ;  their  chiefs  quarrelled,  and  their  whole  multitude 
broke  up  under  cover  of  night,  and  retreated  like  a  beaten  army  to  their  own 
country.  On  this  their  last  appearance  in  Latium,  the  Roman  army  opposed  to 
them  was  commanded  by  Lucius  Camillus ;  and  this  is  the  Lucius41  whom  Aris- 
totle spoke  of  as  the  deliverer  of  his  country  from  the  Gauls.  According  to  the 
Roman  accounts,  he  defeated  the  Gauls  in  a  general  action ;  yet  it  is  not  pre- 
tended that  he  obtained  a  triumph. 

These  last  invasions  of  the  Gauls  were  marked,  according  to  the  Roman  an- 
nalists, not  only  by  many  signal  victories  won  by  the  Roman  armies  stories  of  the  Gn 
in  general  battles,  but  in  particular  by  two  brilliant  single  combats  To^'ISSS1., 
in  which  two  of  the  noble  youth  of  Rome  gained  for  themselves  lerius Corv 
an  immortal  memory.  T.  Manlius,  the  future  conqueror  of  the  Latins,  fought 
with  a  gigantic  Gaul42  on  the  bridge  over  the  Anio  upon  the  Salarian  road  :  he 
slew  his  enemy,  and  took  from  his  neck  his  chain  of  gold  (torques),  which  he 
wore  on  his  neck  in  triumph,  so  that  the  soldiers  called  him  Torquatus,  and  his 
descendants  ever  after  bore  that  name.  And  again,  before  the  last  great  victory 
won  by  Lucius  Camillus,  there  was  another  single  combat  in  the  Pomptinian  ter- 
ritory between  a  second  giant  Gaul  and  the  young  M.  Valerius,43  who  afterwards 

40  II.  18.  It  is  well  ixnown,  that  the  Koman  that  the  triumphs,  if  not  altogether  false,  were 
writers  claim  three '  ictories  in  the  course  of  the  granted  by  the  policy  of  the  senate,  wishing  to 
invasion  of  394-39"  in  which,  according  to  Po-  make  the  most  of  any  advantage  gained  over  an 
lybius,  the  Romans  uid  not  venture  to  meet  the  enemy  so  formidable  as  the  Gauls. 
Gauls  in  the  field.  The  victory  of  the  dictator  41  Tdi/  Si  auxravra  AWKIOV  tlvat  Qrjotv.  Plutarch, 
C.  Sulpicius,  in  397,  is  described  very  circum-  Camill.  22.  It  should  be  remembered,  that  the 
stantially  by  Appian,  who,  probably,  copied  Eomans,  in  old  times,  were  known  and  called 
Dionysius,  as  well  as  by  Livy,  and  the  Fasti  by  their  prserioininS,  or  first  names,  as  Poly- 
Capitolim'givethedayof  his  triumph,  the  nones  blus  calls  Scipio,  "Publius,"  and  Eegulus, 
of  May.  On  the  other  hand,  the  statement  of  "Marcus."  The  praenomen  was  then  much  less 
Polybius  is  given  simply  and  positively,  and  likely  to  be  mistaken  than  in  after  ages,  when 
we  know  how  completely  the  Romans  corrupted  the  nomen  and  cognomen  were  generally  used 
the  memory  of  many  events  in  the  Samnite  war,  instead  of  it,  and  when  it  was  possible  for  a, 
and  iu  other  parts  of  their  early  history.  We  foreigner  to  be  very  familiar  with  the  actions  of 
should  be  glad  to  know  from  what  sources  Po-  Cawar,  without  remembering  whether  his  proe- 
lybius  derived  his  knowledge  of  these  events,  nomen  was  Caius  or  Lucius.  But  Aristotle 
The  chronological  exactness  of  his  account  seems  would  have  been  no  more  likely  to  have  mis- 
to  show,  that  it  could  not  have  been  taken  from  taken  one  praenomen  for  another,  than  to  have 
any  Greek  writer  who  may  have  mentioned  the  confounded  two  Greek  brothers  together,  bc- 
Gaulish  invasions  of  central  Italy,  but  from  some  cause  together  with  their  own  peculiar  names 
Roman  annalist,  and  it  is  probable  that  Fabius,  they  had  both  the  same  patronymic, 
who,  in  spite  of  his  national  prejudices,  had,  in  42>  There  is  a  striking  description  of  this  coin- 
other  instances,  given  a  true  report  of  transac-  bat  given  by  Q.  Claudius  Quadrigarius,  an  an- 
tions  which  later  annalists  utterly  misrepre-  nalist  of  the  seventh  century  gf  Rome,  and  pre- 
sented, was  the  authority  whom  Polybius  fol-  served  to  us  by  A.  Gellius,  IX.  13. 
lowed.  It  is  not  likely,  on  the  other  hand,  that  43  This  combat  is  also  given  by  Gellius  from, 
the  pretended  victories  of  the  Roman  generals  some  of  the  old  annalists,  IX.  11.  It  is  de- 
are  mere  inventions,  but  that  some  trilling  ad-  scribed  too  by  Dionysius,  XV.  1,  2,  and  ly 
vantages  gained  over  detached  parties  of  the  Livy,  VII.  26. 
Gauls  were  magnified  into  general  battles,  and 


244  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXVII 

defeated  the  Samnites  at  the  great  battle  of  Mount  Gaums,  A  wonderful  thing 
happened  in  this  combat,  said  the  story ;  for  as  Marcus  was  going  to  begin  the 
fight,  all  on  a  sudden  a  crow  flew  down  and  perched  upon  his  helmet.  When 
the  two  combatants  closed  with  each  other,  the  crow  still  sat  on  the  Roman's 
helm,  but  ever  and  anon  it  soared  up  in  the  air,  and  then  darted  down  upon  the 
Gaul,  and  struck  at  his  face  and  eyes  with  its  beak  and  claws.  So  the  Gaul,  con- 
founded and  dismayed,  soon  fell  by  the  sword  of  Marcus  ;  and  then  the  crow  flew 
up  again  into  the  air,  and  vanished  towards  the  east.  For  this  wonderful  aid 
thus  afforded  him  M.  Valerius  was  known  ever  afterwards  by  the  name  of  Cor- 
vus,  Crow,  and  the  name  remained  to  his  posterity.  These  stories  are  the  very 
counterpart  of  the  combat  between  Sir  Guy  of  Warwick  and  the  Danish  giant 
Colbrand  before  the  walls  of  Winchester ;  or,  as  Manlius  and  Valerius  Corvus 
are  certainly  more  real  personages  than  Sir  Guy,  we  may  compare  them  with  the 
ballad  of  Chevy  Chase,  and  consider  how  far  we  could  recognize  the  historical 
battle  of  Otterburne,  and  the  real  Hotspur,  in  the  battle  on  the  Cheviot  hills, 
and  in  the  Earl  Percy  of  the  poem.  As  in  this  instance,  the  time,44  place,  cir- 
cumstances, and  issue  of  the  poetical  battle  bear  no  resemblance  to  those  of  the 
real  one,  so  also  the  poetical  or  romance  accounts  of  these  last  Gaulish  invasions 
retain  scarcely  a  feature  of  that  simple  and  real  history  of  them  which  has  been 
preserved  to  us  by  Polybius.  That  the  triumphal  Fasti  have  followed  the  ficti- 
tious rather  than  the  true  account,  belongs  to  that  peculiar  blot  on  the  Roman 
character  which  I  have  already  noticed ;  that  what  with  other  people  has  been 
mere  fanciful  romance,  has  been  by  the  Romans  made  to  wear  such  an  appear- 
ance of  serious  earnest  as  to  be  no  longer  romance  but  falsehood. 

What  the  Gauls  did  in  Latium  and  against  the  Romans  has  been  sufficiently 
Effect  of  the  Gaulish  m-  disguised  and  perverted  ;  but  what  they  did  in  other  parts  of  Italy 
rfoTJimnii stiles0™  *s  altogether  unknown  to  us.  We  hear  of  them  in  Latium,  and 
that  they  moved  southwards  from  thence  into  Campania  and  Apu- 
lia ;45  but  they  do  not  seem  to  have  touched  Etruria,  and  their  attacks  on  Rome 
were  all  made  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Tiber.  Perhaps  the  Etruscans  had  early 
concluded  a  peace  with  them,  so  that  in  their  invasions  of  Latium  and  Campania 
they  passed  through  Umbria  and  the  country  of  the  Sabines,  descending  upon 
Rome  either  by  the  Salarian  road  along  the  Tiber,  or  by  the  valley  of  the  Anio. 
The  Romans  complained  that  two  Latin  cities,  Tibur  and  Praeneste,46  had  not 
scrupled,  in  their  hatred  of  Rome,  to  ally  themselves  with  these  barbarians ;  and 
this  was  remembered  afterwards  against  them  when  the  issue  of  the  great  Latin 
war  had  placed  them  at  the  mercy  of  their  old  enemies.  But  it  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at  if  they  were  glad  to  divert  the  torrent  of  the  Gaulish  invasion  from 
themselves  to  the  territory  of  strangers  or  rivals  ;  perhaps  they  hired  some  of  the 
Gaulish  bands  to  enter  into  their  service,  and  some  advantages  gained  over  these 
by  the  Roman  generals  may  have  been  the  origin  of  the  pretended  victories  and 
triumphs  recorded  in  the  annals  and  in  the  Fasti.  The  main  Gaulish  army 
appears  to  have  stationed  itself  principally  on  the  Alban  hills,47  from  whence,  as 
from  some  island  stronghold,  they  could  attack  and  lay  waste  all  the  neighboring 
country.  Twice  they  are  said  to  have  approached  Rome,  and  once  they  advanced 
as  far  as  the  very  Colline  gate,48  by  which  they  had  entered  the  city  in  their  first 

41  The  battle  of  Otterburne  was  fought  in  the  in  the  poetical  battle,  Percy  is  killed,  but  the 

reign  of  Eichard  the  Second,  of  England,  and  English  are  victorious.     And  further,  to  show 

Bobert  the  Second,  of  Scotland ;  the  poetical  how  slight  actions  may  be  magnified  into  great 

account  of  it  places  it  in  the  reign  of  a  King  battles,  the  Scottish  army  at  Otterburne  which 

Henry  in  England,  and  a  King  James  in  Scot-  consisted  really  of  2300  men,  is  made  in  another 

bind.    Otterburne  is  in  Eedesdale  near  Elsdon,  ballad  of  the  battle  to  amount  to  44,000,  of  whom 

the  scene  of  battle  in  the  poem  is  in  the  Cheviot  there  "  went  but  eighteen  away." 

hills;  the  historical  battle  did  not  arise  out  of  4&  Livy,  VII.  11.  26. 

uny  hunting  excursion  of  Percy  on  the  Scottish  4B  Livy,  VII.  11.  VIII.  14. 

border,  but  from  an  inroad  oi  the  Scotch  into  47  Polybius,  II.  18.     Livy,  VII.  25.    Dionr- 

Northumberland.   In  the  real  battle,  Percy  was  sins,  XIV.  12. 

Viken  prisoner,  and  the  English  were  defeated ;  48  Livy,  VII.  11. 


PHAP.  .VXVIL]        LATINS,  ETC.,  AGAIN  ALLIED  'WITH  ROME.  345 

invasion.  On  one  occasion  we  find  them  encamped  at  Pedum43  in  front  of  Prse- 
neste,  an  old  Latin  city  which  the  JSquians  had  formerly  conquered,  but  which 
afterwards,  perhaps  at  this  very  time,  got  rid  of  its  foreign  masters  and  became 
again  united  to  the  Latin  nation.  None  can  tell  what  cities  were  destroyed,  what 
people  weakened,  and  what  confederacies  or  dominions  were  broken  up  in  the 
course  of  these  Gaulish  invasions.  The  Volscians  seemed  to  have  suffered  more 
especially  ;  for  it  was  through  their  territory  that  the  Gauls  moved  onwards  from 
Latium  to  Campania,  or  returned  from  Campania  to  their  quarters  on  the  Alban 
hills  ;  and  it  appears  that  their  nation  was  from  this  time  forward  broken  into 
fragments,  each  of  which  had  from  henceforth  a  destiny  of  its  own.  In  order  to 
understand  this  change  fully,  we  must  recollect  that  in  the  year  of  Rome  378 
the  Roman  frontier  had  fallen  back  from  Anxur  to  Satricum,  that  Satricum  itself 
had  been  won  by  the  Volscians,  and  afterwards  burnt  by  the  Latins50  that  it 
might  not  revert  to  Rome,  and  that  the  Roman  territory  in  the  maritime  part  of 
the  Campagna  scarcely  reached  to  the  distance  of  twenty-five  miles  from  Rome. 
But  in  397  we  find  that  the  Latins51  renewed  their  alliance  with  the  Romans  ; 
that  two  new  tribes  of  Roman  citizens  were  created,52  the  Pomptine  and  the 
Publilian  ;  and  that  Velitrse  and  Privernum,53  both  of  them  Volscian  towns,  but 
the  latter  unmentioned  hitherto  in  Roman  history,  were  engaged  alone  in  a  war 
with  Rome.  This  same  year  witnessed  also  the  retreat  of  the  Gauls  from  Latium, 
after  they  had  been  overrunning  it  at  intervals  during  a  period  of  three  years  ; 
and  finally,  it  was  marked  by  what  the  Romans  call  a  conquest  of  the  Herni- 
cans,54  who  for  the  last  four  years  had  been  at  open  war  with  Rome.  That  there 
was  a  connection  between  all  these  events  is  manifest,  although  they  appear  in 
Livy  as  mere  accidental  coincidences.  It  should  be  remembered  also  that  in  this 
same  year  war  was  formally  declared55  between  Rome  and  Tarquinii. 

The  complicated  negotiations  and  the  ever-changing  alliances  of  the  Greek 
states,  between  the  peace  of  Nicias  and  the  Athenian  expedition 

o.    .,  .          *  111  JM  ,1  i          i     ,     j    i         Renewal  of  the  alliance 

to  feicily,  cannot  be  comprehended  readily,  even  though  related  by  between  Rome  and  the 

J     ,  .    ,       .  T       -Y        i  f      i         Latin*  «nd  Hernicam. 

such  an  historian  as  Ihucydides.  In  the  last  ten  years  or  the 
fourth  century  of  Rome,  Latium  and  its  neighborhood  must  have  presented  a 
tissue  of  events  equally  perplexed  in  themselves,  without  any  contemporary  his- 
torian like  Thucydides  to  explain  them  to  posterity.  But  by  considering  the 
mere  fragments  of  information  which  have  been  preserved  to  us,  we  may  attempt 
to  combine  them  into  something  like  the  following  form.  A  war  with  Tarquinii, 
in  addition  to  one  with  the  Hernicans,  and  that  at  a  time  when  Tibur  and  Prae- 
neste  were  hostile,  and  when  the  Gauls  might  be  expected  to  appear  again  in 
Latium  as  they  had  done  regularly  for  the  last  three  years,  was  clearly  more 
than  the  strength  of  Rome  could  bear.  The  old  alliance  with  the  Hernicans, 
and  with  some  at  any  rate  of  the  Latin  cities,  must,  at  whatever  price,  be  renewed. 
We  can  easily  conceive  that  there  must  have  been  a  party  amongst  the  Latins 
and  Hernicans  equally  well  disposed  to  such  a  reunion.  It  was  accordingly 
effected  :  the  plebeian  consul  C.  Plautius  appears  to  have  had  the  honor  of 
restoring  at  this  critical  moment  the  great  work  of  Sp.  Cassius.  The  whole  peo- 
ple of  the  Hernicans  renewed  their  old  alliance  with  Rome  ;  but  of  the  thirty 
Latin  cities  which  had  concluded  the  league  with  Sp.  Cassius  many  had  perished, 
and  some  had  become  separated  from  the  Latin  confederacy,  and  were  now  the 
heads  of  small  confederacies  of  their  own  :  we  may  safely  conclude,  however, 
that  Aricia,  Bovillse,  Gabii,  Lanuvium,  Laurentum,  Lavinium,  Nomentum,  and 
Tusculum  were  among  the  cities  which  returned  to  their  old  connection,  and  be- 
came as  heretofore  the  equal  allies  of  the  Romans.  Thus  a  force  was  organized 

*'  Gallos  .  .  .  circa  Pedum  consedissc  audi-        M  "  Hernici  devicti  subactique  sunt."  —  Livv. 
tamest."    Livy,  VII.  12.  VII.  15. 

.  33. 


,  VI.  33.  »  Livy,  VII.  12.     "  Rebus  nequicquara  re- 

ivy,  VII.  12.  petitis,  novi  consoles  jussu  populi  bellum  in- 

" 


246  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXVII 

which  might  be  able  at  last  to  meet  the  Gauls  in  the  field,  should  they  again  ven- 
ture to  establish  themselves  on  the  Alban  hills,  or  to  overrun  the  plains  of  Latium. 

But  while  Rome  was  thus  strengthened  by  this  reconciliation  with  her  old  allies, 
xwo  new  Roman  triben  sne  a^so  made  an  addition  to  the  number  of  her  own  citizens.  Two 
new  tribes  were  created,  making  the  whole  number  twenty-seven ; 
and  the  new  citizens  thus  received  into  the  state  appear  to  have  been  in  part  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Ager  Pomptinus,  or  Volscian  lowlands,  the  country  between 
Antium  and  Tarracina  on  the  coast,  and  running  inland  as  far  as  the  roots  of  the. 
Apennines  which  form  the  eastern  wall  of  the  Campagna.  In  the  times  of  the 
later  kings,  the  Romans,  according  to  their  own  stories,  had  made  several  con- 
quests over  the  Volscians  in  this  region,  which  at  any  rate  were  all  lost  again 
during  the  subsequent  advance  of  the  ./Equians  and  Volscians  into  Latium:  but 
in  the  twenty  years  immediately  preceding  the  Gaulish  invasion,  the  Volscian 
frontier  had  again  receded,  and  the  Romans,  as  we  have  seen,  extended  their 
dominion  for  a  time  as  far  as  Tarracina  or  Anxur.  After  the  Gaulish  invasion 
there  followed  another  change  of  fortune ;  when  the  Latins  no  longer  aided  the 
Romans,  but  were  for  some  time  in  alliance  with  the  Volscians,  the  Romans  again 
lost  ground ;  Satricum  became  once  more  Volscian.  and  the  intermediate  coun- 
try between  it  and  Tarracina,  the  much  contested  Ager  Pomptinus,  must  also 
have  returned  to  its  old  masters.  But  whether  it  was  that  the  Volscians  had 
suffered  even  more  than  their  neighbors  from  the  Gaulish  invasions,  or  whether 
the  Samnites  had  already  begun  their  attacks  upon  them  in  the  valley  of  the  Liris 
and  on  the  side  of  Campania,  or  whether  it  is  to  be  ascribed  to  internal  divisions, 
and  to  the  destruction  of  their  old  allies  the  ^Equians,  it  seems  at  any  rate  that 
the  Volscian  nation  was  now  declining,  and  utterly  unable  to  withstand,  as  it  had 
once  done,  the  united  forces  of  Rome  and  Latium.  It  is  probable  that  much  of 
its  territory  became  at  this  period  either  Roman  or  Latin  ;  exactly  in  the  same 
manner  as  the  Sabines  of  Regillus  and  Nomentum  had  lost  their  independence 
soon  after  the  expulsion  of  the  Tarquins.  And  as  the  Claudian  and  Crustuminian 
tribes  were  then  formed  out  of  those  Sabines  who  became  Romans,  while  No- 
mentum and  Regillus  fell  to  the  share  of  the  Latins,  so  a  similar  division  in  all 
probability  took  place  now,  and  the  Pomptine  and  the  Publilian  tribes  must  have 
been  formed  out  of  the  Volscians  who  were  assigned  to  Rome,  whilst  other  por- 
tions of  the  Volscian  territory  and  population  fell  to  the  share  of  the  Latins. 
Thus  the  Volscian  nation  having  been  so  dismembered,  those  states  wMch  still 
survived  became  henceforth  more  individually  distinguished,  and  also,  as  was 
natural,  more  resolute  to  defend  their  independence.  Amongst  this  number 
were  the  people  of  Privernum ;  and  the  ravages  which  they  and  the  people  of 
Velitrse  are  said  to  have  carried  into  the  Roman  territory56  in  this  same  year, 
were  doubtless  more  especially  directed  against  those  whom  they  would  consider 
as  traitors,  their  own  Volscian  countrymen,  the  new  Roman  citizens  of  the  Pomp- 
tine  and  Publilian  tribes. 

This  favorable  aspect  of  the  Roman  affairs  was  still  further  improved  four 
peace  with  Tibur  and  years  afterwards,  when  in  the  year  401  both  Tibur  and  Praeneste*' 
pwmeate.  gave  u^  ^gjj.  long-continued  hostility,  and  obtained,  perhaps  at 

the  price  of  some  sacrifices  of  territory,  a  peace  f Dr  a  certain  number  of  years 
with  Rome.  The  peace  with  Tarquinii  followed,  as  we  have  already  seen,  in  the 
year  404. 

But  in  the  year  402  we  again  hear  of  an  attack  made  by  the  Volscians  upon 
The  growth  of  the  sam"  the  Latins  in  the  direction  of  Tusculum.68  No  particulars  are 
iL!?t\£*ii£Z  mentioned,  perhaps  because  the  allied  Romans  and  Latin  forces 
more  doseiy  toother.  were  jn  fafe  year  commanded  by  B,  Latin  general ;  but  we  may 

56  Livy,  VII.  15.    "  Acccssit .  . .  vastatio  Ko-  19 ;  and  for  the  peace  or  rather  truce  with  Prw 

mani  agri,  quam  Privernates,  Veliterni  deinde,  neste,  see  Diodorus,  XVI.  45. 

uicursione  repentina  fecerunt."  M  Livy,  VII.  19. 

**  For  the  peace  -with  Tibur,  see  Livy,  VII. 


CHAP.  XXVIII.]  ORIGIN  OF  THE  SAMNITES.  247 

suppose  that  Privernum  and  Velitrse,  with  some  of  the  cities  of  the  Volscian 
highlands,  were  the  part  of  the  Volscian  nation  engaged  in  these  hostilities.  From 
this  time  for  the  next  five  years  all  was  quiet:  but  in  the  year  407,  Satricum, 
which  had  been  burnt  some  years  ago  by  the  Latins,  and  the  territory  of  which 
the  Latins  had  appropriated  to  themselves  in  their  late  partition  of  the  Ager 
Pomptinus  with  Rome,  was  again  occupied  and  rebuilt  by  the  Volscians  of  An- 
tium.59  Jealousies  were  arising  about  this  time  between  Rome  and  Latium ;  and 
it  appears  probable  that  there  was  a  party  amongst  the  Latins  disposed  to  form 
a  separate  alliance  with  the  remaining  independent  states  of  the  Volscians,  in 
order  to  be  strengthened  by  them  against  Rome.  Thus  when  the  Auruncans,  or 
Ausonians,  one  of  the  most  southern  people  of  the  Volscian  stock,  began  to  plun- 
der the  Ager  Pomptinus  in  410,  the  Romans,  we  are  told,  suspected  that  this 
inroad  was  actually  made  with  the  concurrence  of  the  Latins,  and  expected60  a 
war  with  the  whole  Latin  confederacy.  Their  fears,  however,  were  groundless 
for  the  present,  and  indeed  the  progress  of  the  Sarrnite  arms  in  Campania  and 
on  the  Liris  was  a  strong  inducement  both  to  the  Eomans  and  Latins  to  defer 
their  jealousies  of  each  other  to  a  more  convenient  season.  Two  years  after- 
wards, in  412,  the  first  Samnite  war  broke  out,  in  which  both  the  Latins  and 
Volscians  to  all  appearance  took  part  with  Rome. 

Thus  in  the  course  of  three-and-twenty  years  Rome  was  finally  delivered  from 
the  scourge  of  the  Gaulish  invasion ;  she  had  secured  her  north-  IncreR8ed  power  of 
ern  frontier  by  a  peace  with  the  neighboring  states  of  Etruria ;  her  Rome' 
old  alliance  with  the  Latins  and  Hernicans,  however  doubtful  might  be  its  dura- 
tion, had  been  restored  in  time  to  enable  her  to  repel  the  Gauls  and  to  crush  the 
Volscians  :  and  it  was  now  ready  to  aid  her  in  her  coming  struggle  with  the 
Samnites.  She  had  not  merely  extended  her  dominion,  but  by  granting  the  full 
rights  of  citizens  to  the  Volscians  of  the  Ager  Pomptinus,  she  had  enlarged  and 
strengthened  her  own  commonwealth.  She  was  thus  prepared  for  the  events 
of  the  next  ten  years,  which  assured  to  her  beyond  dispute  the  first  place  among 
the  nations  of  Italy. 

We  have  seen  that  the  date  of  the  first  plebeian  consulship  coincided  with 
that  of  the  death  of  Epaminondas  at  Mantinea.     The  first  Sam-  chronoio^-. 
nite  war  broke  out  about  two  years  before  the  establishment  of  the  Macedonian 
supremacy  in  Greece  by  Philip's  great  victory  at  Chaeronea. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII, 

THE  FIRST  SAMNITE  WAR— SEDITION  OF  THE  YEAR  408— GENUCIAN  LAWS, 
A.  U.  C.  407-409  NIEBUHR :  410-412  FASTI  CAPIT. :  412-414  LIVY. 


"Majora  jam  hinc  bella  et  viribus  hostiuro  ct  longh 
qnibus  bcllatum  est  dicentur ;  namque  eo  anno  adversus  Samnites,  gentcm  opibus  armisqua 
validam,  mota  arma."— Livv,  VII.  29. 


THE  Sabines,  who  dwelt  amidst  the  highest  mountains  of  the  Apennines, 
where  the  snow  lies  all  the  year  long,  and  which  send  forth  the  ^^  concc.rain?  th. 
streams  to  run  into  the  two  seas  northward  and  southward,  were1  •"««»' "wsamnito". 

*  Livy,  VII.  27.  «  Livy,  VII.  28.  *  Strabo,  V.  p.  250.    Dionysius,  II.  49. 


248  HISTORY  OF  ROME,  [CHAP.  XXVIH 

at  war  for  many  years  together  with  their  neighbors  the  Umbrians.  At  last  they 
made  a  vow,  that  if  they  should  conquer  their  enemies,  all  the  living  creatures1 
born  in  their  land  in  that  year  should  be  devoted  to  the  gods  as  sacred.  They 
did  conquer,  and  they  offered  in  sacrifice  accordingly  all  the  lambs  and  calves 
and  kids  and  pigs  of  that  year,  and  such  animals  as  might  not  be  sacrificed,  they1 
redeemed.  But  still  their  land  would  not  yield  its  fruits,  and  when  they  thought 
what  was  the  cause  of  it,  they  considered  that  their  vow  had  not  been  duly  per- 
formed ;  for  all  their  own  children4  born  within  that  year  had  been  kept  back 
from  the  gods,  and  had  neither  been  sacrificed  nor  redeemed.  So  they  devoted 
all  their  children  to  the  god  Mamers,  and  when  they  were  grown  up  they  sent 
them  away  to  become  a  new  people  in  a  new  land.  When  the  young  men  set 
out  on  their  way,  it  happened  that  a  bull  went  before  them ;  and  they  thought 
that  Mamers  had  sent  him  to  be  their  guide,  and  they  followed  him.  He  laid 
himself  down8  to  rest  for  the  first  time  when  he  had  come  to  the  land  of  the 
Opicans;  and  the  Sabines  thought  that  this  was  a  sign  to  them,  and  they 
fell  upon  the  Opicans,  who  dwelt  in  scattered  villages6  without  walls  to  defend 
them,  and  they  drove  them  out,  and  took  possession  of  their  land.  Then  they 
offered  the  bull  in  sacrifice  to  Mamers,  who  had  sent  him  to  be  their  guide ; 
and  a  bull  was  the  device7  which  they  bore  in  after  ages ;  and  they  them- 
selves were  no  more  called  Sabines,  but  they  took  a  new  name  and  were  called 
Samnites. 

Such  is  the  legendary  account  of  the  origin  of  that  great  people  whose  histor} 
what  truth  is  contained  is  now  beginning  to  connect  itself  with  that  of  Rome.     In  two 

points  it  has  preserved  the  truth ;  the  Samnites  were  a  people  of 
Sabine  extraction,  and  had  established  themselves  as  conquerors  in  the  country 
of  the  Opicans.  But  the  two  races  were,  probably,  not  very  remote  from  each 
other,  and  thus  it  is  less  surprising  that  the  conquerors  should  have  adopted  the 
language  of  their  subjects ;  for  the  Samnites  spoke  Opican,  or  Oscan,  and  the 
legends  of  their  coins,  and  their  remaining  inscriptions  are  in  the  Oscan  character. 
Still  the  two  people  were  distinct ;  and  the  Samnites  regarded  neither  their  Opi- 
can  subjects  in  Campania,  nor  their  Opican  neighbors,  the  ^Equians  and  Volscians, 
as  their  own  proper  countrymen. 

One  single  contemporary  notice  of  the  Samnites8  in  the  days  of  their  greatness 

has  descended  to  our  times  :  and  this  is  contained  in  two  short  lines 

Notice  of  the  Sammtcs        i»  .1        i-k      •    i  coi  i          i  -i  in  •  T     • 

inthe Peripiu.  of  Scy-  of  the  .reriplus  of  Scylax,  who  describes  the  baramtes  as  living  on 

the  coast  of  the  Lower  Sea  between  the  Campanians  and  Luca- 

nians,  and  the  length  of  their  coast-line  was  no  more,  he  tells  us,  than  half  a 

day's  sail.     The  space  which  they  occupied  reached  nearly  from  the  Sarnus  to 

the  emblem  of  the 
/the  well-known  type 
"Two  or  three  specimens  of  this 
erunt^  JoVi  fieri."  coin  are  to  be  seen  in  the  British  Museum. 

3  Ta  (tiv  Karfdvoav,  Ta  If  KaOtifWffav.     Strabo,          8  Ka//ir«vwj'  fit  ixovrai  Saimrar   Kal   TrnpdTr\ovs 
\T.  p.  250.    What  was  not  sacrificed,  but  yet    wri  'Zawir&v  >V*Pa?  riftiffv,  p.  3.     Niebuhr  reads 
was  consecrated  to  the  gods,  must  have  been    Zawtrai  instead  of  A«i>v?ra«  in  the  following  page 
redeemed  before  it  could  be  employed  for  or-    of  Scylax,  urging  that  the  description  is  inappli- 
dinary  purposes.  cable  to  the  Daunians,  as  they  neither  extended 

4  Strabo  as  before.    Festus  in  "Mamertini."    across  all  Italy  from  sea  to  sea,  nor  lived  to  the 
6  This  reminds  us  of  the  story  of  the  white    N.  W.  of  Mount  Drium  or  Garganus.    I  think 

sow  which  guided  JEneas  to  the  place  where  he  that  this  conjecture  is  highly  probable,  because 

was  to  build  his  city.     A  wolf  was  said  to  have  Scylax  had  not  mentioned  the  Dauriians  in  his 

done  the  same  service  to  the  Hirpinians,  who  description  of  the  coasts  of  the  Lower  Sea,  but 

were  also  of  Samnite  extraction.  had  mentioned  the  Samnites  ;   and  the  only 

*  'EriJyxavov  ti  xu^Sov  ijuvrt?.    Like  the  Mto-  other  people  who  had  stretched  from  sea  to  sea, 

J»ans  in  the  time  of  the  Peloponncsian  war,  the  Etruscans  or  Tyrrhenians,  are  mentioned 

Thucyd.  III.  94;  or  like  the  Casali,  which  to  separately  in  the  description  or  both  coasts.    If 

this  day  contain  the  greatest  part  of  the  popula-  so,  Scylax  includes  within  the  limits  of  the  Sam- 


tion  in  the  valleys  of  the  central  Apennines.  nites,  not  only  the  country  of  the  Frentanians, 

*  Micali  gives  an  engraving  of  a  coin,  struck  who  were  notoriously  of  Samnite  origin,  but 

by  the  Italian  allies  during  their  great  war  with  also  that  of  their  neighbors,  the  Marrucinians 

the  Romans  in  the  seventh  cent-ury  of  Rome,  and  Vestimans. 


CHAP.  XXVIII.1  GEOGRAPHY  OF  SAMNIUM.  249 

the  Silarus  ;  Neapolis,  according  to  Scylax,  is  in  Campania  ;  Posidonia,  or  Pses- 
tum,  is  in  Lucania.  But  the  Saranite  possessions  on  or  near  the  coast,  even  though 
they  once  included  the  famous  cities  of  Herculaneum  and  Pompeii,9  of  Nola,  Nu- 
ceria.  and  Abella,  were  a  mere  recent  offshoot  from  the  great  body  of  the  nation  : 
the  true  Samnium  lies  wholly  in  the  interior,  and  having  been  thus  removed  from 
the  notice  of  the  Greeks,  from  whom  alone  we  derive  our  knowledge  of  the  an- 
cient world  before  the  dominion  of  the  Romans,  it  has  been  fated  to  remain  in 
perpetual  obscurity. 

Nearly  due  north  of  Naples,  there  stands  out  from  the  central  line  of  the~ 
Apennines,  like  one  of  the  towers  of  an  old  castle  from  the  lower  Geography  of  samm- 
and  more  retiring  line  of  the  ordinary  wall,  a  huge  mass  of  mount-  nnti--The  Matese- 
ains,  known  at  present  by  the  name  of  the  Matese.  On  more  than  three-fourths 
of  its  circumference  it  is  bounded  by  the  Volturno  and  its  tributary  streams,  the 
Galore10  and  the  Tamaro,  which  send  their  waters  into  the  Lower  or  Tyrrhenian  Sea ; 
but  on  its  northern  side,  its  springs  and  torrents  run  down  into  the  Biferno,  and 
so  make  their  way  to  the  Adriatic.  A  very  narrow  isthmus  or  shoulder,  high 
enough  to  form  the  watershed  between  the  two  seas,  connects  Ibe  Matese  at  its 
N.  W.  and  N.  E.  extremities  with  the  main  Apennine  line,  and  thus  prevents  it 
from  being  altogether  insulated. 

The  circumference  of  the  Matese,  as  above  described,  is  between  seventy11  and 
eighty  miles.  Its  character  bears  some  resemblance  to  that  of  the  Its  extent  and  cliarac. 
district  of  Craven,  in  Yorkshire,  or  more  closely  to  that  of  the  ter> 
Jura.  It  is  a  vast  mass  of  limestone,12  rising  from  its  base  abruptly  in  the  huge 
wall-like  cliffs  or  scars,  so  characteristic  of  limestone  mountains,  to  the  height  of 
about  3000  feet ;  and  within  this  gigantic  inclosure  presenting  a  great  variety 
of  surface,  sloping  inwards  from  the  edge  of  the  cliffs  into  deep  valleys,  and  then 
rising  again  in  the  highest  points  of  the  centre  of  the  range,  and  especially  in 
the  Monte  Miletto,  which  is  its  loftiest  summit,  to  an  elevation  computed  at  6000 
feet.  Its  upland  valleys  offer,  like  those  of  the  Jura,  a  wide  extent  of  pasture, 
and  endless  forests  of  magnificent  beech-wood  ;  it  is  rich  in  springs,  gushing  out 
of  the  ground  with  a  full  burst  of  water,  and  suddenly  disappearing  again  into 
some  of  the  numerous  caverns  in  which  such  limestone  rocks  abound.  In  this 
manner  the  waters  of  a  small  lake  in  the  heart  of  the  mountain  have  no  visible 
outlet  ;13  but  the  people  of  the  country  say  that  they  break  out  at  the  foot  of  a 
deep  cliff  or  cove,  aboiv  two  or  three  miles  distant,  and  form  the  full  stream  of 
the  Torano. 

On  the  highest  points  of  the  Matese  the  snow  lies  till  late14  in  the  summer ;  and 
suet  is  their  elevation,  that  the  view  from  them  extends  across  the  whole  breadth 
of  luil}7  from  sea  to  sea.  No  heat  of  the  summer  scorches  the  perpetual  fresh- 

*  Herculaneum  and  Pompeii  both  stood,  it  is  zionario  del  Eegno  di  Napoli,  Parte  2,  in  "  Ma- 
true,  to  the  northward  of  the  Sarnus  ;  and  Stra-  tese." 

bo  expressly  says  that  they  were  wrested  by  the  u  This  limestone  is,  in  some  parts,  bitumin- 

Samnites  from  the  Etruscans,  V.  p.  247.    This,  ous,  and  contains  some  fossil  remains  of  fish, 

however,  was  the  case  also  with  Cuma  and  Ca-  There  are  some  volcanic  or  tufaceous  rocks  in 

pua;  but  as  Scylax  places  these  towns  in  Cam-  the  Matese,  resembling  probably  the   beds  of 

pania,  and  distinguishes  it  from  the  country  of  tuff  which  are  found  on  the  slopes  of  the  Apen- 

theSamnites,  a  little  to  the  south  of  it,  itisprob-  nines  in  other  places,  as,  for  instance,  on  the 

able  that  at  the  time  ot  the  first  Samnite  war,  road  from  Naples  to  Avellino  in  the  pass  of 

which  is  nearly  the  date  of  Scylax's  Periplus,  Monteibrte. 

most  of  this  district  had  recovered  its  indepcn-  13  See  Keppel  Craven,  Excurs.  in  the  Abruzzi, 

dence,  and  the  Samnite  possessions  were  reduced  Vol.  I.  p.  18.    The  English  reader  will  remem- 

to  the  limits  mentioned  in  the  text.  ber  Malham  Tarn,  and  the  fall  burst  of  water 

The  Galore  runs  along  the  southern  side  of  with  which  the  Aire  rushes  out  from  under  the 

the  Matese:  the  Tamaro,  which  bounds  its  east-  rocks  of  Malham  Cove.      Similar  phenomena 

crn  side,  runs  into  the  Calore  from  the  north  are  frequent  in  the  limestone  mountains  of  Pelo- 

nearly  at  right  angles.  ponnesus. 

u  Mr.  Keppel  Craven  says,  that  it  is  reckoned  M  See  Giustiniani,  Dizionario.     Mr.  Keppel 

to  measure  seventy  miles. — Excursions  in  the  Craven  found  the  upper  half  of  the  Mateso  cov- 

Abruzzi,  &c.  Vol.  II.  p.  166.     Giustiniani  gives  ered  with  snow  in  May :  it  would  remain  ncuch 

it  at  sixty-two  Neapolitan    miles,  which  are  later  on  the  highest  summits, 
re  than  seventy  English  ones.—- See  his  Di- 


250 


HISTORY  OF  ROME. 


[CHAP.  XXVIU 


uess  of  these  mountain  pastures  ;  and  during  the  hottest  months15  the  cattle  from 
the  surrounding  country  are  driven  up  thither  to  feed. 

This  singular  mountain,  with  its  subject  valleys,  was  the  heart  of  the  country 
Principal  divisions  and  °f  tne  Samnites.  Of  the  two  principal  divisions  of  the,  Sarnnites, 
towmofsamnium.  one>  t]ie  Caudinians,  occupied  the  southern  side  of  the  Matese,  and 
the  other,  the  Pentrians,  dwelt  on  its  northern  side.  To  the  former  belonged  the 
towns  of  Allifoe16  on  the  Vulturnus,  of  Telesia,  the  country  of  that  Pontius  Tele- 
sinus,17  who  struggled  so  valiantly  against  the  fortune  of  Sylla  in  the  great  battle 
at  the  Colline  gate,  and  of  Beneventum.18  To  the  Pentrians  belonged  .^Esernia19 
on  one  of  the  first  feeders  of  the  Vulturnus,  Bovianum20  on  the  Biferno  or  Tifernus, 
and  Sepinum21  on  the  E.  of  the  Matese,  not  far  from  the  sources  of  the  Tamaro, 

Besides  the  Caudinians  and  Pentrians,  there  were,  doubtless,  other  tribes  more  or 
ted  with  less  closely  connected  with  the  Samnite  name,  who  took  part  in  the 
great  contest  of  their  nation  with  Rome.  The  very  names  of  some 
of  these  may  have  perished  ;  for  it  is  by  mere  accident  that  we  hear  of  the  Cara- 
cenians,22  a  tribe  to  the  north  of  the  Pentrians,  who  dwelt  in  the  upper  valley  of 
the  Sangro  or  Sagrus,  and  to  whom  belonged  the  town  of  Aufidena.  The  Fren- 
tanians,  who  reached  down  to  the  very  shores  of  the  Adriatic,  are  called  a  Sam- 
nite people  ;23  yet  in  the  accounts  of  the  wars  with  Rome,  they  are  spoken  of  as 
distinct  ;  and  they  seem  to  have  taken  no  part  in  the  first  war.  And  the  Hir- 
pinians,  whose  country  is  also  included  within  the  limits  of  Samnium,  and  who 
dwelt  to  the  S.  E.  of  the  rest  of  their  countrymen,  occupying  the  upper  valleys 
of  the  Galore  and  Sabbato  on  the  south  of  the  Apennines,  and  of  the  Ofanto  or 
Aufidus  on  the  northern  side,  are  on  some  occasions24  distinguished  from  the  Sam- 


Tribes  connec 
the  sa 


15  They  are  turned  out  about  the  end  of  June. 
See  Keppel  Craven,  Vol.  I.  p.^20. 

16  Alife,  which  still  retains  its  ancient  name, 
ranks  even  now  as  a  city,  but  the  bishop  resides 
at  Piedimonte,  a  flourishing  town  about  three 
miles  distant,  and  Alife  is  at  present  almost  de- 
populated from  malaria.    See  Keppel  Craven, 
Vol.  I.  p.  21. 

"  And  according  to  the  writer  of  the  little 
work,  "de  viris  illustribus,"  it  was  the  coun- 
try also  of  that  still  greater  C.  Pontius,  who  de- 
feated the  Romans  at  the  Caudine  Forks.  The 
remains  of  Telesia  are  to  be  seen  at  the  distance 
of  about  a  mile  to  the  N.  W.  of  the  modern 
town  of  Telese,  which,  like  Alife,  has  almost 
gone  to  ruin  from  the  influence  of  the  malaria. 
See  Keppel  Craven,  Vol.  II.  p.  173,  174. 

18  This  is  still  a  well-built  and  flourishing 
town,  containing  a  population  of  18,000  souls. 
See  Keppel  Craven's  Tour  in  the  southern  prov- 
inces of  Naples,  p.  22,  28. 

18  The  present  town,  still  called  Isernia,  stands 
on  a  narrow  ridge  between  two  torrents,  run- 
ning down  in  very  deep  ravines,  which  meet 
a  little  below,  and  then  fall  into  the  Vandra, 
about  two  miles  above  its  junction  with  the  Vol- 
turno.  It  is  a  flourishing  place,  with  various 
manufactures,  and  a  population  of  about  7000 
souls.  Large  remains  of  polygonal  walls  are 
still  visible,  which  belong,  probably,  to  the  days 
of  its  independence  as  a^Samnite  city.  The  re- 
markable tunnel,  hewn  through  the  rock  for 
about  a  mile,  and  still  used,  according  to  its 
original  purpose,  for  supplying  the  town  with 
water,  is  probably  a  work  of  the  Roman  times. 
See  Keppel  Craven,  Abruzzi,  Vol.  II.  p.  81-84. 

20  Bovianum,  or  Boiano,  also  contains  re- 
mains of  polygonal  walls,  built  of  very  large 
atones,  put  as  closely  together  as  possible,  and 
the  smaller  interstices  filled  up  with  remarkable 
nicety.  It  is  a  cold  place,  being  shaded  by  the 
Matese,  which  rises  directly  to  the  south  of  it; 


and  the  Biferno  so  floods  the  valley,  that  it  is  a 
constant  swamp,  and  the  air  is  damp  and  foggy ; 
but  there  is  no  malaria,  because  it  has  no  severe 
heats  in  summer.  Its  population,  according  to 
Giustiniani,  writing  in  1797,  was  then  3500  souls. 
Mr.  Keppel  Craven  rates  it  at  present  as  low  as 
1500.  Abruzzi,  Vol.  II.  p.  164. 

21  The  actual  town  of  Sepino  stands  on  a  hill 
at  some  distance  from  the  remains  of  the  ancient 
city,  which  are  to  be  seen  in  the  valley  below. 
These  remains  are  very  large  and  remarkably 
perfect,  but  they  are  of  Roman,  as  I  imagine, 
rather  than  of  Samnite  origin.  One  of  the  fa- 
mous cattle-tracks  (calles,  tratturi,  delle  peco- 
re),  which  have  existed  unaltered  from  time 
immemorial  for  the  yearly  migrations  of  the 
cattle  from  and  to  the  coast,  runs  straight 
through  the  ruins  of  the  ancient  town  from  E. 
to  W.  See  Keppel  Craven,  Abruzzi,  Vol.  II.  p. 
131,  135. 

23  The  name  is  only  noticed,  I  believe,  by  Zo- 
naras  and  Ptolemy ;  unless  it  be  the  same  with 
the  Carentini  of  Pliny.  The  Italian  writers, 
Romanelli,  for  instance,  and  Micali,  propose  to 
read  Sariceni,  as  if  the  name  were  derived  from 
the  neighboring  river  Sarus  or  Sangro.  But 
this  is  exceedingly  uncertain.  Alfidena,  or  A\i- 
fidena,  contains  at  present  about  1500  souls  :  it 
stands  on  the  Rio  Torto,  a  torrent  which  just 
below  the  town  plunges  down  into  a  very  deep 
and  narrow  glen,  about  a  mile  above  its  junc- 
tion with  the  Sangro.  There  exists  considerable 
remains  of  polygonal  walls,  and  an  Oscan  in- 
scription on  the  bridge  which  crosses  the  Rio 
Torto.  Keppel  Craven,  Abruzzi,  Vol.  II.  p.  58, 
59. 

23  Strabo  calls  them  -Zawirii&viiQvos,  V.  p.  241 ; 
yet  Livy  represents  them  as  suing  for  and  ob- 
taining peace  as  a  distinct  people,  after  a  treaty 
had  been  concluded  with  the  Samnites,  IX.  45. 

24  As,  for  instance,  "Hannibal  ex  Hirpinis  ia 
Samnium  transit."    Livy,  XXII.  13. 


CHAP.  XXVIII]         STATE  AND  HABITS  OF  THE  SAMNITES.  251 

nites  ;  and  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  they  took  part  in  the  beginning  of  the 
contest  with  Rome ;  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  that  when  they  became  involved  in 
it,  the  other  tribes  which  had  been  first  engaged  continued  to  maintain  it  without 
interruption. 

The  country  of  the  Samnites  still  retains  its  ancient  features,  and  our  own  eyes 
can  inform  us  sufficiently  of  its  nature.  But  of  the  Samnite  peo-  uwto  fa  known  rf  ft< 
pie  we  can  gain  no  distinct  notions  whatever.  Unknown  and  «tate  of  the  $&mmt* 
unnoticed  by  the  early  Greek  writers,  they  had  been  well-nigh 
exterminated  before  the  time  of  those  Roman  writers  whose  works  have  come 
down  to  us ;  and  in  the  Augustan  age,  nothing  survived  of  them  but  a  miserable 
remnant,  retaining  no  traceable  image  of  the  former  state  of  the  nation.  Our 
knowledge  of  the  Samnites  is  literally  limited  to  the  single  fact  that  they  were 
a  brave  people,  who  clung  resolutely  to  their  national  independence.  We  neither 
know  what  was  the  connection  of  the  several  tribes  of  the  nation  with  each  other, 
nor  what  was  the  constitution  of  each  tribe25  within  itself.  We  know  nothing 
distinct  of  their  military  system  and  tactic,  except  that  they  did  not  use  the  or- 
der of  the  phalanx  ;  the  sword  and  large  shield1"  were  their  favorite  arms,  and 
not  the  small  shield  and  pike.  We  do  not  know  how  they  governed  the  coun- 
tries which  they  conquered,  nor  how  far  they  adopted  the  Roman  system  of 
colonies.27  Their  wealth,  manner  of  living,  and  general  civilization  we  can  but 
guess  at ;  and  to  add  to  all  this,  the  very  story  of  their  wars  with  Rome  having 
been  recorded  by  no  contemporary  historian,  has  been  corrupted,  as  usual,  by  the 
Roman  vanity  ;  and  neither  the  origin  of  the  contest,  nor  its  circumstances,  nor 
the  terms  of  the  several  treaties  which  were  made  before  its  final  issue,  have  been 
elated  truly. 

Thus  destitute  of  direct  information,  we  may  be  pardoned  for  endeavoring  to 

eir  principal 
produce. 


[tract  some  further  conclusions  from  the  few  facts  known  to  us.  xhein 
le  nature  of  their  country  makes  it  certain  that  the  principal  ofl>r 


ealth  of  the  Samnites  consisted  in  their  cattle.     Wool  and  hides  must  have 
en  the  chief  articles  which  they  had  to  sell  to  their  neighbors, 
ut  the  high  elevation  of  much  of  their  country,  as  it  preserved  their  cat&Vntke se»- 
e  pasture  unscorched  by  the  summer  heats,  was,  on  the  other 
and,  especially  exposed  to  the  rigor  of  the  winter  ;  the  snow  lay  so  long  on  the 
round  that  their  cattle  could  not  have  found  subsistence.     And  as,  in  like  man- 
ner, the  parched  plains  of  Apulia  yield  no  grass  in  the  summer,  the  inhabitants 
of  the  centre  of  Italy,  and  of  the  coast  of  the  Adriatic,  must  always  have  been 
dependent  on  each  other  ;  and  the  Samnites,  either  by  treaty  or  by  conquest, 
must  have  obtained  the  right  of  pasturing  their  cattle  in  winter  in  the  low  grounds 
near  the  sea,  either  on  one  side  of  the  peninsula  or  on  the  other.     On  the  shores 

Kthe  Adriatic  this  was  probably  secured  by  their  close  connection  with  the 
ntanians,  a  people  of  their  own  race ;  and  by  their  constant  friendly  inter- 
Micali  states  that  the  Samnites  were  gov-    Samnites.     Sallust,  Bell.  Catilin,  52.      Athe- 
d  by  a  priestly  aristocracy,  like  the  Etrus-    nseus,  VI.  106,  p.  273.    Diodorus,  XXIII.   L 
.     He  gives  no  authority  for  this,  and  cer-    Fragm.  Vatic. 
y  it  is  not  proved  by  their  mere  practice  of       m  Micali says  that  "their  society  was  founded 
enlisting  their  soldiers  on  great  emergencies    on  a  system  of  agrarian  laws,"  and  he  quotes  as 
with  certain  solemn  religious  ceremonies.  his  authority  for  this  a  fragment  of  Varro  pro- 

28  Livy  expressly  speaks  of  them  as  scutati,  served  to  us  by  Philargyrius,  one  of  the  scho- 
and  describes  the  form  of  their  shield,  IX.  40.  liasts  on  Virgil,  in  his  note  on  Georgic.  II.  167. 
The  use  of  the  scutum  in  itself  implies  that  the  The  fragment  runs  thus :  "  Terra  cultures  causa 
sword,  and  not  the  spear,  was  the  offensive  attributa  olim  particulatim  hpminibus,  ut  Etru- 
weapon  generally  used;  we  are  told  also  that  ria  Tuscis,  Samnium  Sabellis."  But  I  do  not 
the  Campanians  called  their  gladiators  Samnites,  understand  this  as  saying  any  thing  of  agrarian 
because  they  equipped  them  with  arms  taken  laws,  but  merely  that  the  earth  became  the  pro- 
from  the  Samnites  (Livy,  IX.  40) ;  and  in  such  perty  of  particular  portions  and  races  of  man- 
combats,  as  the  very  name  shows,  the  sword  kind,  instead  of  being  all  common  to  all ;  and 
was  the  common  weapon.  Add  to  this  the  story,  that  thus  Etruria  was  given  (by  the  gods,  I 
whether  well  or  ill  fonnded,  as  to  the  particular  think,  and  not  by  an  agrarian  law)  to  the  peo- 
fact,  that  the  Romans  borrowed  their  arms,  of-  pie  of  the  Etruscans,  and  Samnium  to  the  Sa- 
fensive  and  defensive,  "  anna  et  tola,"  from  the  bellines. 


252  HISTORY  OF  HOME.  [CHAP.  XXVIIl 

course28  with  the  Marrucinians  and  Vestinians  ;  while  their  arms,  by  winning  pos- 
session of  Campania,  procured  for  them  an  access  to  the  coast  on  that  side,  and 
gave  them  the  full  enjoyment  of  that  soft  and  sunny  plain  which  extends  along 
the  shore  of  the  Gulf  of  Salerno. 

It  is  not  certain,  as  I  have  said,  that  the  Samnites  governed  their  Campanian 
Their  conquer  in Cam-  conquests  by  means  of  colonies,  but  there  is  every  probability  that 
they  did  so.  The  Samnite  colonists  would  thus  constitute  the  rul- 
ing body  in  every  city :  and,  like  the  early  Roman  patricians,  might  be  called 
indifferently  either  the  burghers  or  the  aristocracy.  Niebuhr  supposes  that  the 
sixteen  hundred  Campanian  knights,  who  in  the  great  Latin  war  are  said  to  have 
stood  aloof  from  the  mass  of  the  people,  and  to  have  remained  faithful  to  Rome, 
were  the  colony  of  the  Samnite  conquerors.  And  the  frequent  revolts  which  we 
read  of,  from  one  alliance  to  another,  may  mark  a  corresponding  domestic  revo- 
lution, in  which  thfc  colony  either  lost  or  re-established  its  ascendency.  Yet  it 
may  have  happened  that  the  colony,  in  some  cases,  had  really  identified  itself 
with  the  old  inhabitants,  and  felt  with  them  more  than  with  the  people  from  whom 
they  were  themselves  descended.  In  this  manner  the  Samnite  colonies  may 
have  become  in  feeling  thoroughly  Campanian,  and  have  wished  to  make  them- 
selves independent  of  their  own  Samnite  countrymen  in  Campanium ;  and  thus, 
although  the  highest  of  the  Campanian  nobility  were  of  Samnite  extraction,  yet 
Campania  may  have  become,  as  it  is  represented,  wholly  independent  of  the  Sara- 
nite  nation  within  no  long  period  after  its  first  conquest. 

Not  the  slightest  notice  remains  of  the  effect  produced  on  the  Samnite  domin- 
ion by  the  irruptions  of  the  Gauls.     Yet  in  the  year  394-395  the 

How  they  were  affected     _.        .  ^    .       -         .    *  10Q   .         -^  .  i        /•  1-1 

by  the  invasions  of  the  Gauls  had  wmtered;s  in  Campania ;  and  after  their  last  appear- 
ance in  Latium  in  406,  they  are  said  to  have  retreated  into  Apulia30 
through  the  land  of  the  Volscians  and  Falernians ;  so  that  they  must  have  passed 
as  it  seems  through  a  part  of  Samnium.  The  heart  of  the  Samnite  territory 
indeed  they  were  not  likely  to  assail ;  they  were  not  expert  in  besieging  walled 
cities,  nor  would  they  be  tempted  to  invade  the  mountain  fastnesses  of  the  cen- 
tral Apennines.  Thus  if  the  Samnites  did  not  choose  to  engage  with  them  in  the 
plains,  their  substantial  power  would  be  little  impaired  by  their  invasions ;  and 
they  received  from  them  perhaps  no  greater  mischief  than  the  ravaging  of  their 
territory  in  Campania,  and  the  loss  of  their  cattle,  which  might  have  been  sent 
down  to  the  coast  for  their  winter  pasture.  It  is  possible,  however,  that  a  dread 
of  the  Gauls  may  have  been  one  of  the  causes  which  led  to  a  treaty  of  alliance 
between  Rome  and  fne  Samnites31  in  the  year  401. 

The  first  Samnite  war,  which  broke  out  eleven  years  afterwards,  was  no  doubt 

58  The  Vestinians  join  the  Samnites  in  424,  towards  their  neighbor?    But  what  if  the  inju- 

and  the  Marsians,  Pelignians,  and  Marrucinians,  rious  treatment  of  the  Samnites  consisted  in 

are  represented  as  so  closely  connected  with  the  compelling  the  Apulians  *:o  find  pasture  for  their 

Vestinians,  that  an  attack  on  these  would  neces-  cattle  in  the  winter ;  exactly  as  the  Arragonese 

sarily  involve  the  Eomans  in  a  war  with  all  the  kings  of  Naples  obliged  all  tenants  holding  of 

others.    Livy,  VIII.  29.    I  think  it  may  be  con-  the  crown  in  Apulia  to  let  their  lands  during  the 

eluded  that  the  Marsians  and  Palignians  were  winter  to  the  cattle-owners  of  the  Abruzzi ;  and 

on  friendly  terms  with  the  Samnites,  from  the  although  the  French  took  off  these  restrictions, 

fact  that  the  Latins,  then  in  alliance  with  Rome,  yet  the  present  government  has,  in  a  great  mea- 

attacked  the  Pelignians  in  the  first  year  of  the  sure,  reimposed  them :  and  the  Apulian  pro- 

Samnite  war  (Livy,  VII.  38) ;  and  that  as  soon  prietors  are  still  obliged  to  reserve  two- thirds 

as  peace  is  made  between  Rome  and  Samnium,  of  their  land  in  pasture,  and  have  only  the  eul- 

the  Roman  armies  march  through  the  country  tivation  of  one-third  left  to  their  own  disposal- 

of  the  Marsians  and  Pelignians,  in   order  to  See  Keppel  Craven,  Abruzzi,  Vol.   I.  p.  267- 

reach  Campania.    Livy,  VIII.  6.  269. 

According  to  Livy,  IX.  13,  the  Apulians  were  w  Livy,  VII.  11. 

hostile  to  the  Samnites,  because  they  were  op-  *°  Livy,  VII.  26. 

pressed  by  them,  and  their  country  frequently  81  Livy,  VII.  19.     Diodorus,  XVI.  45.     It 

*aid  waste.     Had  Livy  any  authority  for  this  may  be  observed  that  Dipdorus  agrees  with 

last  expression,  "campestria  et  maritima  loca  Livy  in  placing  this  treatv  in  the  consulship  of 

.  .  .  ipsi  montani  atque  agrestes  depopulaban-  M.  Fabius  Ambustus;  and  T.  Quintius ;  but  the 

tur,"  or  did  he  put  it  in  merely  as  a  natural  way  consulship  is  according  to  him  the  2d  year  of 

•f  accounting  for  the  ill-will  of  the  Apulians  the  107th  Olympiad. 


p.  XXVIIL] 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  WAR, 


253 


„ 

Causes  of  the  nrtt  wat 

Roinani 


sioned  in  part  by  the  advance  of  the  Samnite  arms  in  the  val- 

•I  *  _  _.  _       _  . 

ley  of  the  Liris,  and  by  the  war  between  Rome  and  the  Auruncans  jj* 
in  the  year  410,  which  brought  the  Roman  legions  into  the  imme- 
diate neighborhood  of  Campania.32  At  this  time  Rome  and  Latium  were  in 
league  together,  and  jointly  pressing  upon  the  Volscians  ;  their  power  held  out 
hopes  to  the  Campanians  that,  by  their  aid,  they  might  be  defended  against  the 
Samnites.  This  aid  was  in  the  year  412  become  highly  needful  ;  the  Campa- 
nians, having  ventured  to  defend  the  Sidicinians33  against  an  attack  of  the  Sam- 
nites, had  drawn  the  hostilities  of  the  Samnites  upon  themselves,  and  we  find 
that  a  Samnite  army  occupied  the  ridge  of  Tifata  immediately  above  Capua,  and 
from  thence  descended  like  the  ^Equians  and  Volscians  from  Algidus,  to  the 
plain  before  the  walls  of  the  city.  In  this  state  of  distress,  Capua  implored  the 
protection  of  Rome  and  Latium,  and  obtained  it.34  A  war  between  Samnium  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  connected  Romans,  Latins,  and  Campanians  on  the  other, 
was  the  immediate  consequence. 

The  Roman  consuls  in  this  year  were  M.  Valerius  Corvus,  and  A.  Cornelius 
Cossus.  Valerius  is  the  hero  of  that  famous  legend  already  re-  chapter  of  the  *» 
lated,  which  told  how  he  had  vanquished  in  his  early  youth  a  °°™uofthew»r. 
gigantic  Gaul  by  the  aid  of  a  heaven-sent  crow.  The  acts  of  his  consulship  have 
been  disguised  by  a  far  worse  spirit  ;  they  were  preserved,  not  by  any  regular 
historian,  but  in  the  mere  funeral  orations  and  traditional  stories  of  his  own  fam- 
ily ;  and  were  at  last  still  further  corrupted  by  the  flattery  of  a  client  of  his 
house,  the  falsest  of  all  the  Roman  writers,  Valerius  of  Antium.  Hence  we  have 
no  real  military  history  of  the  Samnite  war  in  this  first  campaign,  but  accounts 
of  the  worthy  deeds  of  two  famous  Romans,  M.  Valerius  Corvus,  and  P.  Decius 
Mus.  They  are  the  heroes  of  the  two  stories,  and  there  is  evidently  no  other 
object  in  either  of  them  but  to  set  off  their  glory.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  a  great 
mistake35  to  regard  such  mere  panegyric  as  history. 

All  that  history  can  relate  is  that  the  Romans,  we  know  not  with  what  allied 


83  Livy,  VII.  28.  Niebuhr  supposes  that  by 
the  name  of  Auruncans  are  meant  the  Volscians 
on  the  Liris,  and  that  Sora  was  an  Auruncan 
town.  Vol.  III.  p.  101.  Livy  himself  does  not 
seem  to  have  had  this  notion ;  for  the  Aurun- 
can and  Volscian  wars  are  in  his  accounts  care- 
fully distinguished,  and  Sora  is  said  to  have 
been  taken  "from  the  Volscians.  The  Aurun- 
eans,  on  the  other  hand,  are  mentioned  again 
in  the  8th  Book,  c.  15,  and  Suessa  Aurunca  is 
named  as  their  chief  town.  Now  Suessa  is 
Sessa,  a  town  standing  on  the  crater  of  an  old 
volcano,  just  above  the  modern  road  from  Na- 
ples to  Koine,  a  few  miles  to  the  east  of  the 
Garigliano  or  Liris.  Is  there  any  reason  for 
thinking  that  these  Auruncans  were  more 
closely  connected  with  the  Volscians  of  Sora 
and  Arpinum  than  with  those  of  Antium,  or 
that  the  name  Auruncan  was  at  this  period  ex- 
tended to  any  other  Opican  people  than  to  those 
of  the  neighborhood  of  Sessa  ? 

*3  Livy,  VII.  29.  The  Sidicinians  were  close 
neighbors  to  the  Auruncans,  living  on  the  same 
cluster  of  volcanic  hills  which  form  the  bound- 
ary of  the  plain  of  Naples  on  the  road  towards 
Koine.  Teanum,  now  Teano,  was  their  princi- 
pal town. 

M  Livy,  VII.  31.  But  it  is  impossible  to  be- 
lieve the  statement  in  Livy  that  they  applied  to 
the  Romans  only,  or  that  they  purchased  the 
Roman  protection  by  a  literal  surrender,  dedi- 
tip,  of  themselves  and  their  city  to  the  sovereign 
disposal  ^of  Koine.  Every  step  in  the  Samnite 
and  Latin  wars  has  been  so  disguised  by  the 
Koman  annalists,  that  a  probable  narratiVe  of 
those  events  can  only  be  given  by  a  free  correc- 


tion of  their  falsifications.  The  case  of  Capua 
applying  for  aid  to  Kome  against  the  Samnites 
was  exactly  that  of  Corcyra  asking  help  from 
Athens  against  Corinth.  The  motives  which 
induced  the  Athenians  to  receive  the  Corcyrce- 
ans  into  their  alliance  were  the  very  same  which 
influenced  the  Komans :  the  justice  of  the  mea- 
sure was  in  both  cases  equally  questionable  ; 
but  it  may  be  doubted  whether  the  Koman  le- 
gions sent  into  Campania  were  ordered  only  to 
fight  in  the  event  of  an  actual  attack  made  upon 
their  allies,  which  was  the  charge  given  by  Per- 
icles' government  to  the  ten  ships  sent  to  pro- 
tect Corcyra.  So  truly  is  real  history  a  lesson 
of  universal  application,  that  we  should  under- 
stand the  war  between  Kome  and  Samnium  far 
better  from  reading  Thucydides'  account  of  the 
war  between  Corinth  and  Corcyra.  than  from 
Livy's  corrupted  story  of  the  very  events  them- 
selves. 

35  Some  of  my  readers  may  have  seen  a  work 
which  formed  a  sort  of  Appendix  to  the  "  Vic- 
toires,  ConquStes,  &c.  des  Franc.ais,"  and  was 
called  "Tables  du  Temple  de  la  Gloire."  It 
consisted  of  an  alphabetical  catalogue  raisonne 
of  nil  Frenchmen,  of  whatever  military  rank, 
who  had  distinguished  themselves,  or  thought 
that  they  had  done  so,  in  the  course  of  the  last 
war ;  and  many  of  the  articles  were  apparently 
contributed  by  the  very  individuals  themselves 
who  were  the  heroes  of  them.  Now  these  no- 
tices had  nothing  of  the  license  of  a  poetical  ac- 
count of  events;  they  professed  to  be  a  real 
matter  of  fact  narrative  ;  they  were  published 
when  the  memory  of  the  actions  to  which  they 
relate  was  fresh,  and  in  the  face  of  the  jealous 


254 


HISTORY  OF  ROME. 


[CHAP.  XXVin 


First     campaign,    and 
battl    by  Mount  Gau- 


force  to  aid  them,  took  the  field  with  two  armies ;  that  one  of 
these  was  to  protect  Campania,  while  the  other  was  destined  to 
invade  Samnium.  The  army  in  Campania  was  commanded  by  M. 
Valerius,  and  his  panegyric,  careless  of  historical  details,  brings  him,  without  a 
word  as  to  his  previous  march,  to  Mount  Gaurus,36  now  Monte  Barbaro,  in  a 
remote  corner  of  Campania,  close  upon  the  sea  above  Pozzuoli.  Here,  says  the 
story,  he  met  the  Samnites,  and  here,  after  a  most  bloody  battle,  he  defeated 
them. 

The  army  which  was  to  invade  Samnium,37  had  scarcely  entered  the  hills 
unsuccessful  invwion  of  which  bound  the  plain  of  Naples,  apparently  by  the  pass  of  Mad- 
sa^nium.  daloni,  when  it  became  involved  in  a  deep  defile,  and  was  nearly 

cut  off  by  the  enemy.  It  was  saved  by  the  conduct  and  courage  of  the  famous 
P.  Decius,  then  one  of  the  military  or  legionary  tribunes ;  and  thus  his  pane- 
gyrist gives  the  whole  story  in  great  detail,  and  ends  with  saying  that  the  Roman 
army  was  not  only  saved  from  destruction,  but  gained  a  great  victory  over  the 
enemy.  As  it  is  not  pretended,  however,  that  the  Romans  made  any  progress 
in  Samnium  beyond  the  scene  of  their  victory,  it  is  likely  that  their  success  was 
limited  to  their  escaping  from  a  very  imminent  danger,  and  being  enabled  to 
retreat  with  safety. 

The  story  of  Valerius  pretends  that  he  won  yet  a  second  victory  over  the 
whole  collected  force  of  Samnium,  which  had  been  gathered  to 

Result  of  the  campaign.  .          .  . 

revenge  their  late  defeat ;  and  yet  we  are  told  that  as  soon  as  the 
Roman  armies  had  returned  to  Rome,  the  Campanians38  were  obliged  to  send 
embassies  to  the  senate,  requesting  that  a  force  might  winter  in  Campania  for 
their  protection,  to  keep  off  the  attacks  of  the  Samnites.  This  is  the  beginning 
of  a  totally  different  story,  that  of  the  sedition  of  the  year  413,  and  the  author 
of  it  having  no  concern  with  the  Samnite  war,  did  not  think  of  reconciling  his 


criticism  of  all  the  nations  ol  Jtuirope,  w?iere 
there  were  thousands  of  witnesses  both  able 
and  eager  to  expose  any  exaggeration.  And  yet, 
after  all,  what  sort  of  history  of  any  of  the  cam- 
paigns of  the  last  war  could  be  compiled  from 
the'""  Tables  du  Temple  do  la  Gloire  ?"  I  cannot 
therefore,  persuade  myself  that  the  details  of 
the  battle  by  Mount  Gaurus,  or  of  the  wise  and 
valiant  conduct  of  Decius  in  Samnium,  deserve 
to  be  transcribed  in  a  modern  history  of  Rome. 
They  have  not  obtained  such  celebrity  as  to  be 
worth  preserving  as  legends  ;  they  have  not  in 
their  style  and  substance  those  marks  of  origi- 
nality which  would  make  them  valuable  as  a 
picture  of  the  times ;  and  least  of  all,  have  they 
that  trustworthiness  which  would  entitle  them 
to  be  regarded  as  historically  true. 

36  Livy,  VII.  32.      "  Consules  .  .  .  ab  urbe 
profecti,  Valerius  in  Campaniam,  Cornelius  in 
Samnium,  ille  ad  montem  Gaurum,  hie  ad  Sa- 
ticularn,  eastra  ponunt."    "  What  actions,"  says 
Niebuhr,  "had  forced  the  consul  to  fall  back 
thither,  and  gave  to  the  Samnites  that  assurance 
of  victory  with  which  they  hastened  to  attack 
him, — this  knowledge,  as  a'lmost  all  else  where- 
by the  Samnite  wars  might  have  become  more 
intelligible,   is  buried  in  everlasting    night." 
Vol.  III.  p.  137. 

37  Livy,   VII.  34r-36.     The   account  of  the 
honors  paid  to  Decius  on  this  occasion  by  his 
fellow-soldiers,  is  characteristic  of  the  time  and 
people,  and  is  worth  transcribing.     "After  the 
battle,  the  consul  called  all  the  soldiers  togeth- 
er, and    made  a  speech,  in  which    he    com- 
mended all  the  worthy  deeds  which  Decius  had 
done."      [Polybius    especially    mentions    and 
praises  this  practice,  VI.  39.]     "He  then,  as 
wus  the  custom,  gave  him  divers  gifts  of  honor. 


especially  a  crown  of  gold,  and  one  hundred 
oxen,  and  one  beautiful  white  ox  over  and 
above  the  number,  with  his  horns  bedecked 
with  gold.  To  the  soldiers  who  had  been  with 
him  in  his  post  of  danger,  the  consul  gave  an 
ox  to  each  man,  and  two  coats ;  and  told  them 
that  their  daily  allowance  of  corn  should  for  the 
time  to  come  be  doubled.  Then,  when  the  con- 
sul had  ended,  all  the  soldiers  of  the  legions 
gave  to  Decius  a  wreath  of  twisted  grass,  which 
was  accustomed  to  be  given  by  a  beseiged  or 
blockaded  army  to  him  who  had  delivered 
them ;  and  it  was  put  upon  his  head  amidst  the 
cheers  of  all  the  army.  Another  wreath  also, 
of  the  like  sort,  was  given  to  Decius  by  the 
soldiers  of  his  own  band.  So  Decius  stood, 
wearing  his  crown  of  gold  and  his  wreath  ot 
grass,  and  he  forthwith  offered  in  sacrifice  to 
Mars  the  beautiful  white  ox  with  the  gilded 
horns,  and  the  other  hundred  oxen  he  gave  to 
the  soldiers  who  had  followed  him  in  his  enter- 
prise. And  the  other  soldiers  too  gave  each 
man  to  the  soldiers  of  Decius  a  pound  of  corn 
from  their  own  allowances,  and  a  measure  ex- 
ceeding a  pound  in  weight  (sextarios)  of  wine. 
All  the  while  that  they  were  giving  these  hon- 
ors to  Decius  and  his  soldiers,  the  whole  army 
were  shouting  and  cheering,  for  they  knew  not 
what  to  do  for  joy."  Livy,  VII.  37. 

38  Livy  VII.  38.  He  adds  that  the  people  of 
Suessa  sent  an  embassy  to  the  same  effect. 
This  shows,  that  immediately  after  the  retreat 
of  the  Roman  armies,  the  Samnites  were  begin- 
ning, not  only  to  overrun  Campania  again,  but 
even  to  carry  their  ravages  beyond  the  Vultur- 
nus  into  the  country  of  the  Sidicinians  and  Au 
runcans. 


•.XXVIIL]  DOMESTIC  DISTURBANCES.  255 

>unt  with  the  exaggerated  representations  given  of  the  preceding  campaign, 
at  the  Romans  drove  the  Samnites  from  Campania  is  probable  ;  but,  on  the 
er  hand,  they  failed  in  their  attack  upon  Samnium,  and  the  Samnites  were 
rly  no  way  dispirited  as  to  the  general  result  of  the  war. 
It  would  seem  from  a  short  and  obscure  notice  in  Livy,39  that  the  Samnites 
jre  assisted  in  this  war  by  some  of  their  neighbors ;  whether  as  The  Latin,  engaged 
ual  or  as  dependent  allies  we  know  not.     For  it  appears  that  R°rtinst  the  Peu*™nt- 
e  Latins,  instead  of  being  engaged  in  Campania  or  in  Samnium,  moved  into  the 
rt  of  Italy  and  attacked  the  Pelignians ;  so  that  we  must  suppose  that  tHe" 
rations  of  this  year  were  carried  on  on  a  most  extensive  scale,  and  we  thus 
e  how  much  greater  was  this  contest  with  Samnium,  than  any  other  in  which 
Rome  had  been  engaged  before. 

The  active  campaign  was*  short ;  for  the  consuls,  so  far  as  appears,  still  en- 
"  on  their  office  on  the  1st  of  July,  arid  their  triumphs  took  A  Romim  ,,rmy  w;ntert 

on  the  22d  and  24th  of  September.40  They  themselves  inCamP™ia- 
not  return  to  Campania,  but  parties  of  Roman  soldiers,  according  to  the 
uest  of  the  Campanians,  were  sent  back  to  garrison  the  several  cities,  and  a 
e  force  was  thus  kept  on  service  during  the  winter.  This  state  of  things 
asted  through  the  following  spring ;  the  Romans  would  not  commence  offensive 
operations  till  the  new  consuls  should  come  into  office :  of  the  movements  of  the 
Samnites  we  hear  nothing ;  but  it  may  be  that  their  usual  season  of  military  ser- 
vice was  the  same  as  that  of  the  Romans,  and  mere  plundering  parties  would  be 
deterred  by  the  force  left  to  keep  them  in  check.  But  when  the  new  consul,  C. 
Marcius  Rutilus,  arrived  after  midsummer  to  take  the  command  of  the  army,  he 
found  himself  engaged  in  a  very  different  duty  from  that  of  marching  against  the 
Samnites. 

Had  we  any  history  of  these  times,  events  so  important  and  so  notorious  as 
the  great  disturbance  of  the  year  413  must  have  been  related  in 
their  main  points  clearly  and  faithfully.  But  because  we  have 
merely  a  collection  of  stories  recording  the  great  acts  of  particular  families  and 
individuals,  and  in  each  of  these  the  glory  of  its  own  hero,  and  not  truth,  was 
the  object :  even  matters  the  most  public  and  easy  to  be  ascertained  are  so  dis- 
guised, that  nothing  beyond  the  bare  fact  that  there  was  a  disturbance,  and  that 
it  was  at  length  appeased,  is  common  to  the  various  narratives.41  The  pane- 
gyrists of  the  Valerian  family  claimed  the  glory  of  putting  an  end  to  the  contest 
for  M.  Valerius  Corvus,  who  was,  they  said,  specially  appointed  dictator ;  while 
the  storie*  of  the  Marcian  and  Servilian  families  said  that  every  thing  had  been 
done  by  the  two  consuls,  C.  Marcius  Rutilus,  and  Q.  Servilius.  One  account- 
represented  the  affair  as  a  secession  of  the  Roman  commons,  another  described 
it  as  a  mutiny  of  the  army  in  Campania.  The  story  which  most  of  the  annalists 
fterwards  adopted,  taking  only  the  latter  view  of  the  case,  and  thinking  that 
utinous  soldiers  ought  not  to  benefit  by  their  mutiny,  told  only  how  they  were 
irdoncd  for  their  crime,  and  how  they  obtained42  no  more  than  one  or  two  insig- 
"cant  concessions,  which  in  no  respect  compromised  the  dignity  of  the  gov- 
ment.  But  other  accounts43  preserved  the  memory  of  a  secession  headed  by 
ribune  of  the  commons,  and  winning  some  of  the  most  important  constitu- 

Livy,  VII.  38.     "Hujus  certaminis  fbrtu-  must  not  suppose  that  the  "ancient  authors" 

na. .  .  Latinos,  jam  exercitibus  comparatis,  ab  here  spoken  of  Avere  contemporary  with  these 

Romano  in  Pelignum  vertit  bellum."    This  can  times ;  they  were  but  the  annalists'  of  the  sixth 

only  mean  that  the  Latins  directed  their  main  and  seventh  centuries  of  Rome,  who  followed 

force  against  the  northern  side  of  the  Samnite  each  the  traditions  and  memorials  of  a  different 

confederacy,  moving  by  the  lake  Fucinus  upon  family.    Livy  himself,  in  another  place,  VIII. 

Sulino,  and  the  country  of  the  Pelignians,  and  40,  deplores  the  want  of  all  contemporary  wri- 

bhus  threatening  Samnium  on  the  rear.             .  ters  for  the  times  of  the  Samnite  wars,  as  one 

'  See  the  Fasti  Capitolini.  great  cause  of  the  hopeless  confusion  in  which 

"Adeo  nihil,"   says  Livy,   "praeterquam  the  story  of  those  wars  was  involved, 

seditionem  fnisse,  eamque  compositarn,  inter  «  Livy,  VII.  41. 

" itiquosrerum  auctores  constat."  VII.  42.   We  u  Livy,  VII.  42. 


256  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXVIIi 

tional  points  which  had  ever  yet  been  agitated ;  nay,  they  told  how  it  forced 

from  the  patricians  that  which  above  all  things  they  would  be  most  loth  to 

yield,  both  on  public  grounds  and  on  private, — a  general  abolition  of  debts.44 

The  truth,  however,  in  this  instance,  seems  not  difficult  to  disentangle.     In 

spite  of  the  successive  lowerings  of  the  rate  of  interest,  there  was 

mutini™y<vmi  mn££  a  large  amount  of  debt  undischarged,  because  there  had  been  no 

towards  Rome.  ,  e  ,-,          ,      .  .         . ,  .    °  ,,       , 

change  for  the  better  in  the  circumstances  of  the  commons  at 
large  to  enable  them  to  pay  off  even  the  principal  of  what  they  owed.  A  mul- 
titude of  men  thus  involved,  many  of  them  perhaps  actually  nexi,  were  kept  on 
foreign  service  during  the  winter,  a  thing  in  itself  extremely  galling  to  them,  and 
were  quartered  in  the  towns  of  Campania,  where  they  witnessed  a  state  of  lux- 
ury such  as  they  could  never  have  conceived  before.  Nothing  is  more  proba- 
ble45 than  that  they  should  have  longed  to  appropriate  those  wealthy  cities  to  them- 
selves, to  establish  themselves  at  Capua,  as  their  fathers,  forty  years  before, 
would  have  fain  done  at  Veii,  and  to  make  the  Campanians  their  subjects,  the 
commons  of  a  state  in  which  they  themselves  would  be  the  burghers.  Stories 
of  their  design  were  carried  to  Rome,  and  the  commons  there  feeling  that  they 
too  had  their  share  of  distress,  proposed  also  to  seek  their  remedy.  Before  the 
plans  of  the  soldiers  were  yet  ripe,  attempts  were  made  by  their  officers  to  break 
up  their  combinations,  and  detachments  of  those  who  were  most  suspected  were 
ordered  home,  as  if  they  were  no  longer  wanted  in  Campania.  But  these,  when 
they  came  to  Lautulse,  a  narrow  pass  between  the  sea  and  the  mountains  close 
to  Tarracina,  concerted  their  measures  with  the  cohort  which  was  there  in  gar 
rison,  and  openly  refused  to  obey  their  commanders.  The  example  once  set  be- 
came contagious;  the  mass  of  the  soldiers  quartered  in  Campania  joined  the 
revolters,  and  all  marched  together46  towards  Rome,  releasing  on  their  way  all 
the  bondmen  debtors  whom  they  found  working  as  slaves  on  their  creditors* 
lands,  till  their  number  was  swelled  to  20,000  men. 

They  halted  on  the  slope  of  the  Alban  hills,  near  Bovilloe,  fortified  a  regular 

camp,  plundered  the  country  as  if  it  belonged  to  an  enemy,41  and 

The  commons    rise    at          .     *7  •  J    .    .  m     ._ J  .        ,.  ,    ,   .    °f 

corTui  i*cf torVaieriu3  seize(*  uPon  a  patrician,  T.  Qunictius,  at  his  farm  or  country-house 
near  Tusculum,  and  forced  him  to  become  their  leader.  The  com- 
mons at  Rome  waited  no  longer ;  they  too  rose ;  they  too  laid  hold  on  a  patri- 
cian, C.  Manlius,  loving  the  name  of  their  old  champion  and  martyr  M.  Manlius : 
they  marched  out  of  the  city,  and  established  themselves  in  a  spot  four  miles 
distant  from  the  walls.  Even  now  the  patricians  were  not  left  helpless  ;  besides 
themselves  and  their  clients,  a  numerous  body,  they  would  on  this  occasion  be 

44  Auctor  de  Viris  Illustribus,  inValer.Corvo.  the  Samians  (Herodotus,  VI.  23),  as  showing 

Appian,  Samnitic.  Fragm.  I.  §  2.  that  such  acts  were  practised  even  by  Greeks 

**  Perhaps  I  ought  hardly  to  have  expressed  towards  Greeks,  at  a  period  when  manners  had 
myself  so  strongly  as  to  the  probability  of  this  been  as  little  corrupted  by  luxury  and  skepti- 
part  of  the  story,  since  Niebuhr  considers  it  cism  as  they  were  at  this  time  at  Koine ;  wnere- 
undeserving  of  credit.  But  Wachsmuth  has  as  the  Campanians  were  no  countrymen  of  the 
well  observed,  that  the  eager  desire  of  the  com-  Romans,  and  therefore,  according  to  the  too 
mons  to  settle  at  Veii,  proves  sufficiently  that  prevailing  notions  of  the  ancient  world,  were 
they  had  no  invincible  attachment  to  Rome  as  entitled  to  far  less  consideration, 
their  native  country:  he  adds,  with  no  less  truth,  46  Appian,  Samnitic.  Fragm.  I.  §  1.  The  per- 
"  that  a  people  whose  innocence  is  the  fruit  of  sons  whom  he  speaks  of  as  lm  TUV  fyywv  iv  TOIS 
ignorance  rather  than  of  principle,  is  little  able  oypoTs  6e6ep(H>vs,  must  have  been  debtors  work- 
to  resist  the  first  strong  temptation."  How  ing  as  slaves  on  the  "  possessipnes"  of  their  pa- 
great  were  the  excesses  of  the  Spartans  after  trician  creditors,  on  such  portions  of  land  lately 
the  Pcloponnesian  war,  when  opportunities  of  conquered  from  the  Volsciims  as  had  been  oc- 
indulgence  were  first  offered  to  them!  And  cupied  in  the  usual  manner  by  individuals, 
why  should  we  conceive  that  the  Roman  com-  Foreign-purchased  slaves  must  have  been  too 
inons  were  men  of  greater  simplicity  of  man-  rare  at  Rome  at  this  period,  to  have  been  em- 
ners  than  the  Samnites,  who  had  formerly  ployed  in  great  numbers  as  agricultural  labor- 
seized  Capua  in  a  similar  manner,  when  they  ers :  and,  in  fact,  the  slaves  who  were  con- 
were  inhabiting  it  jointly  with  the  Etruscans'?  fined  to  work  in  the  workhouses  of  the  patri- 
Compare  also  the  stories'of  the  forcible  occupa-  cians  in  these  early  times,  are  always  described 
tion  of  Smyrna  by  some  Colophonian  exiles  as  insolvent  debtors. 

who  had  been  hospitably  received  there  (Hero-  47  "  EJC  prcedatoribu*  vagis   quidam  comper- 

dotus  I.  150) ;  and  of  the  seizure  of  Zancle  by  tuna  adtulerunt,"  &c. — Livy,  VII.  39. 


CRAP.  XXVIII.]  M.  VALERIUS  DICTATOR.  257 

joined  by  all  the  noblest  and  richest  of  the  commons,  and  by  many,  perhaps,  of 
the  best  men  even  among  the  less  wealthy,  who  would  view  with  horror  the  dis- 
obedience of  the  soldiers,  and  the  breach  of  their  military  oath.  They  prepared 
to  put  down  the  revolt ;  yet,  not  trusting  to  force  alone,  they  named  as  dictator 
M.  Valerius  Corvus,  the  most  popular  man  in  Rome,  born  of  a  house  whose 
members  had  ever  befriended  the  commons,  himself  in  the  vigor  of  youth,49 
scarcely  thirty,  yet  already  old  in  glory,  and  now  in  the  full  renown  of  his  recent 
victories  over  the  Samnites.  The  dictator  proceeded  to  meet  the  soldiers  from 
Campania ;  the  consuls  were  left  to  deal  with  the  commons  who  had  seceded 
from  the  city. 

But  when  the  opposing  parties49  approached  each  other,  and  citizens  were  seen 
arrayed  in  order  of  battle  against  citizens,  all  shrunk  alike  from  Reconciliation  of  u» 
bringing  their  contests  to  such  an  issue,  and  with  a  sudden  revul-  contentiins  p»rtiefc 
sion  of  feeling  the  soldiers,  instead  of  joining  battle,  first  welcomed  each  other 
with  friendly  greetings,  then,  as  they  drew  nearer,  they  grasped  each  other's 
hands,  till  at  last,  amidst  mutual  tears  and  expressions  of  remorse,  they  rushed 
into  each  other's  arms.  It  may  well  be  believed  that  not  Valerius  only,  but  the 
majority  of  the  patricians,  were  noble  enough  to  rejoice  sincerely  at  this  termina- 
tion of  the  mutiny,  although  they  foresaw  that  whatever  were  the  demands  of  the 
soldiers  and  the  commons,  it  would  now  be  necessary  to  grant  them. 

But  the  insurgents  were  also  brought  to  a  softer  temper,  and  asked  little  but 
what  miffht  have  been  given  them  unasked,  as  being:  in  itself 

i  11  T,.       .  ,,  ,n  i   i*          i         Terms    demanded    by 

just  and  reasonable,  tirst,  an  act  ot  amnesty50  was  passed  tor  the  thesouue...™*  graut- 
mutiny  and  the  secession,  and  the  dictator  entreated  the  patricians 
and  those  of  the  commons  who  had  sided  with  them,  that  they  would  never, 
even  in  private  life,  in  jest  or  in  earnest,  reproach  any  man  with  having  been 
concerned  in  these  unhappy  dissensions.  Then  there  was  passed  and  sworn  to, 
with  all  religious  solemnities,51  a  law  which  the  soldiers  regarded  as  their  great 
charter,  that  no  man's  name  who  had  been  once  enlisted  should  be  struck  off  the 
list  of  the  legions  without  his  own  consent,  and  that  no  one  who  had  once  been 
chosen  military  tribune  should  be  afterwards52  obliged  to  serve  as  a  centurion. 
They  deprecated  the  power  of  striking  their  names  off  the  list  of  soldiers,  partly 
because  it  degraded  them  to  an  inferior  rank,  that  of  the  capite  censi,  who  were 

48  Ho  was  three  and  twenty  in  his  first  con-  he  says,  insisted  that  no  one  who  had  been  once 
sulship  (Livy,  VII.  40),  and  he  was  consul  for  tribune  should  afterwards  be  made  centurion, 
the  first  time  in  the   year  407. — 'See  Livy,  out  of  dislike  to  one  P.  Salonius,  who  had  been 
VII.  26.  made  almost  every  other  year  one  or  the  other, 

49  Livy,  VII.  42.     Appian,  Sarnnitic.  Fragm.  and  who  was  obnoxious  to  them,  because  he 
I.  §  2.     Tins  sudden  burst  of  feeling  is  credible  had  especially  opposed  their  meeting.      Both 
enough;  for  civil  war  seems  shocking  to  men  Niebuhr  and  Wachsmuth  suppose,  onthecon- 
who  are  little  scrupulous  in  shedding  the  blood  trary,  that  P.  Salonius  was  a  popular  man  with 
of  foreigners,  however  unjustly.     In  this  re-  the  soldiers,  and  that  the  petition  was  made  in 
spect,  it  needs  the  hardness  and  coldness  of  a  his  behalf,  to  save  him  from  being  obliged  to 
later  stage  of  society  to  overcome  the  natural  go  on  serving  in  a  lower  rank,  aftcr'having  once 
shrinking  from  domestic  warfare ,    The  feudal  served  in  a  higher.     Wachsmuth  well  compares 
times  are,  of  course,  an  exception  to  this;  for  the  case  of  Volero  Publilius,  who  complained 
to  the  isolation  and  lawlessness  of  the  feudal  of  being  required  to  serve  as  a  common  soldier, 
system  the  relations  of  countryman  and  fellow-  after  having  been  once  centurion.     (Livy,  II. 
citizen  were  almost  unknown.  55.)     Many  motives  may  have  joined,  however, 

w  Livy,  VII.  41.  in  suggesting  this  demand  of  the  soldiers.  It 
"Lex  sacrata  militaris."  A  lex  sacrata  was  a  great  thing  for  a  deserving  soldier,  that 
partook  of  the  character  of  a  treaty,  and  was  if  once  appointed  military  tribune  (six  of  whom 
sworn  to  by  the  two  parties  between  whom  it  were  at  this  time  chosen  by  the  votes  of  the 
had  been  agreed  to.  Thus  the  term  is  applied  people  themselves,  Livy,  Vll.  5),  lie  should  be 
only  to  such  ht\vs  as  settled  points  most  deeply  treed  from  the  necessity  of  serving  again,  ex- 
aft'ecting  the  interests  of  the  two  orders  in  the  cept  in  the  same  or  a  higher  rank.  And  it  was 
state,  and  were  therefore  a  sort  of  treaty  of  a  great  thing  for  the  mass  of  the  commons,  that 
peace  between  them.  Of  this  sort,  besides  the  promotion  should  be  kept  as  open  as  possible, 
famous  laws  respecting  the  tribunes  of  the  com-  and  that  it  should  be  necessary  every  year  to 
mons,  was  the  law  of  Icilius,  de  Aventino  pub-  fill  up  the  vacancies  among  the  centurions  with 
licando.  new  men,  instead  of  confining  them  to  a  certain 
11  It  should  be  observed,  that  Livy  gives  to  number  of  individuals  who  might  pass  at  plea- 
petition  a  different  object.  The  soldiers,  sure  from  one  command  to  another. 
17 


i>58  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXVIII 

considered  unfit  to  bear  arms ;  partly  because,  whilst  they  were  on  military  serv- 
ice, they  were  protected  from  being  personally  attached  for  debts  ;  and  partly, 
also,  because  service  in  Campania  bore  an  agreeable  aspect,  and  might  furnish  a 
poor  man  with  the  means  of  relieving  himself  from  his  embarrassments.  The  law 
about  the  military  tribunes  had,  probably,  various  objects  ;  amongst  the  rest  it 
may  have  been  intended  to  advance  the  dignity  of  that  office,  which  offered  to  the 
commons  the  readiest  means  of  acquiring  distinction,  and  thus  was  a  natural  step 
to  the  highest  political  magistracies. 

Another  demand  was  made  in  a  different  spirit ;  that  the  pay  of  the  horsemen 
Term,  demanded  and  or  knights  should  be  lowered,  they  receiving  at  that  period  three 
refu8cd-  times  as  much  as  the  foot-soldiers.  In  requiring  this  the  soldiers  not 

only  wished  to  reduce  the  public  expenditure,  and  sc  to  lighten  their  own  taxation, 
but  there  was  also  a  feeling  of  enmity  towards  the  knights,  who  had  taken  a  de- 
cided part  against  them.  But  on  this  point  the  senate  would  not  yield  ;  and  the 
soldiers,  ashamed  perhaps  of  the  motives  which  had  led  them  to  ask  for  it,  did 
not  press  their  demand.63 

While  the  mutiny  of  the  legions  was  thus  ended,  the  commons,  who  had  with- 
drawn from  the  city,  returned  to  their  homes  again  ;  and  L.  Ge- 

Demands  of  the   com-  -.  „      .  •.  ..  ,     &       .    '  _ 

mons  in  Rome.  The  nucius,  one  ot  their  tribunes,  proposed  to  them  in  the  v  orum, 
certain  political  measures  to  which,  it  was  understood,  the  patri- 
cians would  offer  no  opposition.  These  were,  "  that  no  man  should  be  re-elected 
to  the  same  magistracy  within  ten  years,  nor  hold  two  magistracies  in  the  same 
year ;  and  that  both  consuls  might  be  plebeians,  as  the  Licinian  law  had  de- 
clared that  one  must  be."  The  multiplication  of  various  offices  in  the  same 
hands  is  an  evil  of  which  we  have  no  instance  on  record,  because  we  have  no  lists 
of  any  of  the  magistrates  of  this  period,  except  the  consuls  only.  The  frequent 
re-election  of  the  same  person  to  the  consulship  created  an  aristocracy  within  the 
aristocracy,  and  confined  the  highest  offices  to  a  number  of  great  families ;  and 
now  that  the  Licinian  law  was  again  observed,  it  would  raise  a  few  plebeian 
houses  to  an  undue  distinction,  whilst  the  mass  of  the  commons  would  be  alto- 
gether excluded.  It  may  be  observed  that  C.  Marcius,  the  plebeian  consul  of 
this  very  year,  was  now  consul  for  the  fourth  time  within  a  period  of  fifteen  years. 
But  there  was  another  law  passed,  which  Livy  could  not  endure  to  record,  and 
General  abolition  of  of  which  we  know  not  who  was  the  proposer  :55  a  law  whose  very  name 
debu*  all  settled  societies  regarded  with  horror ;  a  law  which  is,  indeed, 

like  war,  an  enormous  evil,  but  which  in  this  is  most  unlike  war,  that  it  has  never 
been  adopted,  except  when  it  was  really  necessary  to  prevent  an  evil  still  greater. 
In  order  to  give  the  commons  an  opportunity  of  rising  to  a  more  healthful  con- 
dition, they  were  to  be  freed  once  for  all  from  the  shackles  thrown  around  them 
by  a  former  period  of  unavoidable  distress :  the  consequences  of  the  burning  of 
the  city  by  the  Gauls  had  never  yet  been  shaken  off,  nor  did  it  appear  likely  that 
in  the  ordinary  state  of  things  they  ever  would  be.  It  was  demanded,  therefore, 
by  the  commons,  and  M.  Valerius,  it  is  said,  advised  compliance  with  their  de- 
mand, that  an  act  of  grace  should  be  extended  to  all  debtors,  and  that  their  cred- 

68  As  the  commons  were  persuaded  by  Vale-  /JovAr) — r«f  plv  rSv  xpeZv  aKOKoxas  tyriQlaaro  irS~ 

rius  and  Horatius  to  abandon  their  demand  for  <n  'Pw/*«/oi?  •  rots  <5f  rdrc  t^P0^  (namely,  the  re- 

the  summary  execution  of  the  decemvirs. — See  voltecl  soldiers),  xal  abtiav — Samnitie.  Fragm.  I. 

chap.  xvi.  §  2.    There  is  no  mistaking  the  well-known  ex- 

64  Niebuhr  supposes,  not  unnaturally,  that  pression  xpc&v  a-oKorrj.—"  Num  honestum  igi- 

this  Genucius  belonged  to  the  family  of  the  trib-  tur,"  asks  Cicero  with  respect  to  Caesar  when  he 

une  Genucius,  who  was  murdered  by  the  aris-  had  just  heard  of  his  crossing  the  Kubicon, 

tocracy  in  the  year  281. — See  p.  65.     He  was  "xp«5i>  axoKoiras,  tyvydbuv  KuOotiuvs,  sexcenta  alia 

also,  in  all  probability,  of  the  same  family  with  scelera  moliri, 

tfc 3  plebeian  consuls  of  the  years  385,  387,  and  rf]v  Qtwv  \iiylcrr\v  oW  l\tiv  TvpavvtSa  ?" 

888.  Ad  Atticura,  VII.  11. 

66  It  is  attested  by  Appian.  who,  as  Niebuhr  The  expression  in  the  Koman  writer  is  no  less 

thinks,  copied  this  part  of  his  work  from  Dio-  decisive.     M.  Valerius,  he  says,  "  sublato  aere 

nysius ;  and  by  the  little  work  De  Viris  Illus-  alieno,  seditionem  compressit." 
tribus.     Appian' s  words  are  plain  enough :   $ 


p.  XXVIIL]         PEACE  BETWEEN  ROME  AND  SAMNIUM. 


259 


should  not  be  permitted  to  enforce  payment.     In  other  words,  all  those 
ho  had  pledged  their  personal  freedom  for  the  payment  of  their  debts  (nexi) 
-ire  released  from  their  bond  ;  nor  could  the  praetor  give  over  to  his  creditor's 
wer,  addicere,  any  debtor  who  had  refused,  or  might  refuse,  to  enter  into  such 
engagement.     Thus  the  burden  of  actual  debts  was  taken  away ;  and  to  pre- 
nt  the  pressure  of  an  equal  burden  hereafter,  even  the  lowest  rate  of  interest 
is  declared  illegal,  and  any  man  who  received  more  than  the  actual  sum  which 
had  lent  was  liable  to  restore  it  fourfold. 

This  was  a  sort  of  national  bankruptcy,  yet  surely  it  wore  the  mildest  features 
of  that  evil,  and  in  some  respects  did  not  deserve  the  name.     The  jts  ncce6S;ty  and  j.mt- 
tion  itself  broke  no  faith  ;  but  it  required  one  portion  of  its  citi-  ke> 
ns  to  sacrifice  their  strict  legal  rights  in  favor  of  another  portion  for  the  corn- 
on  benefit  of  all.     It  was  doing  on  a  large  scale  and  under  the  pressure  of  ur- 
nt  necessity,  what  we  see  done  every  day  on  a  smaller  scale  for  an  object,  not 
necessity,  but  of  expediency  ;  when  individuals  are  forced  to  sell  their  property 
a  price  fixed  by  others,  in  order  to  facilitate  the  execution  of  a  canal  or  a  rail- 
iy.     The  patricians  were,  in  like  manner,  obliged  to  part  with  the  money  which 
,d  been  advanced  as  a  loan  either  by  themselves  or  by  their  fathers ;  and  the 
mpensation  which  they  received  was  the  continued  existence  of  a  state  of  so- 
;ty  fraught  to  them  above  all  their  fellow- citizens  with  the  highest  means  of 
ppiness :  they  lost  their  money  to  preserve  their  country.     Had  such  a  sacri- 
e  been  made  to  the  indolence,  or  carelessness,  or  dishonesty  of  their  debtors, 
would  have  been  mischievous  as  a  precedent,  however  urgent  the  necessity 
hich  led  to  it ;  but  in  the  present  case  the  debts  of  the  commons  had  arisen 
t  of  a  common  calamity,  not  occasioned  by  their  fault,  nor  to  be  remedied  by 
eir  exertions :  their  distress,  therefore,  was  fairly  entitled  to  sympathy,  and  if 
ere  be  any  meaning  in  the  term  civil  society,  justice  would  require  that  its 
nger  members  should  bear  the  burdens  of  the  weaker,  and  should  submit  to 
ore  than  their  share  of  the  inconveniences  of  a  common  misfortune,  rather  than  allow 
to  entail  upon  their  fellow-citizens  not  inconvenience  merely,  but  absolute  ruin. 
The  domestic    disturbances  of  this  year   produced   important   consequences 
abroad.     The  whole  brunt  of  the  Samnite  war  devolved  on  the  Growinry  ower  of  the 
Latins,  and  they  sustained  it  so  ably  that   their   consideration  Tgjj^^j^™* 
amongst  their  allies  was  greatly  increased,  and  Latium,  rather  than 
Rome,  began  to  be  regarded  as  the  most  powerful  member  of  the  league.     The 
remains  of  the  Volscians,  such  as  the  brave  people  of  Privernum,  and  the  Anti- 
atians,  together  with  those  more  distant  tribes  of  the  same  stock  who  bordered 
on  Campania,  and  were  known  to  the  Romans  under  the  name  of  the  Auruncans, 
began  to  gather  themselv?s  under  the  supremacy  of  Latium,  and  the  Campanians, 
ho  had  good  reason  to  dislike  the  presence  of  Roman  soldiers  in  their  towns, 
ay  have  hoped  to  find  in  a  new  confederacy,  of  which  the  Latins  should  be  the 
ad,  protection  at  once  against  Rome  and  against  the  Samnites.     Accordingly, 
Romans  felt  that  it  was  no  time  for  them  to  continue  their  quarrel  with  Sam- 
um  ;  and  in  the  very  next  year  they  concluded  with  the  Sam-  A.  u.  c.  414.    A.  G. 
ites"46  a  separate  peace.     Thus  the  relations  of  all  these  nations  340- 
were  entirely  changed  :  Rome  had  connected  herself  with  Samnium,  and  perliaps 


66  The  Roman  story  is  (Livy,  VIII.  1,  2),  that 
when  L.  ^milius,  the  consul,  entered  the  Sam- 
nite territory  he  found  no  enemy  to  oppose  him  ; 
that  the  Samnites  humbly  sued  for  peace,  and 
purchased  an  armistice  to  allow  them  to  send 
ambassadors  to  Rome,  by  giving  the  consul  a 
year's  pay  for  his  army,  and  three  months'  al- 
lowance of  corn.  "What  would  have  been  the 
Dunt  of  a  Latin  writer?  Would  it  not  have 
n  something  of  this  sort  ?  "  That  when  the 
federate  armies  of  Rome  and  Latium  were 
lally  in  the  field,  to  invade  the  Samnite  ter- 


f 


ritory  on  different  sides,  the  Eomans  suddenly 
and  treacherously  made  a  separate  peace  with 
the  common  enemy,  and  withdrew  their  army : 
and  that,  not  content  with  this,  they  actually 
entered  into  an  alliance  with  the  Saumites,  and 
were  ready  to  join  them  against  Latium." — 
Compare  the  extreme  dissatisfaction  of  the  for- 
mer allies  of  Lacedoemon,  when  she  suddenly 
formed  her  separate  treaty  with  Athens  soonr 
after  the  conclusion  of  the  peace  of  JNicias.— 
Thucydides,  V.  27. 


260  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXIX 

through  the  Samnites  with  their  neighbors  the  Marsians  and  Pelignians ;  while. 
on  the  other  side,  stood  a  new  confederacy,  consisting  of  the  Latins  and  all  the 
people  of  Opican  extraction  who  lay  between  them  and  the  Samnite  frontier, 
whether  known  by  the  name  of  Volscians,  Auruncans,  Sidicinians,  or  Campa- 
nians.  In  the  same  manner,  after  the  Peloponnesian  war,  we  find  Thebes  and 
Corinth,  so  long  the  close  allies  of  Lacedsemon,  organizing  a  new  confederacy 
against  her ;  and  thus,  at  a  later  period,  Athens  was  at  one  time  supporting 
Thebes,  and  shortly  after,  having  become  jealous  of  her  growing  power  and  am- 
bition, joined  Lacedaemon  against  her  former  ally  ;  so  that  in  the  last  campaigns 
of  Epaminondas,  the  free  citizens  of  Athens  and  the  barbarian  mercenaries  of 
Dionysius  the  tyrant  were  fighting  in  the  same  ranks  in  defence  of  the  Spartan 
aristocracy. 


CHAPTER  XXIX, 

THE  GEEAT  LATIN  WAR— BATTLE  UNDER  MOUNT  VESUVIUS— THE  PUBLILIAN 
LAWS— FINAL  SETTLEMENT  OF  LATIUM.— A.  U.  C.  415-417  (410-412  NIEBUHR). 


"Jeme  refuse  &  croire  que  des  peuples  confederes  puissent  hitter  long-temps,  a  egalite  do 
force,  centre  une  nation  ou  la  puissance  gouvernmentale  serait  centralisee." — DE  TOCQUEVILLE, 
De  la  Democratic  en  Amerique ;  Tome  I.  p.  290. 


ALTHOUGH  Rome  had  concluded  a  separate  peace  with  Samnium,  yet  the 
uncertain  relations  be-  old  alliance  with  the  Latins  still  subsisted  in  name  unbroken. 
tl^m!1  a"  But  it  could  not  long  remain  so  ;  for  the  Latins  continued  the  war 

against  the  Samnites,  and  might  undoubtedly  have  called  upon  the  Romans  to 
aid  them,  according  to  the  terms  of  the  alliance  ;  while  the  Samnites1  called  upon 
the  Romans  to  procure  for  them  peace  with  Latium  also.  In  fact,  the  existing 
state  of  things  showed  clearly  that  the  relations  between  Rome  and  Latium  must 
undergo  some  change ;  either  the  two  nations  must  become  wholly  separate,  or 
more  closely  united ;  if  they  were  to  act  together  at  all,  some  scheme  must  be 
devised  to  insure  that  they  should  act  unanimously. 

The  general  congress  of  the  Latin  cities  took  upon  itself  to  propose  such  a  scheme  ; 
The  Latin,,  make  pro-  and  the  two  prsetors  for  the  year,  L.  Annius  of  Setia,  and  L.  Nu- 
twfen  R°ormeUftL°d  La"-  niisius  of  Circeii,  magistrates  corresponding  to  the  Roman  consuls, 
tium-  and  retaining  the  name  which  the  consuls  had  borne  down  to 

the  time  of  the  decemvirate,  were  dispatched  with  ten  of  the  principal  deputies 
of  the  congress,  to  communicate  their  proposal  to  Rome.2  The  substance  of  it 
was  that  the  two  nations  should  be  completely  united ;  that  they  should  both  be 
governed  by  two  consuls  or  praetors,  one  to  be  chosen  from  each  nation ;  that 
there  should  be  one  senate,  to  consist  of  Romans  and  Latins  in  equal  proportions  ; 

1  Livy's  whole  narrative  proceeds  on  the  as-  pleased :  that  is,  in  Greek  language,  they  were 
sumption  that  the  Latins  were  the  dependent  avrddixoi,  or  able  to  give  and  receive  satisfaction 
allies  of  Eoine,  and  that  the  war  was  on  their  in  their  own  name,  without  being  obliged  to 
part  a  revolt.  Now,  this  is  certainly  false,  as  refer  their  quarrels  to  any  superior;  one  of  the 
we  know  from  the  terms  of  the  original  alliance  characteristics  of  an  equal  as  opposed  to  a  de- 
preserved  by  Dionysius,  V.  61  (see  p.  58  of  pendent  alliance.— See  Thucyd.  V.  18,  27.  I 
this  history),  and  from  the  indisputable  author-  have,  therefore,  tacitly  corrected  all  Livy's  falsa 
;ity  of  Cinema  (p.  58,  note  4).  Livy  himself  coloring  in  this  matter,  and  given  his  facts  iu 
supplies  a  refutation  of  his  own  story :  for  he  their  true  light. 
allows  expressly,  VIII.  2,  that  the  Latins  had  3  Livy,  VIII.  o. 
the  right  of  making  war  with  whom  they 


•: 


CHAP.  XXIX.]  PROPOSALS  OF  THE  LATINS.  26  j 

and  a  third  similar  provision  must  have  been  made  for  the  popular  branch  of 
the  government,  so  that  a  number  of  Latin  tribes  should  be  created,  equal  to 
that  of  the  Roman,  and  the  fifty-four  tribes  of  the  two  nations  should  constitute  one 
common  sovereign  assembly.  In  one  point  the  Latins  were  willing  to  yield  pre- 
cedence to  Rome ;  none  of  their  cities  was  equal  to  Rome  in  size  or  greatness : 
Rome,  therefore,  was  to  be  the  capital  of  the  nation  and  the  seat  of  government ; 
there  the  senate  should  sit,  and  the  assembly  of  the  tribes  be  held ;  the  Roman, 
Jupiter  of  the  Capitol  should  be  equal  to  the  Latin  Jupiter  of  the  mountain  of 

Iba;  to  both  should  the  consuls  of  the  united  people  offer  their  vows  when 

ey  first  came  into  office,  and  to  the  temples  of  both  should  they  go  up  in  tri- 

iph,  when  they  returned  home  from  war  with  victory.3 

There  were  probably  some  in  Rome  who  would  have   accepted   this  union 
erladly  :  but  the  general  feeling,  both  of  the  patricians  and  of  the 

0  ,  •       A    «j.          Ti.  •  J  •/?  These  proposals  are  re- 

commons,  was  strongly  against  it.  It  was  viewed  as  a  sacrifice  jected  with  indigna- 
of  national  independence  and  national  pride.  To  the  Latins,  used 
already  to  a  federal  government,  it  was  but  taking  another  city  into  their  union ; 
but  to  the  Romans,  whose  whole  political  life  was  centred  in  Rome,  it  was  ad- 
mitting strangers  into  the  Forum  and  into  the  Senate,  and  allowing  the  majesty 
of  the  Roman  Jupiter  to  be  profaned  by  the  entrance  of  a  foreigner  into  his  tem- 
ple. Accordingly  when  the  Latin  praetors  announced  their  proposal  to  the  sen- 
ate, which  had  assembled  in  the  Capitol,  it  was  rejected  with  indignation ;  and 
T.  Manlius  Torquatus,4  who  was  one  of  the  newly  elected  consuls,  declared  that 
if  the  senate  should  be  so  lost  to  itself  as  to  receive  the  law  from  a  man  of  Setia, 
he  would  come  armed  into  the  senate-house,  and  would  plunge  his  sword  intc 
the  body  of  the  first  Latin  whom  he  saw  within  its  walls.  Then  he  turned  to 

e  image  of  the  Capitoline  Jupiter,  and  exclaimed :  "  Hear,  0  Jove,  this  wick- 
ess  !     Wilt  thou  endure  to  behold  a  stranger  consul  and  a  stranger  senate 

ithin  the  sacred  precinct  of  thy  temple,  as  though  thou  wert  thyself  vanquished 
made  captive  ?"    To  this  the  Latin  praetor,  L.  Annius  of  Setia,  made  a  reply 

hich  the  Romans  called  insulting  to  their  god.  "  But  Jove,"  said  the  Roman 
story,5  "  taught  the  stranger  to  repent  him  of  his  scorn :  for  as  soon  as  he  had 
spoken  his  proud  words,  the  lightning  flashed  and  the  thunder  pealed,  and  as  the. 
Latin  left  the  temple  in  haste,  to  go  down  by  the  hundred  steps  towards  the  Forum, 
his  foot  slipped,  and  he  fell  from  the  top  of  the  steps  to  the  bottom,  and  his 
head  was  dashed  against  a  stone,  and  he  died."  Some  of  the  annalists,  struck: 
perhaps  by  its  being  a  notorious  fact  that  L.  Annius  commanded  the  Latin  army 
in  the  war,  scrupled  to  say  that  he  had  been  killed  before  its  commencement ; 
they  said,  therefore,  that  he  had  only  been  stunned  by  his  fall :  and  they  said 
nothing  of  the  sudden  burst  of  the  lightning  and  thunder.  No  doubt,  if  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  family  of  L.  Annius  had  been  preserved,  they  would  have  given  a 
different  picture  of  his  mission.  But  whatever  were  the  particulars  of  it,  its  result 
is  certain  ;  the  proposal  for  an  equal  union  was  rejected,  and  the  sword  was  to  decide 

hether  Latium  should  from  henceforth  be  subject  to  Rome,  or  Rome  to  Latium. 


If  the  Latins  really  consented,  as  is  not  im-  festival  on  the  mountain  of  Alba,  as  well  as  to 
probable,  to  acknowledge  Eome  as  the  capital  sacrifice  to  the  Eoman  Jupiter  in  the  Capitol, 
of  the  united  nation,  it  accounts  for  their  sub-  Livy,  XXI.  63,  XXII.  1.  And,  although  the 
sequent  acquiescence  in  the  settlement  made  instances  are  of  more  rare  occurrence,  yet  wo 
by  the  Romans  after  the  war,  so  far  as  this,  that  read  of  Eoman  generals  triumphing  at  the 
it  shows  their  willingness  to  waive  the  mere  Mons  Albanus,  and  going  up  in  solemn  proces- 
feeling  as  to  the  name  of  their  country,  and  sicn  by  the  Via  Triumphalis  to  the  temple  of 
their  consciousness  that  Eome  was  so  superior  the  Latin  Jupiter,  as  they  went  up  usually  by 
to  every  other  Latin  city,  as  to  be  fairly  entitled  the  Via  Sacra  to  the  Capitol.  We  cannot  im- 
to  be  the  head  of  the  united  nation.  What  I  agine,  therefore,  that  the  Latins,  when  pro- 
have  added  in  the  text  respecting  the  Jupiter  posing  a  perfectly  equal  union,  should  have  con- 
of  the  mountain  of  Alba,  seems  warranted  by  sented  to  assign  less  honors  to  their  nationa] 
the  actual  practice  of  later  times,  even  after  the  god,  than  he  enjoyed  even  when  they  were  be- 
Latins  were  in  a  state  of  acknowledged  inferi-  come  dependent. 
ority  to  Eome.  It  is  well  known,  that  one  of  *  Livy,  VIII.  5. 
the  consul's  first  duties  after  entering  upon  6  Livy,  VIII.  6. 
his  office,  was  to  offer  sacrifice  at  the  great  Latin 


262  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXIX 

The  Romans,  however,  had  made  up  their  minds  to  this  issue  before  they  heard 
Tie  Romat,.  prepare  the  proposals  of  the  Latin  ambassadors.  They  were  anxious  to 
Ind  p?r>ecTus  are""'*  engage  ™  ^e  war  at  a  moment  when  they  might  be  assisted  b} 
pointed  consul..  the  Wh0]e  force  of  the  Sammtes  :  the  Latins,  on  the  other  hand, 
would  gladly  have  reduced  Samnium  to  submission  before  they  came  to  an  open 
breach  with  Rome.  Resolved,  therefore,  on  the  struggle,  and  well  aware  of  its 
importance,  the  Romans  wished  to  anticipate  the  election  of  the  new  consuls,6 
that  they  might  have  more  time  for  their  preparations  before  the  usual  season  for 
military  operations  arrived,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  was  not  till  after  the  harvest. 
Accordingly,  the  consuls  of  the  year  409  were  required  by  a  decree  of  the  sen- 
ate to  resign  their  office  before  the  end  of  their  year,  the  middle  of  the  summer, 
and  two  men  of  the  highest  military  reputation  were  appointed  to  succeed  them. 
One  of  these  was  T.  Manlius  Torquatus,  renowned  in  his  youth,  like  Valerius 
Corvus,  for  having  slain  a  gigantic  Gaul  in  single  combat,  and  no  less  remarkable 
for  a  force  of  character,  such  as  is  best  fitted  for  the  control  of  great  emergen- 
cies, when  what  in  ordinary  life  is  savageness  becomes  often  raised  and  sobered 
into  heroism.  He  had  been  consul  only  four  years  before  ;  but  a  special  act,  we 
must  suppose,  dispensed  in  his  case  with  the  recent  provisions  of  the  Genucian 
law.  His  colleague  was  the  deliverer  of  the  Roman  army  from  its  imminent  peril 
in  Samnium  in  the  first  campaign  of  the  late  war,  and  a  man  no  less  distinguished 
nine  years  earlier  for  his  moderation  and  equity  as  one  of  the  five  commissioners 
appointed  to  relieve  the  commons  from  the  burden  of  their  debts,7  the  famous  P. 
Decius  Mus. 

The  Romans  had  good  reason  to  prepare  earnestly  for  the  coming  contest ;  for 
importance  of  the  con-  never  had  they  been  engaged  in  one  so  perilous.  With  two  or 
three  exceptions  all  the  Latin  cities  were  united  against  them  ;  not 
all  indeed  with  equal  determination,  but  still  all  were  their  enemies.  Tusculum,9 
whose  true  friendship  they  had  so  long  experienced ;  Lavinium,  the  sacred  city, 
which  contained  the  holy  things  reported  to  have  been  brought  by  ^Eneas  from 
Troy  ;  Setia,  Cerceii,  and  Signia,  Roman  colonies,  were  now  joined  with  the  mass 
of  the  Latin  nation,  with  Tibur  and  Prseneste,  with  Pedum,  Nomentum,  and  Ari- 
cia.  The  Latin  nobles  were  personally  known  to  those  of  Rome,  and  in  many 
instances  connected  with  them  by  mutual  marriages ;  the  two  nations  speaking 
the  same  language,  with  the  same  manners,  institutions,  and  religious  rites,  trained 
with  the  same  discipline  to  the  use  of  the  same  arms,  were  bound  moreover  to 
each  other  by  the  closeness  of  their  long  alliance ;  their  soldiers  had  constantly 
served  in  the  same  camp,  and  almost  in  the  same  tents ;  the  several  parts  of 
their  armies9  had  constantly  been  blended  together ;  legions,  cohorts,  and  mani- 
ples had  been  made  up  of  Romans  and  Latins  in  equal  proportions ;  the  sol- 
diers, centurions,  and  tribunes  of  both  nations  were  thus  familiar  with  each  other's 
faces :  and  each  man  would  encounter  and  recognize  in  his  enemy  an  old  and 
tried  comrade. 

"  The  Romans  and  Latins,"  says  Livy,10  "  were  alike  in  every  thing,  except  in 


their  courage."   This  is  an  unworthy  slander.    Even  nations  of  dif- 
rUnot  inferior  ferent  race,  and  climate,  and  institutions,  when  long  trained  to- 


characte 

to  the  Roman. 


gether  under  a  common  system  of  military  discipline,  and  accus- 
tomed to  fight  side  by  side  in  the  same  army,  lose  all  traces  of  their  original 
disparity.  But  what  the  Latins  were,  we  know  from  the  rank  which  they  held 

6  Livy,  VIII.  2.  the  Lavinians ;  and  their  disposition  is  evident 

*  "  Quinqueviri  mensarii."  See  Livy,  VII.  from  Livy's  own  story,  VIII.  11.  The  praetors 

21.  of  the  whole  nation  for  the  first  year  of  the  war 

8  Geminus  Metius,  who  was  slain  by  the  came  from  Setia  and  Circeii,  and  they  are  C3- 

young  T.  Manlius,  commanded  the  horsemen  pecially  said  to  have  induced  Signia  to  join  the 

of  Tusculum. — Livy,  VIII.  7.     Lavinium,  ac-  confederacy. 

cording  to  Livy,  took  no  part  in  the  first  cam-  9  Livy,  VIII.  7,  8. 

paign,  but  the  Fasti  Capitolini  says  that  the  10  "  Adco  nihil  apud  Latinos   dissonum  ab 

consul  Maenius,  in  the  year  417,  triumphed  over  Eomana  i-e  prieter  animos  erat." — VIII.  3. 


CHAP.  XXIX.] 


ALLIES  OF  HOME. 


263 


amongst  the  nations  of  Italy,  and  from  the  families  which  they  afterwards  fur- 
nished to  Rome,  when  it  became  their  common  country.  The  Latins  were  able  to 
contend  on  equal  terms  with  the  Samnites  and  Volscians,  with  the  countrymen 
of  C.  Pontius  and  C.  Harms.  From  Latium  Rome  received  the  Fulvii,11  a  family 
marked  at  once  with  all  the  great  and  all  the  bad  qualities  of  the  Roman  aris- 
tocracy ;  and  what  Roman  house  could  ever  boast  of  brighter  specimens  of  every 
Roman  virtue  than  the  Latin  house  of  the  Catos  of  Tusculum  ?  The  issue  of  the 
contest  was  not  owing  to  the  superior  courage  of  the  Romans,  but  to  the  inhe- 
rent advantages  possessed  by  a  single  powerful  state  when  contending  against-u 
confederacy  whose  united  strength  she  can  all  but  balance  alone,  while  to  each 
of  its  separate  members  she  is  far  superior. 

With  the  Latins  were  joined,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Camp  tnians,  the  Sidicinians, 
the  Auruncans,  and  the  Volscians,  including  under  this  name  the  The  Lntin  confederacy, 
various  remnants  of  that  people,  the  Antiatians  on  the  coast,  and  and  iu  weaknessefc 
the  several  tribes  or  cities  in  the  valley  of  the  Liris.     Laurentum,  Ardea,  and 
perhaps  Lanuvium,12  alone  of  all  the  Latin  cities  took  part  with  Rome :  Fundi 
and  Formiae  stood  aloof  from  the  rest  of  their  Volscian  countrymen  and  remained 
itral,  allowing  a  free  passage  to  the  Roman  armies  through  their  territory.18 
was  a  more  remarkable  circumstance,  and  one  of  ill  omen  for  the  unanimity 
id  perseverance  of  the  Latin  confederacy,  that  the  knights14  or  aristocracy  of 
apua,  whether  of  Samnite  extraction,  or  of  mixed  blood,  Samnite,  Etruscan, 
id  Opican,  protested  as  a  body  against  the  war  with  Rome,  although  for  the 
>resent  the  influence  of  the  Latin  party  overbore  their  opposition.    But  it  was  evi- 
it  that  on  the  first  reverses  they  would  regain  their  ascendency,  and  hasten  to 
rithdraw  their  countrymen  from  the  league.     We  have  also  indications15  of  a  Roman 
:ty  in  some  of  the  cities  of  the  Latins ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  that 
sculum  in  particular  should  not  have  contained  many  zealous  supporters  of  the 
Id  alliance  with  Rome.     Probably  the  Roman  and  anti-Roman  parties  were  in 
>t  places  more  or  less  identical  with  the  aristocracy  and  the  party  of  the  com- 
lons;  and  already,  as  in  the  second  Punic  war,  Rome  was  regarded  by  the 
Han  aristocracies  as  the  greatest  bulwark  of  their  ascendency. 
With  Rome  were  united  some  few  Latin  towns,16  some  of  her  own  colonies,17 
jr  old  allies  the  Hernicans,  and  above  all  the  Samnites  and  their  Allies  of  Rome. 


S 


u  L.  Fulvius,  who  was  consul  in  the  year 
427,  had  been  chief  magistrate  of  Tusculum  only 
the  very  year  before  he  was  consul  at  Rome. — 
Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.  VII.  43.  Ed.  Venet.  1559. 

w  I  agree  with  Niebuhr  and  with  Sigonius, 
that  in  Livy's  narrative,  VIII.  12,  13,  Lavinio 

d  Laviniis  should  be  restored  instead  of  La- 

vio  and  Lanuvinis.  It  is  not  only  that  the 
ti  Capitolini  name  the  people  of  Lavinium 
and  not  of  Lanuvium  as  those  over  whom  the 
consul  Msenius  triumphed,  or  that  several  MSS. 
of  Livy  support  the  correction ;  but  in  the  set- 
tlement of  Latium  the  Lanuvians  are  named 
apart,  as  if  they  had  been  treated  with  singular 
favor,  which  is  scarcely  to  be  conceived,  if  they 
had  been  among  the  last  of  the  Latins  to  re- 
main in  arms.  And  that  they  were  favorably 
treated  appears  also  from  the  famous  article 
"  Municipium"  in  Festus,  where  they  are  class- 
ed along  with  the  people  of  Fuudi,  Formise,  and 
others,  who  we  know  were  thought  worthy  of 
reward  rather  than  punishment.  Besides,  Livy 
himself  tells  us  that  the  Antiatians  in  the  year 
415  ravaged  the  district  called  Solonius  (VIII. 
12),  and  we  know  from  Cicero,  de  Divinatione, 
I.  36,  that  this  district  was  a  part  of  the  terri- 
tory of  Lanuvium.  It  is  certain,  therefore,  that 
Lanuvium  must  have  been  friendly  to  Rome  at 
that  time,  and  if  so,  it  is  not  conceivable  that 
•he  could  afterwards  have  joined  the  Latins, 


when  their  cause  was  almost  desperate.  But  I 
am  not  sure  that  the  mistake  is  not  to  be  as- 
cribed to  Livy  himself  rather  than  to  his  copy- 
ists :  for  it  seems  a  just  remark  of  Draken- 
borch's  that  Livy  calls  the  people  of  Lavinium 
not  Lavinii,  but  Laurentes,  as  if  he  had  con- 
fused the  two  towns  together.  Yet  "Lau- 
rentcs,"  in  VIII.  11,  must  mean  the  people  of 
Laurentum,  not  of  Lavinium,  from  a  compar- 
ison with  Livy's  own  statement  about  Lavini- 
um in  the  beginning  of  the  same  chapter  ;  and 
that  the  two  names  really  belong  to  two  distinct 
places  is  proved  by  their  being  both  found  in 
the  list  of  the  thirty  Latin  towns  given  by 
Dionysius,  V.  61. 

13  Livy,  VIII.  14. 

14  Livy,  VIII.  11. 

15  The  Romans  received  information  of  the 
hostile  designs  of  the  Latins,  says  Livy,  "  per 
quosdam  privatis  hospitiis  necessitudinibusquo 
conjunctos."   These,  like  the  vpd^tvoi  in  Greece, 
would  undoubtedly  form  a  party  disposed  to 
Rome,  whose  influence  would  be  felt  as  soon  as 
the  fortune  of  the  war  turned  against  the  Latins. 

16  The  lands  of  the  Ardeatians  were  ravaged 
by  the  Antiatians  in  415  (Livy,  VIII.  12).  Ardea, 
therefore,  must  have  been  at  that  time  in  alli- 
ance with  Rome. 

17  Such  as  Ostia,  whose  lands  were  also  rav 
aged  by  the  Antiatians  in  415.    (Livy,  ibid.) 


264  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXDL 

confederacy,  including,  it  is  probable,  the  warlike  nations  of  the  Marsians  and 
the  Pelignians. 

When  the  Latins  sent  the  two  praetors  as  ambassadors  to  Rome,  it  is  evident 
that  no  active  warfare  could  be  coino;  on  in  Campania.     Latin  srar 

Th«  Romans  commence       .  i      j  "U    "U1  •     j.          J     -I  ill-  .•   °     i 

the  war  unexpectedly,  risons  had  probably  wintered  there  to  repel  plundering  parties  of 

Rnd  both  consuls  mnich     .,«--.'  j      ,1        T      ^  11  Ai  •    i 

through  samuium  into  the  Samnites ;  and  the  Latin  army  would  march  thither  as  soon 
as  the  season  for  military  operations  arrived,  to  renew  their  inva- 
sion of  Samnium.  No  expectation  seems  to  have  been  entertained  that  their 
proposal  of  an  equal  union  would  be  answered  by  an  immediate  declaration  of 
war.  Certain  it  is  that  the  breach  of  the  old  alliance  was  far  more  to  be  charged 
on  the  Romans  than  on  them  ;  for  the  Romans  had  deserted  them  in  the  midst 
of  a  war  jointly  undertaken  by  the  two  nations,  and  had  made  peace  with  the 
common  enemy ;  and  the  Campanians,  who  had  originally  joined  the  alliance  to 
obtain  protection  against  the  Samnites,  had  no  choice  but  to  follow  the  Latins,  as 
from  them  alone  was  that  protection  now  to  be  hoped  for.  But  the  opportunity 
was  tempting,  and  the  Romans,  taking  advantage18  of  the  earliness  of  the  season, 
when  the  Latins  might  scarcely  be  prepared  for  active  operations^  hastily  declared 
war,  and  dispatched  both  consuls  with  two  consular  armies,  not  by  the  direct  road 
into  Campania  by  Tarracina  or  by  the  Liris,  but  by  a  circuitous  route  at  the  back 
of  their  enemies'  country,  through  the  territory  of  the  Marsians  and  Pelignians19 
into  Samnium.  There  the  consuls  were  joined  by  the  Samrnte  army ;  and  their 
combined  forces  then  descended  from  the  mountains  of  Samnium,  and  encamped 
in  presence  of  the  enemy  in  the  plain  of  Capua,  with  a  retreat  open  into  the 
country  of  the  Samnites  on  their  rear,  but  with  the  whole  army  and  territory  of 
the  hostile  confederacy  interposed  between  them  and  Rome. 

While  the  Romans  and  Latins  lay  here  over  against  each  other,  the  consuls 
Tho  .on  of  T.  Maniiu.  issued  an  order20  strictly  forbidding  all  irregular  skirmishing,  or 
tw^toh&flrt&TJl  single  encounters  with  the  enemy.  They  wished  to  prevent  the 
ders,  and  is  executed.  C0nfusion  which  might  arise  in  chance  combats  between  two  par- 
ties alike  in  arms  and  in  language ;  perhaps  also  they  wished  to  stop  all  inter- 
course with  the  Latins,  lest  the  enemy  should  discover  their  real  strength,  or 
lest  old  feelings  of  kindness  should  revive  in  the  soldiers'  minds,  and  they  should 
begin  to  ask  whether  they  had  any  sufficient  grounds  of  quarrel.  It  was  on  this 
occasion  that  T.  Manlius,  the  consul's  son,  was  challenged  by  Geminus  Metius, 
of  Tusculum  ;21  and,  heedless  of  the  order  of  the  generals,  he  accepted  the  chal- 
lenge and  slew  his  antagonist.  The  young  man  returned  in  triumph  to  the  camp, 
and  laid  his  spoils  at  his  father's  feet;  but  the  consul,  turning  away  from  him, 
immediately  summoned  the  soldiers  to  the  prsetorium,  and  ordered  his  son  to  be 
beheaded  before  them.  All  were  struck  with  horror  at  the  sight,  and  the  younger 
soldiers,  from  a  natural  sympathy  with  youth  and  courage,  regarded  the  consul 

"When  we  consider  that  the  usual  season  for  again  with  effect,  even  after  it  has  been  often 

hostilities  at  this  period  was  the  autumn,  it  may  told  before,  if  we  have  received  it  from  an  ori- 

be  doubted  whether  the  Latin  army  which  fought  ginal    and   independent    source;    because    if 

under  Vesuvius  was  more  than  that  force  which  twenty  eye-witnesses  give  an  account  of  the 

had  wintered  in  Campania  to  garrison  the  sev-  same  ever,t,  the  impression  which  it  has  made 

eral  towns,  and  as  such  very  inferior  in  num-  on  each  of  them  will  have  been  different,  and, 

bers  to  the  two  consular  armies  of  the  Romans,  therefore,  each  will  tell  the  story  in  his  own  way, 

The  rapid  march  of  the  consuls  through  the  con-  and  it  will  contain  something  new  and  original, 

tral  countries  of  Italy  may  have  been  unknown  But  when  we  derive  all  our  knowledge  from  one 

to  the  Latins,  and  their  sudden  appearance  in  single  account,  and  that  account  has  been  once 

Campania  in  conjunction  with  the  Samnites  may  perfectly  given,  there  is  nothing  to  be  done  by 

have  been  as  startling  a  surprise  to  the  enemy,  later  writers  but  to  copy  it,  or  simply  to  state 

as  that  of  Claudius  Nero  to  Hasdrubal  after  his  its  substance.     Thus  it  is  with  Livy's  famous 

admirable  march  from  Bruttium  to  join  his  col-  description  of  the  condemnation  of  T.  Manlius 

eague  on  the  Motaurus ;  or  as  that  of  Napoleon  by  his  father ;  the  story  cannot  be  better  told 

to  the  Austrians  when  the  army  of  reserve  than  he  has  told  it,  and  we  have  no  means  of 

broke  out  from  the  Val  d'Aosta  on  the  plains  adding  to  it  or  varying  it  from  other  original 

DfLombardy  in  the  campaign  of  1800.  sources.     I  have  therefore  followed  Niebuhr  in 

"  Livy,  VIII.  G.  simply  stating  its  outline ;  for  the  finished  pic- 

99  Livy,  VIII.  6.  ture  the  reader  must  consult  Livy  himself. 
v  Livy,  VIII.  7.    The  same  story  may  be  told 


CHAP.  XXIX.]  BATTLE  UNDER  MOUNT  VESUVIUS.  265 

ith  abhorrence  to  the  latest  hour  of  his  life  ;  but  fear  and  respect  were  mingled 
ith  their  abhorrence,  and  strict  obedience,  enforced  by  so  dreadful  an  example, 
was  felt  by  all  to  be  indispensable. 

The  stories  which  we  are  obliged  to  follow,  shifting  their  scene  as  rapidly  and 
unconnectedly  as  our  old  drama,  transport  the  two  armies  without  The  two  wm.eg  meet 
a  word  of  explanation  from  the  neighborhood  of  Capua  to  the  foot  j^JJ^^S1^ 
>f  Mount  Vesuvius,  where,  on  the  road  which  led  to  Veseris,  ac-  gJ^^ftJSjSjJiSJ 
rding  to  their  own  way  of  expressing  it,  the  decisive  battle  was  ^njictor?  of  -t^ir- 
fought.  What  Veseris  was,22  or  where  it  was  situated,  on  which 
side  of  Vesuvius  the  action  took  place,  or  what  had  brought  the  two  armies 
thither,  are  questions  to  which  we  can  give  no  answers.  But  he  who  had  been 
present  at  the  last  council  held  by  the  Roman  generals  before  they  parted  to  take 
their  respective  stations  in  the  line,  might  have  seen  that,  having  planned  for  the 
coming  battle  all  that  skill  and  ability  could  devise,  they  were  ready  to  dare  all 
that  the  most  heroic  courage  could  do  or  suffer  :  the  aruspices  had  been  con- 
sulted2* as  to  the  import  of  the  signs  given  by  the  entrails  of  the  sacrifice  :  their 
answers  had  been  made  known  to  the  principal  officers  of  the  army  ;  and  with  it 
the  determination  of  the  consuls,  that,  on  whichever  side  of  the  battle  the  Ro- 
mans should  first  begin  to  give  ground,  the  consul  who  commanded  in  that  quar- 
ter should  forthwith  devote  himself,  and  the  hosts  of  the  enemy  with  himself,  to 
the  gods  of  death  and  to  the  grave :  "  for  fate,"  said  they,  "  requires  the  sacri- 
fice of  a  general  from  one  party,  and  of  an  army  from  the  other  :  one  of  us,  there- 
fore, will  be  the  general  that  shall  perish,  that  the  army  which  is  to  perish  also 
may  be  not  ours,  but  the  army  of  the  Latins." 

We  have  seen  that  the  arms  and  tactic  of  both  armies  were  precisely  similar. 
In  each  there  were  two  grand  divisions,  the  first  forming  the  ordi-  simi]ar  disposition,  o/ 
nary  line  of  battle,  and  the  second  the  reserve  ;  the  latter  being,  botl1  nnme8* 
in  point  of  numbers,  considerably  the  strongest.24  The  first  division,  however, 
was  subdivided  into  two  equal  parts,  the  first  of  which,  known  by  the  name  of 
the  Hastati,  consisted  of  light  and  heavy  armed  soldiers,  in  the  proportion  of  one- 
third  of  the  former  to  two-thirds  of  the  latter  ;  the  second  part,  called  the  Prin- 
cipes,  contained  the  flower  of  the  whole  army,  all  heavy-armed  men,  in  the  vigor 
of  their  age,  and  most  perfectly  and  splendidly  accoutred.  The  reserve,  forming 
in  itself  a  complete  army,  contained  a  threefold  subdivision ;  one-third  of  it  was 
composed  of  veteran  heavy-armed  soldiers,  the  Triarii ;  another  third  of  light- 
armed,  Rorarii;  and  the  remainder  were  mere  supernumeraries,  Accensi,  who 
were  destined  to  supply  the  places  of  those  who  should  have  fallen  in  the  first 
line,  or  to  act  with  the  reserve  in  cases  of  the  last  extremity.  These  divisions 
being  the  same  in  both  armies,  the  generals  on  either  side  knew  precisely  the 
force  and  nature  of  the  enemy's  reserve,  and  could  calculate  the  movements  of 
their  own  accordingly. 

The  tactic  of  the  Romans  was,  at  this  period,  in  an  intermediate  state,  between 
the  use  of  the  order  of  the  phalanx,  with  the  round  shield  and  pike,  Tactic  of  the  Roman  ie- 
and  the  loose  array  of  the  later  legion,  with  the  large  oblong  shield,  ei°natthu  period. 
sword,  and  pilum,  such  as  it  is  described  by  Polybius.     But  the  want  of  all  co- 

12  "  Apud  Vcserim  fluvium,"  is  the  cxpres-  the  dead,  and  earth,  the  mother  of  all,  claimed 

sion  of  the  author  "  do  Viris  Illustribus"  twice  as  their  victims  the  general  of  one  party,  and 

over,  in  his  notices  of  P.  Deciusand  of  T.  Man-  the  army  of  the  other:  the  consuls  then  sacri- 

lius.     Cicero  twice  mentions  the  name,  but  sim-  ficed,  to  see  whether  the  sign  observed  in  the 

ply  says  "ad  Veserim."    There  is  no  stream  at  entrails  of  the  victim  would  speak  the  same 

present  on  either  side  of  Vesuvius  which  will  language  as  their  vision. 

answer  the  description  ;  but  it  is  scarcely  pos-  24  See  the  famous  description  of  the  legion  at 

gible  to  calculate  the  changes  effected  in  the  ge-  this  period  in  Livy,  VIII.  8,  and  Niebnhr's  com- 

ography  of  a  country  by  volcanic  action  during  ments  upon  it,  Vol.  I.  p.  497,  &c.  Ed.  2,  1827, 

a  period  of  so  many  centuries.  and  Vol.  III.  p.  110,  &c.    The  first  line,  com- 

™  Livy,  VIII.  6.  Both  consuls,  said  the  story,  prising  the  hastati  and  principes,  contained  in 

had  seen  in  the  night  the  same  vision  ;  a  figure  each  legion  only  1890  men  ;  the  reserve,  eon- 

of  more  than  human  stature  and  majesty  ap-  sistingofthetriarii,  rorarii,  and  accensi,  arnount- 

peared  to  them,  and  told  them  that  the  gods  of  ed  to  2790. 


266 


HISTORY  OF  ROME. 


[CHAP.  XXIi 


temporary  accounts  of  this  middle  period  makes  it  exceedingly  difficult  to  com- 
prehend it  clearly.  Reserving,  therefore,  for  another  place  all  minute  inquiries 
into  the  subject,  I  shall  here  only  take  for  granted  some  of  the  principal  points, 
so  far  as  they  are  essential  to  a  description  of  the  battle. 

The  Roman  and  Latin  legions  were,  as  we  have  seen,  opposed  to  each  other. 
order  of  battle  of  both  The  Samnites  and  Hernicans,  who  formed  one  wing  of  the  Roman 
army,  must,  in  like  manner,  have  been  opposed  to  the  nations  of 
their  own  or  of  a  kindred  stock,  the  Campanians,  Sidicinians,  and  Volscians. 

Of  the  Roman  line  itself,  the  legions  on  the  right  were  commanded  by  Titus 
Manlius,25  those  on  the  left  by  Publius  Decius. 

The  battle  began  with  the  encounter  of  the  hastati,  who  formed  on  each  side, 
Battle  under  Mount  Ve-  as  we  nave  seen,  the  first  division  of  the  first  line.  Consisting  both 
•uvius-  of  light  and  heavy  armed  soldiers,  they  closed  with  each  other 

with  levelled  pikes,  amidst  showers  of  darts  from  their  light-armed  men,  who 
either  skirmished  in  the  intervals  between  the  maniples  of  the  pikemen,  or,  shel- 
tered behind  them,  threw  their  missiles  over  the  heads  of  their  comrades  into  the 
line  of  the  enemy. 

In  this  conflict  the  right  wing  of  the  Latins  prevailed,  and  the  Roman  hastati 
Roman  first  ime  in  dis-  of  the  left  wing  fell  back  in  disorder  upon  the  principes,  who  formed 
what  may  be  called  the  main  battle. 

Decius  then  called  aloud  for  M.  Valerius,26  the  pontifex  maximus.  "  The  gods," 
p.  Decius  devotes  him-  he  said,  "  must  help  us  now  ;"  and  he  made  the  pontifex  dictate 
to  him  the  form  of  words  in  which  he  was  to  devote  himself  and 
the  legions  of  the  enemy  to  the  gods  of  death.  It  should  be  remembered  that 
to  Decius,  as  one  of  the  commons,  all  the  ceremonies  of  the  Roman  religion  were 
an  unknown  mystery.  The  pontifex  bade  him  take  his  consular  toga,27  and  wrap 


36  Livy,  VII.  9. 

28  Who  this  M.  Valerius  was,  we  know  not; 
whether  it  was  the  M.  Valerius  Poplicola,  who 
was  consul  in  400  and  402,  or  M.  Valerius  Cor- 
vus,  who  had  been  already  three  times  consul 
and  once  dictator,  and  of  whom  Pliny  relates, 
that  in  the  course  of  his  long  life,  he  was  ap- 
pointed to  curule  offices  no  fewer  than  one  and 
twenty  times.  Hist.  Natur.  VII.  48. 

27  "Togam  praetextam  sumere  jussit ;"  "su- 
mere,"  because  it  was  not  commonly  worn  in  bat- 
tle. The  form  of  words  in  which  Decius  devo- 
ted himself  ran  as  follows  :  "  Thou,  Janus?  thou, 
Jupiter,  thou,  Mars,  our  father,  thou,  Quirinus, 
thou,  Bellona;  ye,  Lares,  ye,  the  nine  gods,  ye, 
the  gods  of  our  fathers'  land,  ye,  the  gods  whose 
power  disposes  both  of  us  and  of  our  enemies, 
and  ye  also  gods  of  the  dead,  I  pray  you,  I  hum- 
bly beseech  you,  I  crave,  and  doubt  not  to  re- 
ceive this  grace  from  you,  that  ye  would  pros- 
per the  people  of  Rome  and  the  Quirites  with 
all  might  and  victory ;  and  that  ye  would  visit 
the  enemies  of  the  people  of  Rome  and  of  the 
Quirites  with  terror,  with  dismay,  and  with 
death.  And,  according  to  these  words  which 
I  have  spoken,  so  do  I  now,  on  the  behalf  of 
the  commonwealth  of  the  Roman  people  and  the 
Quirites,  on  the  behalf  of  the  army,  both  the  le- 
gions and  the  foreign  aids,  of  the  Roman  peo- 
ple and  the  Quirites,  devote  the  legions  and  the 
foreign  aids  of  our  enemies,  along  with  myself, 
to  the  gods  of  the  dead,  and  to  the  grave."  No 
one  can  doubt  the  genuineness  of  this  prayer, 
which,  together  with  the  rules  to  be  observed 
in  these  solemn  devotions,  Livy  has  copied,  he 
tells  us,  "  verbis  ipsis,  ut  tradita  nuncupataque 
Bunt:"  VIII.  11 ;  where  "tradita,"  I  may  ob- 
serve, docs  not  refer  to  any  oral  tradition,  but 
to  the  pontifical  books:  just  as  Cyprian,  where 
bo  appeals  to  "  traditio  apostolica,"  means  to 


refer  to  the  apostolical  writings  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament. Livy  himself  may  have  copied  the 
prayer  immediately  from  one  of  the  older  an- 
nalists, either  from  Fabius  Pictor,  from  whom 
Gellius  quotes  one  or  two  similar  notices  of  an- 
cient religious  observances,  or  from  L.  Cincius, 
whose  treatise  "de  Re  Militari"  contained  the 
form  used  by  the  Fetiales  in  declaring  war,  and 
that  of  the  military  oath.  See  Geliius,  XVI.  4. 
Varro  also  was  fond  of  recording  ancient  forms, 
carmina,  in  their  own  words  ;  of  which  we  have 
several  instances  in  that  almost  solitary  rem- 
nant of  his  voluminous  works  which  has  reached 
our  times,  his  work  on  the  Latin  language. 
Forms  of  all  sorts,  and  laws,  may  be  relied  on 
as  perfectly  genuine,  even  when  ascribed  to  a 
period  the  history  of  which  is  good  for  nothing. 
To  notice  more  particularly  the  prayer  of  De- 
cius, it  may  be  seen  that  it  addresses  Janus  be- 
fore all  other  gods,  even  before  Jupiter  himself; 
in  evident  agreement  with  that  ancient  rite  of 
opening  the  gates  of  Janus  at  the  beginning  of 
a  war,  which' implied  that  he  wns  in  an  especial 
manner  the  god  whom  the  Romans  wished 
to  go  out  with  them  to  battle.  Sec  p.  4.  Mars 
Pater,  like  the  Zct>j  and  'AwoAAwj/  Trarpwo?,  has  a 
manifest  reference  to  the  legend  of  the  birth  of 
Romulus.  As  a  god  of  war,  Mars,  I  should  ima- 
gine, was  of  a  later  date  in  Italy  than  Janus ; 
or,  at  any  rate,  that  the  two  gods  came  to  the 
Romans  from  different  quarters.  Virgil  speaks 
of  the  opening  of  the  gates  of  Janus  as  a  Latin 
rite,  older  than  the  origin  of  Rome.  The  "  la- 
res" here  spoken  of,  would  be,  I  suppose,  "la- 
res militares"  (see  Orclli's  Inscriptions,  No. 
1665),  "lares,"  as  is  well  known,  being  a  gener- 
al title,  and  denoting  powers,  or  mighty  ones ; 
their  particular  character  and  office  being  ex- 
pressed by  a  particular  title,  or  implied  by  the 
nature  of  the  case.  Thus  L.  ^Eniilius,  in  the 


CHAP.  XXIX.]          P.  DECIUS  DEVOTES  HIMSELF  TO  DEATH.  26^ 

t  round  his  head,  putting  out  his  hand  from  under  it,  to  hold  it  to  his  face,  and 
to  set  his  feet  upon  a  javelin,  and  so  to  utter  the  set  words  which  he  should  dic- 
tate. When  they  had  been  duly  spoken,  the  consul  sent  his  lictors  to  his  col- 
league, to  say  that  he  had  devoted  himself  to  death  for  the  deliverance  of  the 
Roman  army.  Then,  with  his  toga  wrapped  around  his  body,  after  the  fashion 
adopted  in  sacrifices  to  the  gods,  he  sprung  upon  his  horse,  armed  at  all  points,2' 
plunged  amidst  the  ranks  of  the  enemy,  and  was  slain.  Such  an  example  of  self- 
devotion  in  a  general  is  in  all  cases  inspiriting ;  but  the  Romans  beheld  in  this 
not  only  the  heroic  valor  of  Decius,  but  the  certain  devotion  of  their  enemies  to 
the  vengeance  of  the  gods  ;  what  was  due  from  themselves  to  the  powers  of  death 
Decius  had  paid  for  them  ;  so,  like  men  freed  from  a  burden,  they  rushed  on  with 
light  and  cheerful  hearts,  as  if  appointed  to  certain  victory. 

The  Latins,  too,  understood  the  meaning  of  Decius'  death,  when  they  saw  his 
dress  and  heard  his  words  of  devotion ;  and  no  doubt  it  produced  T^  „,„;„  batties  on 
on  their  minds  something  of  dismay.  But,  soon  recovering,  the  both  8ides  enga«e- 
main  battles  on  both  sides  closed  in  fierce  onset ;  and  though  the  light  troops  of 
the  Roman  reserve  were  also  brought  into  action,  and  skirmished  amongst  the 
maniples  of  the  hastati  and  principes,  yet  victory  seemed  disposed  to  favor  the 
Latins. 

In  this  extremity  Manlius,  well  knowing  that  in  a  contest  so  equal  the  last  re- 
serve brought  into  the  field  on  either  side  would  inevitably  decide 
the  day,  still  kept  back  the  veterans  of  his  second  line,  and  called  cides  t^TfeuTof  the 
forward  only  his  accensi  or  supernumeraries,  whom,  for  this  very 
purpose,  he  had,  contrary  to  the  usual  custom,  furnished  with  complete  arms. 
The  Latins  mistook  these  for  the  veterans,  or  triarii,  and  thinking  that  the  last 
reserve  of  the  Romans  was  now  engaged,  they  instantly  brought  up  their  own. 
The  Romans  struggled  valiantly,  but  at  last  were  beginning  to  give  way,  when, 
at  a  signal  given,  the  real  reserve  of  the  Roman  veterans  started  forwards,  ad- 
vanced through  the  intervals  of  the  wavering  line  in  front  of  them,  and  with  loud 
cheers  charged  upon  the  enemy.  Such  a  shock  at  such  a  moment  was  irresisti- 
ble ;  they  broke  through  the  whole  army  of  the  Latins  almost  without  loss ;  the 

war  with  Antioclius,  when  engaged  in  a  sea-  prayer,  to  show_  that  the  Romans  did  not  treat 

fight  with  the  enemy,  vowed  to  build  a  temple  them  with  that  irreverence  which  the  Latin  am- 

to  the  lares  permarini,  or  "  the  powers  or  genii  bassador  had  manifested  towards  the  Jupiter 

of  the  deep."    Livy,  XL.  52.    Macrobius,  Sat-  of  the  Capitol. 

urnalia,  I.  10.     Miiller,    Etrusker,  Vol.  II.  p.  Lastly,  to  end  this  long  note,  it  has  been 

129,  conf.  p.  91.    The  war  lares,  to  whom  Decius  doubted  what  is  the  meaning  of  the  expression, 

prayed,  are,  apparently,  the  same  powers  that  "veniam  petp  feroque,"  which  occurs  in  the 

are  represented  on  two  Etruscan  tombs,  engra-  prayer  of  Decius.    I  think  the  true  interpreta- 

vings  of  which  are  given  by  Micali  in  the  plates  tion  of  "  fero"  is  "  nanciscor ;"  and  that  as  some 

accompanying  his  history,  PI.  105,  106.     They  have  understood  it  (see  the  note  on  the  words  in 

are  winged  figures,  male  and  female,  who  are  Bekker's  Livy),  the  words  are  added  as  of  good 

present  in  a  battle,  taking  part  with  the  several  omen,  "  the  grace  which  I  crave  I  feel  sure  that 

combatants.  I  shall  also  obtain ;"  in  the  well-known  future 

The  "  nine  gods,"  "  dii  novensiles,"  are  prob-  sense  of  the  present  tense,  in  which  "  fero"  sig- 

ably  the  nine  gods  of  the  Etruscan  religion,  nines,  "  I  am  going  to  obtain."    It  may,  per- 

•who  alone  had  the  power  of  launching  light-  haps,  signify  no  more  than  an  earnest  wish,  "  ] 

ning  and  thunderbolts.    See  Miiller,  Etrusker,  am  ready  to  obtain,"  "  I  would  fain  obtain ;" 

Vol.  II.  p.  84,  note  10.    According  to  another  but,  at  any  rate,  "ferre  veniam"  must  signify 

definition,  Servius,  ./En.  VIII.  187,  the  dii  no-  "  to  receive  favor,"  as  "petere"  signifies  to  sue 

vensiles  were  gods  who  had  been  deified  for  for  it." 

their  good  deeds ;  "  quibus  merita  virtutis  dede-  m  "  Armatus  in  equum  insilivit,"  says  Livy. 

rint  numinis  dignitatem."  Zonaras  says,  ru  forAa  faMs  (VII.  26).    But  this 

By  "the  gods  whose  power  disposes  both  of  must  refer  only  to  the  moments  while  he  was 

us  and  of  our  enemies,"  "  divi  quorum  est  po-  uttering  the  prayer  :  when  that  was  ended,  he 

testas  nostrorum  hostiumque,"  may  be  meant  resumed  the  full  arms  of  a  Eoman  general;  only 

either  the  especial  tutelar  powers  of  each  nation,  his  sacred  character,  as  one  devoted  to  the  gods, 

the  ''  lares  urbium  et  civitatum"  (see   Orelli,  was  marked  by  the  peculiar  manner  in  which 

Inscription.  Collect.    1668,   1670,    and  Miiller,  his  toga  was  wrapped  around  him,  the  "  cinctua 

Etrusker,  Vol.  II.  p.  91,  93),  or  the  peculiar  na-  Gabinus." 

tional  gods  of  each,  such  as  the  Jupiter,  Juno,  With  respect  to  the  nature  and  origin  of  th« 

and  Minerva  of  the  Capitol  for  Rome,  and  the  cinctus  Gabinus,  see  Miiller,  Etrusker,  Vol.  IL 

Jupiter  of  the  mountains  of  Alba  for  Latium.  p.  266. 
The  gods  of  Latium  might  be  addressed  in  the 


268  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXIX 

battle  became  a  butchery,  and,  according  to  the  usual  result  of  engagements 
fought  hand  to  hand,  where  a  broken  army  can  neither  fight  nor  fly,  nearly  three- 
fourths  of  the  Latins  were  killed  or  taken. 

How  far  the  Samnites  contributed  to  this  victory,  whether  they,  after  having 
shnre  of  the  Samnites  beaten  the  Volscians  and  Campanians,  threatened  the  flank  of  the 
in  the  tatue.  Latins  at  the  moment  of  the  last  charge  of  the  Roman  veterans, 

there  was  no  Samnite  historian  to  tell,  and  no  Roman  annalist  would  tell  truly. 
Nor  need  we  wonder  at  this ;  for  if  we  had  only  certain  English  accounts  of  the 
battle  of  Waterloo,  who  would  know  that  the  Prussians  had  any  effectual  share 
In  that  day's  victory  ? 

If  the  importance  of  a  battle  be  a  just  reason  for  dwelling  upon  it  in  detail, 
then  I  may  be  excused  for  having  described  minutely  this  great  action  between 
the  Romans  and  Latins  under  Mount  Vesuvius ;  for  to  their  victory  on  that  day, 
securing  to  them  forever  the  alliance  of  Latium,  the  Romans  owed  their  conquest 
of  the  world. 

The  wreck  of  the  Latin  army  retreated  by  different  routes  out  of  Campania ; 
nre  a-am  anc^  ^ie  con(luerors  na^  suffered  so  severely  that  they  were  in  no 
dnmuuy?d™  condition  to  pursue  them.  The  fugitives  first  halted  at  Minturnae  ;w 
then  finding  themselves  not  molested,  they  advanced  again  to 
Vescia,  a  town  described  as  in  the  country  of  the  Ausonians,  one  of  the  Greek 
forms  of  the  name  of  the  Opicans  or  Oscans,  and  situated  apparently  on  the  east- 
ern or  Campanian  side  of  the  Massican  hills,  where  the  streams  run  towards  the 
Savone.  Here  they  rallied,  and  L.  Numisius,  the  Latin  praetor,  used  every  effort 
to  revive  their  courage,  and  to  procure  reinforcements  both  from  Latium,  and 
from  the  Volscians';  Campania  having  been  wholly  lost  by  the  late  battle.  A 
large  force  was  thus  again  assembled,  and  the  Romans  and  Samnites,  who  had 
been  themselves  also  reinforced,  we  may  suppose,  in  the  interval,  from  Samnium 
at  any  rate,  if  not  from  Rome,  hastened  a  second  time  to  encounter  them.  But 
the  victory  was  easy  and  decisive ;  and  as  no  third  army  could  immediately  be 
raised,  the  consul  entered  Latium  without  opposition,  plundered  the  open  coun- 
try, and  received  the  submission  of  several  cities.  The  Latin  confederacy  was, 
in  fact,  broken  up  forever. 

According  to  the  Fasti,  the  consuls  of  the  preceding  year  must  have  resigned 
T.  Maniius  returns  to  so  l°ng  before  the  regular  expiration  of  their  office,  that  Manlius 
Rome  ana  triumphs.  ^^  j)ecjus  must  have  been  appointed  to  succeed  them  almost  be- 
fore the  end  of  the  winter,  and  their  great  campaign  was  carried  on  in  the  early 
spring.  Manlius  made  all  haste,  no  doubt,  to  return  home  to  his  triumph  ;  but 
as  he  triumphed  on  the  18th  of  May,30  it  is  clear  that  he  had  greatly  anticipated 
the  usual  season  for  military  operations,  and  by  so  doing  had  perhaps  taken  the 
enemy  by  surprise.  Great  as  had  been  his  services,  his  triumph  was  regarded 
with  no  joy  ;  such  rejoicings  seemed  unbecoming31  in  one  who  had  lost  both  his 
colleague  and  his  own  son  in  the  course  of  the  contest ;  and  the  younger  Romans 
looked  on  him  less  as  the  conqueror  of  the  Latins,  than  as  the  murderer  of  his 
son. 

The  Latin  towns  which  had  already  submitted  were  deprived  of  all  their  public 
or  domain  land,  and  a  like  penalty  was  imposed  on  the  Campanians.32  But  as 

"  Livy,  VIII.  10, 11.  It  is  plain  from  this  that  by  a  route  circuitous  indeed,  but  secure  from 
Samnium  wae  altogether  the  base  of  the  Eoman  interruption,  through  the  country  of  the  Mar- 
army's  operations,  and  that  whatever  was  the  sians  and  Pelignians. 

exact  scene  of  the  great  battle,  the  Romans  ^  The  notice  in  the  fragments  of  the  Fasti 

fought  with  the  enemy's  army  interposed  be-  runs  as  follows : — 

tween  them  and  Rome.  This  sufficiently  marks  [T.  Mjanlius  L.  F.  A.  N.  Imperiossus  Tor- 
the  grand  scale  of  these  operations,  and  also  the  quatus  [C]os  III.  De  Latineis  .  Campaneis  .  Si- 
enlarged  military  views  of  the  Roman  consuls,  dicineis  .  Aurunccis  .  A.CDXIII.  xv.  K.  Ju- 
They  ventured  to  abandon  altogether  the  line  of  nias. 

their  own  territory,  and  to  carry  the  war  cli-  31  Dion  Cassius,  Fragm.  XXIX.  Max, 

rectly  into  Campania,  resting  on  the  territory  ^  Livy,  VIII.  11.     Niebuhr  thinks  that  the 

of  their  allies,  and  communicating  with  Rome  settlement  of  Latium  was  attended  by  many  ex« 


. 


AP.  XXIX.] 


THE  LATINS  AGAIN  DEFEATED. 


269 


the  Campanian  aristocracy  had  been  wholly  opposed  to  ^ the  war  TlieCampSi:i;iM1,irUtoc. 
with  Rome,  they  were  rather  entitled  to  reward  than  punishment,  racy  rewarded  for  the» 

J  .  _  .  /•    T>  •   •  1*1       attachment  to  Home. 

They  therefore  received  the  franchise  of  Roman  citizens,  which 
enabled  them  to  intermarry  with  Romans,  and  to  inherit  property,  while  their 
ascendency  in  their  own  country  was  abundantly  secured  ;  and  as  a  compensation 
for  the  loss  of  their  domain  land,  they  were  each  to  receive  from  the  Campanian 
people  45033  denarii  a  year. 

Whilst  the  consuls  were  absent  in  Campania,  L.  Papirius  Crassus,  the  praetor, . 
had  been  left  at  home  with  the  command  of  the  forces  usually 
appointed  to  protect  the  city.     He  had  watched  the  Antiatians, 
and  checked  their  plundering  inroads,  but  had  been  able  to  do  nothing  of  import- 
ance.    After  the  return  of  Manlius  he  was  appointed  dictator,  as  Madias  himself 
fell  sick.     It  seems  probable  that  he  was  appointed  dictator  for  the  purpose  of 
holding  the  comitia,  and  that  Manlius,  having  been  left  sole  consul,  and  after- 
wards being  himself  disabled  by  illness,  was  required,  like  the  consuls  who  had 
preceded  him,  to  resign  his  office  before  the  end  of  his  year.34     He  was  succeeded 
by  Ti.  ^Emilius  and  Q.  Publilius  Philo. 

The  history  of  their  consulship  is  obscure.  The  Latins  are  said  to  have  re- 
newed the  war  again,35  to  recover  their  forfeited  domain  ;  it  is  more  The  Mjr  conmli  defeat 
likely  that  only  some  of  their  cities  had  submitted  to  Manlius,  and  theLati»»  %'<»»• 
that  the  treatment  which  these  met  with  drove  the  rest  to  try  the  fortune  of 
arms  once  again.  They  were  defeated  by  the  consul  Publilius,36  and  more  of 
their  towns  then  submitted  ;  some,  however,  still  continued  to  resist,  and  amongst 
these  Pedum,  Tibur,  and  Praeneste,  are  particularly  named.  The  consul  Ti. 
^Emilius  laid  siege  to  Pedum,  but  the  defence  was  obstinate  ;  and  whatever  was 
the  true  cause,  Pedum  remained  to  the  end  of  his  consulship  unconquered. 

This  was  probably  owing  to  the  state  of  affairs  in  Rome.  Out  of  the  large 
tracts  of  domain  land  won  in  the  last  campaign,  the  assignations  of  Q.  puWiMlJi  philo  dic. 
land  to  the  commons  had  in  no  case  exceeded  the  amount  of  three  *j£d  a"d  JJJU£  8£ 
jugera  to  each  man :  all  the  rest  was  occupied,  as  usual,  by  the  great  Pubmian  la"s- 


ecutions,  which  history,  from  a  desire  to  soften 
the  picture,  has  omitted,  Vol.  III.  p.  159.  The 
Romans,  however,  far  from  being  ashamed  of 
such  executions,  rather  gloried  in  them,  and 
even  Livy  himself  relates  with  entire  approba- 
tion the  cruel  vengeance  taken  upon  Capua  in 
the  second  Punic  war.  The  moment  that  the 
war  was  at  an  end  with  any  of  the  Latin  states, 
it  was  the  policy  of  Home  to  avoid  driving  them 
again  to  despair  by  any  bloody  executions ;  and 
as  the  deportation  of  the  senators  of  Velitne  is 
mentioned  as  an  instance  of  remarkable  severity, 
it  seems  reasonable  to  believe  that  no  blood  was 
shed  except  on  the  field  of  battle. 

**  Livy,  VIII.  11.  Mr.  Twiss  supposes  that 
thirty  talents  were  fixed  upon  as  the  annual  pay- 
ment to  be  made  to  each  century  of  the  Campa- 
nian cquites,  which  would  make  one  hundred 
and  twenty  talents  for  the  whole  four  centuries ; 
and  as  there  were  four  hundred  knights  in  each 
century,  it  allows  just  four  hundred  and  fifty 
denarii  or  drachmae  to  each  individual.  Nie- 
buhr  well  observes  that  the  yearly  payment  of 
so  large  a  sum  as  one  hundred  and  twenty  tal- 
ents gives  us  a  high  idea  of  the  wealth  of  Capua. 
The  coin  paid  is  called  by  Livy  "  denarios  num- 
inos ;"  and  although  silver  denarii  were  not  coin- 
ed at  Rome  till  a  later  period,  yet  this  proves 
nothing  against  their  earlier  use  in  Campania ; 
and  although  Eckkel  and  Mionnct  acknowledge 
only  a  copper  coinage  of  ancient  Capua,  yet  Micali 

fes  an  engraving  of  a  silver  coin,  with  an  Oscan 
eription,  which  must,  undoubtedly,  have  be- 
gcd  to  Capua  in  the  days  of  its  independence. 
>  plate  115  of  Mioali's  Atlas. 


84  Something  of  this  sort  must  be  supposed, 
if  Livy  had  any  authority  for  his  statement,  thn!; 
the  consuls  in  the  year  420,  only  ten  years  after 
this  period,  still  came  into  office  on  the  1st  of 
July.     (Livy,  VIII.  20.)     For  as  Manlius  en- 
tered on  his  consulship  before  the  winter  was 
well  ended,  and  triumphed  as  early  as  May,  the 
consular  year  must  have  begun  from  that  time 
forwards,  not  in  July,  but  in  the  early  spring, 
unless  it  had  again  been  altered  by  some  subse- 
quent change.      But  the  whole  chronology  of 
this  period  is  still  so  uncertain  in  its  details,  that 
it  is  impossible  to  arrive  at  any  certain  conclu- 
sion. 

85  Livy,  VIII.  12. 

36  The  dates  for  these  years  furnished  by  the 
Fasti  are  as  follow : 

T.  Manlius  triumphed  on  the  18th  of  May, 
413.  Q.  Publilius  Philo  triumphed  on  the  13th 
of  January,  414 ;  and  L.  Camillas  and  C.  Mce- 
nius  triumphed  on  the  28th  and  30th  of  Sep- 
tember, 415.  Now,  as  the  Fasti  reckon  the  years 
of  Rome  from  the  21st  of  April  (the  Palilia),  the 
traditionary  date  of  the  foundation  of  the  city, 
it  is  obvious  that  between  May,  413,  and  Janu- 
ary, 414,  there  intervened  twenty  months, 
whilst  between  January,  414,  and  September, 
415,  there  would  be  no  more  than  eight.  But 
whether  these  dates  are  correct  is  quite  another 
question.  I  believe  that  it  is  impossible  to  fix 
the  chronology  of  much  of  the  fifth  century  of 
Rome  with  precision,  because  it  is  impossible 
to  fix  the  history ;  and  again,  we  cannot  attempt 
to  fix  the  history  by  the  chronology,  becaus* 
that  is  in  itself  uncertain. 


«J70  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  '[CHAP.  XXIX 

families  of  the  aristocracy.  Great  discontent  was  excited  at  this,  and  other  cir- 
cumstances occurred,  in  all  probability  showing  a  design  on  the  part  of  the  pa- 
tricians to  take  advantage  of  their  successes  abroad  in  order  to  recover  their  old 
ascendency.  Niebuhr  supposes  that  the  majority  of  the  senate  was  opposed  to 
these  projects,  and  cordially  joined  with  the  consuls  in  repressing  them.  Both 
the  consuls  were  wise  and  moderate  men ;  both  had  been  amongst37  the  five 
commissioners  for  the  relief  of  the  general  distress  in  the  year  403,  whose  merits 
were  so  universally  acknowledged  by  all  parties.  There  is  no  likelihood  that 
such  men  should  have  indulged  a  spirit  of  faction  or  personal  pique  at  such  a 
moment,  or  should  have  proposed  and  carried  laws  of  the  greatest  importance 
without  any  especial  call  for  them,  and  yet  without  encountering  any  formidable 
opposition.  Nor  is  it  consistent  that  the  senate,  after  having  had  some  months' 
experience,  according  to  the  common  story,  of  the  factious  character  of  the  two 
consuls,  should  have  required  them  to  name  a  dictator  in  order  to  get  rid  of 
them,  when  the  very  result  which  did  take  place  might  have  been  so  easily  fore- 
seen, that  JEmilius  would  name  his  own  colleague.  It  is  far  more  probable  that 
the  senate  foresaw,  and  had  in  fact  arranged  that  it  should  be  so,  in  order  that 
the  reforms  which  were  judged  necessary  might  be  supported  and  carried  with 
the  authority  of  the  greatest  magistracy  in  the  commonwealth.  The  reforms 
now  effected  were  purely  constitutional,  and  consisted  mainly,  as  far  as  appears, 
in  destroying  the  power  of  the  aristocratical  assembly  of  the  curise,  a  body  ne- 
cessarily of  a  very  different  character  from  the  senate,  and  in  which  the  most 
one-sided  party  spirit  was  likely  to  be  predominant.  General  assemblies  of  the 
members  of  a  privileged  or  separate  order33  are  of  all  things  the  most  mischie- 
vous ;  as  they  combine  with  the  turbulence  and  violence  of  a  popular  assembly 
all  the  narrow-mindedness  and  exclusiveness  of  a  particular  caste.  It  seems  that 
no  greater  benefit  could  have  been  conferred  on  Rome  than  the  extinction  of  the 
power  of  the  curite  ;  and  accordingly  one  of  Publilius'  laws  deprived39  them  of 
their  power  as  a  branch  of  the  legislature  with  regard  to  all  laws  passed  by  the 
comitia  of  tribes ;  and  another  reduced  it  to  a  mere  formality  with  respect  to  all 
laws  submitted  to  the  comitia  of  the  centuries  :40  whatever  law  was  proposed  by 

87  Livy,  VII.  21.     "Merit!  asquitate  curaque  enacted;  but  Niebuhr's  explanation  is  so  con- 
sunt  nt  per    omnium    annalium    monumenta  sistent  and  so  probable  that  I  have  been  in- 
celebres  nominibus  essent."  duced  to  adopt  it. 

88  It  scarcely  needs  to  be  observed  that  our  40  "Ut  legum  quce  comitiis  centuriatis  ferren- 
house  of  lords  resembles  the  Roman  senate,  and  tur  ante  initnm  suffragium  patres  auctores  fie- 
not  the  comitia  of  the  curia?.     If  our  nobility  rent."    I  need  not  say  that  "patres"  here  was 
were  like  that  of  the  continent,  so  that  all  a  generally  supposed  to  mean  the  senate,  and  I 
peer's  sons  were  noble,  or  like  the  patrician  or-  have  no  doubt  that  Livy  so  understood  it ;  but 
der  at  Rome,  so  that  all  his  descendants  in  the  I  think  Niebuhr  is  right  in  understanding  it  of 
male  line  were  noble,  a  representative  body  the  patrician  curias,  who  had  before  possessed 
chosen  out  of  and  by  so  large  a  privileged  class,  a  distinct  voice  as  a  branch  of  the  legislature, 
without  any  mixture  of  new  creations,  would  The  power  of  the  curia?  was  likely  to  be  dis- 
be  a  very  clifferent  thing  from  our  house  of  puted  earlier  than   that  of  the    senate ;    the 
peers,  and  would  give  a  tolerable  idea  of  the  na-  senate   was  now  a  mixed  body,  composed  of 
ture  of  the  Roman  comitia  of  curia3.    Compare  the    most   eminent    men    of  both  orders ;   it 
also  the  spirit,  at  once  factious  and  intolerant,  was  a  true  national  council ;   and  that  such  a 
which  has  marked  the    convocations  of  the  body  should  exercise  the  power  of  deciding 
clergy,  arid  particularly  the  lower  house  of  con-  what  questions  should   be  submitted   to  the 
vocation  as  opposed  to  the  upper ;  that  is,  agai' :,  comitia  of  the  people  at  large,  was  nothing 
the  curioe  as  opposed  to  the  senate.    Consider  more  than  what  was  common  in  Greece  even  at 
also  that  worst  of  all  possible  assemblies,  the  this  very  period;  and  it  was  held  not  to  be  in- 
diet  of  the  nobles  of  Poland.  compatible  with  a  democracy,  provided  that  the 


with  the  Valerian  and  Iloratian  law  of  the  voar 


at  Athens : 


306,  which  enacted,  "utquod  tributim  plebes  trpoypadiovfft  t>tb  rfis  @ov\fjs  KOI  xpb  rj??  fv*A»7<naj 
jussissct  populum  tencret."  III.  55.  It  is  ccr-  inrip  uv  ^p?  xprjuaTfytv.  Pollux,  from  Aris- 
tuiuly  possible  that  the  same  law  havincr  fallen  totle,  VIII.  §  05.  It  is  not  probable  then  that 


into 

power  of  a  party 


disuse,  or  rather  being  obstructed  by  the    the  senate  at  Rome  should  have  tluis  early  lost 
sr  of  a  party,  should  be  again  solemnly  re-    a  power  which  still  existed  generally  in  Greece : 


CHAP.  XXIX.]  SETTLEMENT  OF  LATIUM.  271 

the  senate  to  the  centuries,  and  no  measure  could  originate  with  the  latter,  wag 
to  be  considered  as  having  the  sanction  of  the  curise  also :  so  that  if  the  cen- 
turies passed  it,  it  should  have  at  once  the  force  of  a  law.  A  third  Publilian 
law  enacted  that  one  of  the  two  censors  should  necessarily  be  elected  from  the 
commons  ;  a  fourth,  as  Niebuhr  thinks,  provided  that  the  praetorship  also  should  be 
thrown  open,  and  that  in  each  alternate  year  the  praetor  also  should  be  a  plebeian. 

"  The  patres,"  says  Livy,  "  thought  that  the  two  consuls  had  done  the  com- 
monwealth more  mischief  by  their  domestic  measures  than  service  The  Prbrilia_  ,aws  ftr, 
by  their  conduct  of  the  war  abroad."  If  the  term  patres  be  un-  provedV  c!  majority 
derstood  of  the  majority  of  the  patrician  order,  Livy  is  probably 
right ;  but  if  he  meant  to  speak  of  the  senate,  he  must  have  judged  them  over- 
harshly.  That  assembly  contained  the  best  and  wisest  of  the  aristocracy,  but  it 
did  not  represent  the  passions  and  exclusiveness  of  the  patrician  vulgar.  The  ma- 
jority of  the  senate,  whether  patricians  or  commoners,  saw  the  necessity  of  the 
Publilian  laws,  and  had  the  rare  wisdom  to  pass  them  in  time.  Accordingly,  they 
were  followed  by  no  demands  for  further  concessions ;  but  by  a  period  of  such 
unbroken  peace  and  order,  that  for  many  years  the  internal  dissensions  of  the 
Romans  are  heard  of  no  more  ;  and  the  old  contests  between  the  patrician  order 
and  the  rest  of  the  people  may  be  said  to  have  ended  forever.  The  Hortensian 
laws,  about  fifty  years  later,  were  occasioned  by  contests  of  another  sort,  such  as 
marked  the  latter  period  of  the  commonwealth ;  contests  of  a  nature  far  more 
dangerous — where  the  object  sought  for  is  not  so  much  political  power  for  its 
own  sake,  but  as  the  means  of  obtaining  bread. 

In  the  following  year  the  war  with  the  Latins  was  brought  i,o  a  conclusion. 
The  new  consuls  were  L.  Furius  Camillus,  perhaps  a  grandson41  Fiimi  submission  of  L» 
of  the  great  Camillus,  and  C.  Maenius.  Camillus  marched  against  tium> 
Pedum,  while  his  colleague  attacked  the  Antiatians,  who  were  supported  by  the 
people  of  VelitroD,  Aricia,  and  Lavinium.  Both  were  completely  successful ;  Pe- 
dum was  taken  by  Camillus,42  and  the  people  of  Tibur  and  Praeneste,  who  en- 
deavored to  relieve  it,  were  defeated ;  while  Mcenius  gained  a  victory  over  the 
Antiatians  and  their  allies  near  the  river,  or  rather  stream,  of  Astura.  Then  all 
the  cities  of  Latium  severally  submitted,  as  did  also  the  people  of  Antium ;  gar- 
risons were  placed  in  them,  and  the  future  settlement  of  Latium  was  submitted 
by  the  consul,  Camillus,  to  the  decision  of  the  senate.  It  appears  that  the  case 
of  each  city  was  considered  separately,  and  its  fate  was  settled  as  justice  or  ex- 
pediency might  seem  to  dictate.  Unluckily,  Livy  either  could  not  find,  or  grew 
impatient  of  repeating,  what  was  the  particular  sentence  passed  upon  each  state  : 
he  has  only  noticed  the  fate  of  a  few,  and  we  are  left  to  conjecture  what  was  de- 
termined with  respect  to  the  rest. 

First  of  all,  it  was  ordered  as  a  general  law,  that  there  should  be  from  hence- 
forth no  common  meetings,  assemblies,  or  councils  for  any  two  or 

,.•,  ..  *    T     A«  di  i     j  i  i  i          111  t  Settlement   of  Lntinm. 

more  ot  the  cities  ot  Latium  ;  and  that  they  should  be  made  as  Dissolution  of  the  Latin 
foreigners  to  one  another,  with  no  liberty  of  intermarriage,  or  of 

but  that  the  curise  should  be  deprived  of  it  was  peaceably,  and,  so  far  as  we  hear,  without  u 

perfectly  natural.     And  as  Niebuhr  observes,  struggle.' 

that  the  principal  members  of  the  senate,  head-  41>He  is  called  in  the  Fasti,  "Spurii  films, 

ed  by  the  dictator  and  supported  by  the  mass  Marci  nepos."   The  great  M.  Camillus  is  known 

of  the  people,  should  have  triumphed  over  the  to  have  had  a  son  named  Spurius,  who  was  the 

ultra  arietocratical  spii'it  of  the  curise,  is  easily  first  prsetor.     Livy,  VII.  1.    The  other  consul, 

conceivable :  but  the  senate  would  not  so  read-  C.  Maenius,  must  have  belonged  to  one  of  the 

ily  have  yielded  an  important  prerogative  of  its  most  distinguished  families  of  the  commons, 

own  ;  and  it  is  not  possible  to  believe  that  had  for  although  we  have  no  yearly  lists  of  tribunes 

the  senate  joined  the  body  of  the  patricians  in  preserved,  yet  three  tribunes  of  the  name  of 

resisting  the  dictator's  measures,  they  could  Maenius  are'iucidentallv  mentioned  at  different 

have  been  carried  without  some  violent  convul-  times  by  Livy,  IV.  53,  VI.  19,  and  VII.  16. 

sions.     Whereas  the  Publilian  laws,  very  un-  42  Livy,  VIII.  13. 

like  the  Hortensian,  the  Genucian,  the  Canu-  43  "Ceteris   Latinis  populis  connubia  cpm- 

leian,  or  any  other  of  the  great  measures  carried  merciaque  et  concilia  inter  se  ademerunt."  Livy, 

by  the  commons  against  the  inclination  of  the  VIII.  14. 
nuto  as  well  as  of  the  patricians,  were  passed 


272  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXIX 

purchasing  or  inheriting  lands  in  each  other's  territories.  All  notion  of  a  Latin 
state  or  union  was  to  be  utterly  done  away ;  and  each  city  was  to  be  isolated 
from  its  neighbors,  that  all  community  of  interests  and  feelings  between  them 
might  as  much  as  possible  be  destroyed.  This  was  the  system  on  which  the 
Romans  settled  the  kingdom  of  Macedon  after  their  final  victory  over  Peresus  :  it 
was  split  up  into  four  distinct  portions,44  and  each  of  these  was  debarred  from 
any  interchange  of  the  rights  of  citizenship  with  the  other  three. 

Tibur  and  Praeneste,  the  two  most  powerful  cities  of  Latium,  .were  deprived 
of  their  domain  land,45  and  probably  of  any  dominion  which  they 

Condition  of  tbe  several  ,  .         ,  j.1  i  j      .  v    ,     •     ,        '       ji      • 

uuin  states.  Tibur  and  may  have  exercised  over  the  decayed  towns  or  districts  in  their 
immediate  neighborhood.  They  retained  their  own  laws  and  mu- 
nicipal independence,  and  there  was  still  to  exist  between  them  and  the  Romans 
the  old  mutual  right  of  assuming  at  pleasure  each  other's  citizenship,  so  far  as 
regarded  the  concerns  of  private  life.  But  in  war  they  were  bound  to  follow 
where  Rome  should  lead,  and  to  furnish  soldiers  as  auxiliaries  or  allies  to  the 
the  Roman  legions. 

Lanuvium  obtained  the  full  rights  of  Roman  citizenship,  and  its  people  formed 
the  whole  or  a  part  of  one  of  the  new  tribes  which  were  created  at 
the  next  census.46  It  is  probable  that  several  other  districts  of  La- 
tium obtained  the  same  privilege :  perhaps  such  as  had  been  hitherto  dependent 
on  some  of  the  larger  towns,  since  the  decay  or  destruction  of  their  own 
cities.  In  this  manner  the  inhabitants  of  Scaptia  and  Gabii,  which  once  were 
among  the  thirty  cities  of  Latium,  but  had  since  fallen  to  decay,  may  have  be- 
come latterly  subjects  of  the  Tiburtians,  and  now,  in  all  likelihood,  received  the 
full  citizenship  of  Rome,  and  composed  the  Scaptian  tribe,  which  was  created 
five  years  afterwards. 

Aricia,47  Pedum,  Nomentum,  and  perhaps  Tusculum,  obtained  the  Roman  citi- 
zenship without  political  rights  ;  in  other  words,  they  were  placed 
in  the  condition  of  provincial  towns,  without  any  municipal  or 
corporate  privileges,  and  justice  was  administered  amongst  them  by  a  pnefect 
sent  from  Rome.  Their  law  was  altogether  that  of  Rome ;  their  citizens  were 
enlisted  in  the  legions,  and  their  taxation  was  in  all  respects  the  same  as  that  of 
the  Romans. 

In  Velitne,  from  some  reason  to  us  unknown,  the  aristocracy  appear  to  have 

44  Livy,  XLV.  29.  censors,  Q.  Publilius  and  Sp.  Postumius.    It 

45  Livy,    VIII.  14.     That  Tibur  remained  a  derived    its  name,  according   to   Paulus,   the 
distinct  state  is  proved  by  the  language  of  Livy,  epitomator  of  Festus,  "  a  quodam  castro."   And 
IX.  30,  where  he  speaks  of  the  Romans  sending  Livy,  VI.  2,  speaks  of  a  place  near  Lanuvium, 
ambassadors  to  the  people  of  Tibur  ;  and  still  which  he  calls  "  ad  Ma3cium."    The  probability 
more  by  the  fact  that  Roman  citizens  might  is,  therefore,  that  the  Muician  tribe  contained 
choose  Tibur  as  a  place  of  exile,  as  was  also  the  in  it  the  people  of  Lanuvium. 

case  with  Prsencste.  Late  in  the  sixth  century  *7  This  may  seem  at  variance  with^Livys 
of  Rome,  we  have  instances  on  record  of  this,  statement,  who  says  that  they  were  admitted  to 
Livy,  XLIII.  2  ;  and  Polybius,  writing  early  in  the  rights  of  Roman  citizens  on  the  _same  foot- 
the 'seventh  century,  speaks  of  the  same  right  as  the  people  of  Lanuvium.  But  it  is  true  that 
as  still  existing,  adding,  as  the  reason  of  it,  that  Lanuvium,  immediately  after  the  war,  did  re- 
the  Romans  were  bound  by  solemn  treaties  to  ceive  no  more  than  the  civitas  sine  suffragio ; 
the  people  of  these  cities.  These  treaties,  6'p/aa,  it  could  not  enjoy  the  full  franchise  till  its  peo- 
arc  rightly  understood  by  Niebuhr  to  have  been  pie  were  admitted  into  some  tribe;  and  this 
the  old  terms  of  the  Latin  league,  including  the  did  not  take  place  till  the  next  census.  But 
interchange  of  all  the  private  rights  of  citizenship  that  from  the  time  of  the  next  census,  Lanu- 
between  the  citizens  of  the  two  countries  ;  «ro-  vium  was  in  a  different  condition  from  Aricia, 
irAiru'tf.  On  the  other  hand,  the  political  depend-  and,  probably,  also  from  Pedum  and  Nomen- 
ence  of  Tibur  and  Prameste  upon  Rome  is  evi-  turn,  appears  from  the  famous  article  "Muni- 
dent  :  Papirius  Cursor,  when  consul,  had  a  sum-  cipium"  in  Festus  ;  Niebuhr's  commentary  on 
mary  power  of  life  and  death  over  the  general  of  which  (Vol.  II.  chap.  4,  pp.  55-60,  Eng.  Transl.) 
the  Proencstine  auxiliary  troops  serving  in  his  is  one  of  the  best  specimens  of  his  unrivalled 
army,  Livy,  IX.  16,  so  that  the  alliance  probably  power  in  discerning  the  true  political  relations 
contained  the  famous  clause  which  distinguished,  of  the  ancient  world.  I  would  refer  the  reader 
a  dependent  from  an  equal  ally :  "  Majestatem  continually  to  this  passage  in  Niebuhr,  for  a  f-jll 
populi  Romani  comiter  conservato."  See  Cice-  explanation  of  the  various  rights  included,  some- 
ro,  proBalbo,16.  Compare  Li vy,  XXXVIII.  11.  times  under  the  common  term  of  "  municip- 
**  The  Msecian  tribe  was  created  in  422  by  the  ium." 


CHAP.  XXIX.]  SETTLEMENT  OF  LATIUM.  273 

been  zealous  supporters  of  the  late  war,  while  the  people  were  well  disposed 
to  the  Romans.  Accordingly,  the  walls  of  the  town  were  de-  vciitw>. 
stroyed,48  and  all  the  senators  deported  beyond  the  Tiber,  with  a  heavy  penalty 
upon  their  return  to  Latium.  All  their  lands,  whether  domain  or  private  prop- 
erty, were  taken  from  them  and  given  to  some  Roman  colonists  who  were  sent 
to  supply  their  place.  Yet  the  people  of  Velitrse  appear  to  have  received  the 
full  Roman  citizenship  five  years  afterwards,  and  to  have  been  included  at  that 
time  in  the  new  Scaptian  tribe.49 

Larcntum,  which  had  taken  no  part  in  the  war,  remained,  as  before,  municipally 
independent,50  enjoying;  an  interchange  of  all  the  private  rights  of 

.   ,     J    J       &      ,  ,  i    °          .  i  .      r     ,  Laurentum. 

citizenship  with  Rome,  but  bound  to  aid,  or  m  other  words,  to 

serve,  the  Romans  as  an  ally :  and  this,  probably,  was  the  condition  also  of 

Ardea. 

The  relations  of  some  Volscian  and  Campanian  towns,  which  Rei.,tions  of  voiscian 
had  taken  part  in  the  late  contest,  were  also  fixed  at  this  time.       and  <*»*»*** towns- 

The  people  of  Antium51  were  obliged  to  surrender  all  their  ships  of  war,  and 
forbidden  to  send  any  more  to  sea  for  the  time  to  come.  A  col- 
ony was  to  be  sent  thither,  but  the  Antiatians  might  themselves,  if 
they  chose,  be  enrolled  amongst  the  colonists ;  that  is  to  say,  their  territory  was 
to  be  divided  into  lots,  according  to  the  Roman  method  of  assignation,  and  all 
former  limits  or  titles  of  property  were  to  be  done  away ;  but  every  Antiatian 
might  receive  a  portion  of  land  in  the  new  allotment,  as  a  member  of  the  Roman 
colony  of  Antium.  The  municipal  independence  of  Antium  ceased,  as  a  matter 
of  course ;  the  Roman  laws  superseded  the  old  laws  of  the  city ;  and  the  An- 
tiatians became  Roman  citizens  in  all  their  private  relations,  but  with  no  political 
rights. 

Fundi  and  Formise,52  which  had  remained  neutral,  Capua,  for  whose  fidelity  its 
own  aristocracy  would  be  a  sufficient  guarantee,  and  several  other 

0  &  Fundi,  Formiffi,  Ac. 

Ccimpaman  towns,  such  as  Cumce,  feuessula,  Atella,  and  Acerrse, 
were  either  now,  or  shortly  afterwards,  made  capable  of  enjoying  the  private 
rights  of  Roman  citizens,  but  retained  their  own  laws  and  government.     Their 
soldiers  in  war  formed  distinct  legions,53  and  were  not  numbered  amongst  the 

48  Livy,  VIII.  14.  in  "  Municeps."  Festus  says  expressly  of  Fundi, 

49  The  Octavii  belonged  to  the  Scaptian  tribe  Formiae,  Cumae.  and  Acerrae,  that  after  ascertain 
(Suetonius  in  Augusto,  40),  and  their  original  number  of  years  they  became  Roman  citizens, 
country  was  Velitne.   The  tale  which  Suetonius  that  is,  in  the  full  sense  of  the  term,  being  en- 
adds,  of  their  having  come  to  Rome  in  the  time  rolled  in  a  tribe,  and  being  made  eligible  to  all 
of  Tarquinius  Priscus,  and  having  been  made  public  offices.     But  the  "certain  number  of 

Eatricians  by  Servius  Tullius,  but  afterwards  years"  was  about  a  century  and  a  half ;  for  the 

avinof  chosen  to  become  plebeians,  is  merely  date  of  the  admission  of  Fundi  and  Formiae  to 

one  of  the  ordinary  embellishu  icnts  of  a  great  the  full  citizenship  happens  to  be  known,  and 

man's  pedigree,  invented  after  Le  has  risen  to  it  did  not  take  place  till  the  year  564.     (Livy, 

eminence.  XXXVIII.  36.)   What  can  be  meant  by  the  ex- 

60  "  CumLaurentibusrenovarifoedusjussum,  pression  that  the  people  of  Cumae  and  Acerraa 
renovaturque  ex  eo  quotannis  post  diem  deci-  after  some  years  became  Roman  citizens,  it  is 
mum  Latiiiarum."    Livy,  VIII.  11.  not  easy  to  decide ;  but  it  may  be  that  they  re- 

61  Livy,  VIII.  14.     Antium  became  a  mari-  ceived  the  full  franchise  later  than  the  period 
time  colony,  and  as  such  was  exempted  from  included  in  the  last  remaining  book  of  Livy ; 
furnishing  soldiers  to  the  legions  (Livy,  XXVII.  and  for  that  subsequent  period  we  have  no  de- 
38)  |  it  was  obliged,  however,  to  furnish  sea-  tailed  information. 

men  for  the  naval  service.     (Livy,  XXXVI.  3.)  53  "  In  legione  merchant,"  says  Festus,  in 

With  regard  to  the  prohibition  to  send  ships  to  "Municeps."     The  Campanian    soldiers  who 

sea,  it  must  be  understood  only  of  triremes  and  made  themselves  masters  of  Rhegium  a  little  be- 

quiuqueremes ;  for  that  the  Antiatians  after  this  fore  the  first  Punic  war,  are  called  by  Livy, 

period  not  only  had  many  smaller  vessels,  but  Legio  Campana ;  and  the  name  of  their  leader, 

were  accustomed  to  sail  even  as  far  as  the  Greek  Decius  JubelHus,  is  clearly  Campanian.     Yet 

seas,  appears  from  the  complaints  of  their  pira-  these  same  soldiers  are  called  by  Polybius  (I. 

cies  addressed  to  the  Romans  successively  by  6.  7),  and  by  Appian  (Samnitic.  Fragm.  9), 

Alexander  and  by  Demetrius  Poliorcetes.  Stra-  "  Romans,"  and  Orosius  calls  them  the  "  eighth 

bo,  V.  p.  232.  legion"  (IV.  3) ;  nor  should  it  be  forgotten,  that 

52  Livy,  VIII.  14,  compared  with  Festus  in  Polybius,  in  his  list  of  the  forces  at  the  disposal 

"  Municipium."   Aceme  is  mentioned  by  Livy,  of  the  Romans  in  the  great  Gaulish  war  of  529, 

VIII.  17,  and  by  Festus  in  "  Municipium,"  ana  reckons  the  Latins  and  the  other  Italian  nations 

in  u  Munieeps."  Atella  is  mentioned  by  Festus  separately,  but  classes  the  Romans  and  Cam- 
18 


274  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXIX 

auxiliaries ;  a  distinction  which  perhaps  entitled  them  to  a  larger  share  of  the 
plunder, — possibly  also  these  states  may  have  even  received  portions  of  con- 
quered land  to  add  to  their  domain. 

Equestrian  statues  of  the  two  consuls  by  whom  this  great  war  had  been  brought 
Honors  paid  to  the  con-  to  a  conclusion,  were  set  up  in  the  Forum  ;84  and  the  beaks  of  the 
•uu.  The  rosim.  Antiatian  ships  were  affixed  to  the  front  of  the  circular  stand  or 
gallery,  between  the  comitium  and  the  Forum,  from  which  the  tribunes  were  ac- 
customed to  address  the  people.  From  this  circumstance  it  derived  its  well- 
known  name  of  rostra,  or  the  beaks. 

Three  years  were  sufficient  to  finish  forever  the  most  important  war  in  which 
The  war  with  Latinm  Rome  was  at  any  time  engaged  ;  whilst  with  the  Samnitcs  the  con- 
wdben"ficfaiiyforbotfi  test  was  often  renewed,  and  lasted  altogether  for  more  than  sev- 
pllrties-  enty  years.  It  was  not  that  the  Samnites  were  a  braver  people 

than  the  Latins,  but  that  the  Latin  war  found  immediately  its  natural  termination 
in  a  closer  union,  which  it  was  hopeless  and  not  desirable  to  disturb ;  whereas, 
in  the  Samnite  contest,  such  a  termination  was  impossible ;  and  the  struggle 
could  end  in  nothing  short  of  absolute  dominion  on  one  side,  and  subjection  on 
the  other.  The  Samnites  were  complete  foreigners,  remote  in  point  of  distance, 
with  a  different  language  and  different  institutions ;  they  and  the  Romans  were 
not  likely  to  form  one  people,  and  neither  were  willing  to  be  the  others'  mere 
subjects.  But  between  Rome  and  Latium  nature  had  given  all  the  elements  of 
union ;  and  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  Latins  precluded  that  mischievous 
national  pride  which  has  sometimes  kept  two  nations  apart,  when  nature,  or 
rather  God  speaking  in  nature,  designed  them  to  be  one.  Had  Latium  been  a 
single  state  like  Rome,  neither  party55  would  willingly  have  seen  its  distinct  na- 
tionality merged  in  that  of  the  other ;  but  the  people  of  Tusculum  or  Lanuvium 
felt  no  patriotic  affection  for  the  names  of  Tibur  or  Prseneste  :  they  were  as  ready 
to  become  Romans  as  Tiburtians ;  and  one  or  the  other  they  must  be,  for 
a  mass  of  little  states,  all  independent  of  each  other,  could  not  be  kept  together ; 
the  first  reverses,  appealing  to  the  sense  of  separate  interest  in  each,  inevitably 
shattered  it  to  pieces.  Those  states  that  received  the  full  Roman  franchise  be- 
came Romans,  yet  did  not  cease  to  be  Latins ;  the  language  and  manners  of  their 
new  country  were  their  own.  They  were  satisfied  with  their  lot,  and  the  hope 
of  arriving  in  time  at  the  same  privileges  was  a  prospect  more  tempting  even  to 
the  other  states  than  any  thing  which  they  were  likely  to  gain  by  renewed  hos- 
tilities. Tibur  and  Prseneste,  thus  severed  from  their  old  confederates,  could  not 
expect  to  become  sovereign  states ;  they  must,  according  to  the  universal  prac- 
tice of  the  ancient  world,  be  the  allies  of  some  stronger  power ;  and  if  so,  their 
alliance  with  Rome  was  at  once  the  most  natural  and  the  most  desirable.  Thus 

panians  together,  and  names  the  amount  of  had  two  flights  of  steps  leading  up  to  them,  one 
their  joint  force.  This  seerns  to  show  that  the  on  the  east  side,  by  which  the  preacher  ascended, 
connection  between  Rome  and  Campania  from  and  another  on  the  west  side,  for  his  descent, 
the  great  Latin  war  to  the  invasion  of  Hannibal  See  Ducange,  Glossar.  Med.  et  Infim.  Latinit. 
was  unusually  intimate ;  and  we  know  also  that  in  "Ambo."  Specimens  of  these  old  pulpits 
a  mutual  rite  of  intermarriage  prevailed  be-  are  still  to  be  seen  at  Rome  in  the  churches  of 
tween  the  inhabitants  of  both  countries.  Livy,  St.  Clement,  and  S.  Lorenzo  ftiori  le  mure. 
XXIII.  4.  Bunsen  aptlv  compares  the  platform  of  the  ros- 
64  Livy,  VIII.  13,  14.  For  the  description  of  tra,  on  which,  the  speaker  moved  to  and  fro,  as 
the  rostra  given  in  the  text,  see  Niebuhr,  Vol.  he  wished  to  address  different  parts  of  his  au 
III.  note  263  ;  and  particularly  Bunsen,  "  Les  clience,  to  the  hustings  of  an  English  election. 
Forum  de  Kome,"  p.  41.  Bunsen,  judging  from  55  The  rights  of  succession  in  an  hereditary 
the  views  of  the  rostra  given  on  two  coins  in  his  monarchy  may  affect  a  union  between  two 
possession,  supposes  that  it  was  a  circular  build-  countries,  by  the  crown  of  each  devolving  on 
ing,  raised  on  arches,  with  a  stand  or  platform  the  same  person,  which  would  have  been  ut- 
on  the  top  bordered  by  a  parapet ;  the  access  terly  impracticable  had  either  of  them  been  a 
to  it  beino;  by  two  flights  of  steps,  one  on  each  republic.  As  it  was,  the  union  of  the  crowns  of 
bide.  It  fronted  towards  the  comitiui  i,  and  the  England  and  Scotland  preceded  the  union  of 
rostra  were  affixed  to  the  front  of  it,  just  under  the  kingdoms  by  more  than  a  century ;  and  had 
the  arches.  Its  form  has  been  in  all  the  main  not  the  crowns  been  united,  what  human  power 
points  preserved  in  the  arnbones,  or  circular  pul-  could  ever  have  effected  a  union  of  the  two  par- 
pits,  of  the  most  ancient  churches,  which  also  liaments? 


CHAP.  XXX.]  ALEXANDER'S  CONQUESTS  IN  ASIA.  275 

the  fidelity  of  the  Latins  was  so  secured  that  neither  the  victories  of  Hannibal, 
nor  the  universal  revolt  of  all  Italy  in  the  social  war,  tempted  it  to  waver :  one 
strong  proof  amongst  a  thousand,  that  nations,  like  individuals,  cheerfully  acqui- 
esce in  their  actual  condition,  when  it  appears  to  be  in  any  degree  natural,  or 
even  endurable  ;  and  that  their  desire  of  change,  whenever  they  do  feel  it,  is  less 
the  wish  of  advancing  from  good  to  better,  or  a  fond  craving  after  novelty,  than 
an  irresistible  instinct  to  escape  from  what  is  clearly  and  intolerably  bad,  even 
though  they  have  no  definite  prospect  of  arriving  at  good. 


CHAPTER  XXX, 

GENERAL  HISTORY  TO  THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  SECOND  SAMNITE  WAE- 
PRIVERNUM— PALJEPOLIS— A.  U.  C.  418-428—413-423,  NIEBUHR. 


T/jr  did  filaov   £u'///?a<nv  u  ns  /*»)  d£tucrei   TrdA^ov  vo^tiv  OVK  ^>3wj  tiiKaulxrei.  —  Tolf  j*p  epyois  wj 
uSpetTW,  Kal  tvpfjvu  OVK  tuco?  8i>  ttpijvTiv  avrliv  KptStjvai.  —  THUCYDIDES,  V.  26. 


ACCORDING  to  the  synchronism  of  Diodorus,  the  same  year  which  witnessed  the 
final  settlement  of  Latium,  was  marked  also  by  the  first  military 
enterprises  of  Alexander,  by  his  expedition  against  the  Illyrians,  and  «  ^Sa^tempSSj 
his  conquest  of  Thebes.  During  the  twelve  following  years,  the  di^VyhYiiow^m™« 
period  nearly  which  I  propose  to  comprise  within  the  present  chap- 
ter, Asia  beheld  with  astonishment  and  awe  the  uninterrupted  progress  of  a  hero, 
the  sweep  of  whose  conquests  was  as  wide  and  as  rapid  as  that  of  her  own  barbaric 
kings,  or  of  the  Scythian  or  Chaldaean  hordes;  but  far  unlike  the  transient 
whirlwinds  of  Asiatic  warfare,  the  advance  of  the  Macedonian  leader  was  no  less 
deliberate  than  rapid  :  at  every  step  the  Greek  power  took  root,  and  the  language 
and  the  civilization  of  Greece  were  planted  from  the  shores  of  the  JEgsean  to  the 
banks  of  the  Indus,  from  the  Caspian  and  the  great  Hyrcanian  plain  to  the  cata- 
racts of  the  Nile  ;  to  exist  actually  for  nearly  a  thousand  years,  and  in  their 
effects  to  endure  forever.1  In  the  tenth  year  after  he  had  crossed  the  Helles- 
pont; Alexander,  having  won  his  vast  dominion,  entered  Babylon  ;  and,  resting 
from  his  career  in  that  oldest  seat  of  earthly  empire,  he  steadily  surveyed  the 
mass  of  various  nations  which  owned  his  sovereignty,  and  revolved  in  his  mind 
the  great  work  of  breathing  into  this  huge  but  inert  body  the  living  spirit  of 
Greek  civilization.  In  the  bloom  of  youthful  manhood,  at  the  age  of  thirty-two, 
he  paused  from  the  fiery  speed  of  his  earlier  course  ;  and  for  the  first  time  gave 
the  nations  an  opportunity  of  offering  their  homage  before  his  throne.  They  came 
from  all  the  extremities  of  the  earth,  to  propitiate  his  anger,  to  celebrate  his  great- 
ness, or  to  solicit  his  protection.  African  tribes2  came  to  congratulate  and  bring 
presents  to  him  as  the  sovereign  of  Asia.  Not  only  would  the  people  border- 
ing on  Egypt  upon  the  west  look  with  respect  on  the  founder  of  Alexandria  and 
the  son  of  Jupiter  Ammon,  but  those  who  dwelt  on  the  east  of  the  Nile,  and  on 
the  shores  of  the  Arabian  gulf,  would  hasten  to  pay  court  to  the  great  king 


I  leave  out  of  sight  the  question  as  to  the  ties  afforded  by  the  diffusion  of  the  Greek  lan- 

grcater  or  less  influence  exercised  upon  the  civ-  guage  and  civilization  in  Asia  and  Egypt  to  th« 

ilization  of  India  by  the  Greek  or  semi-Greek  early  growth  of  Christianity, 

kingdoms  of  the  extreme  eastern  part  of  Alex-  a  See  Arrian,  VII.  15. 
ander's  empire,  and  refer  merely  to  the  facili- 


276  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXX 

whose  fleets  navigated  the  Erythraean  sea,  and  whose  power  was  likely  to  affect 
so  largely  their  traffic  with  India.  Motives  of  a  different  sort  influenced  the  bar- 
barians of  Europe.  Greek  enterprise  had  penetrated  to  the  remotest  parts  of 
the  Mediterranean ;  Greek  traders  might  carry  complaints  of  wrongs  done  to 
them  by  the  petty  princes  on  shore,  or  by  pirates  at  sea,  to  the  prince  who 
had  so  fully  avenged  the  old  injuries  of  his  nation  upon  the  great  king  himself. 
The  conqueror  was  in  the  prime  of  life  ;  in  ten  years  he  had  utterly  overthrown 
the  greatest  empire  in  the  world :  what,  if  having  destroyed  the  enemies  of 
Greece  in  the  east,  he  should  exact  an  account  for  wrongs  committed  against  his 
nation  in  the  west?  for  Carthaginian  conquests,  for  Lucanian  devastations,  for 
Etruscan  piracies  ?  And  he  would  come,  not  only  having  at  his  command  all  the 
forces  of  Asia,  whose  multitude  and  impetuous  onset  would  'be  supported  in  time 
of  need  by  his  veteran  and  invincible  Macedonians,  but  already  the  bravest  of  the 
barbarians  of  Europe  were  eager  to  offer  him  their  aid  ;  and  the  Kelts  and  Ibe- 
rians, who  had  become  acquainted  with  Grecian  service  when  they  fought  under 
Dionysius  and  Agesilaus,  sent  embassies  to  the  great  conqueror  at  Babylon,  al- 
lured alike  by  the  fame  of  his  boundless  treasures  and  his  unrivalled  valor.  It 
was  no  wonder,  then,  that  the  Carthaginians,3  who  had  dreaded  a  century  earlier 
the  far  inferior  power  of  the  Athenians,  and  on  whose  minds  Timoleon's  recent 
victories  had  left  a  deep  impression  of  the  military  genius  of  Greece,  dispatched 
their  ambassadors  to  secure,  if  possible,  the  friendship  of  Alexander.  But  some 
of  the  Italian  nations,  the  Lucanians  and  the  Bruttians,  had  a  more  particular 
cause  of  alarm.  They  had  been  engaged  in  war  for  some  years  with  Alexander, 
king  of  Epirus,  the  uncle  by  marriage  of  the  conqueror  of  Asia.  Alexander  of 
Epirus  had  crossed  over  into  Italy  as  the  defender  of  the  Italian  Greeks  against 
the  injuries  of  their  barbarian  neighbors  :  in  this  cause  he  had  fallen,  after  having 
long  and  valiantly  maintained  it,  and  his  great  kinsman  could  not  have  heard 
without  indignation  of  the  impious  cruelty  with  which  his  enemies  had  outraged 
his  lifeless  body.4  Thus  the  Lucanians  and  Bruttians  are  especially  mentioned 
as  having  sent  embassies  to  Alexander  at  Babylon :  it  is  not  unlikely  that  their 
kinsmen,  the  Samnites,  who  had  been  their  allies  in  the  war,  joined  with  them  also  in 
their  endeavors  to  escape  the  dreaded  vengeance,  although  their  name  was  either 
not  particularly  known,  or  not  thought  worthy  of  especial  record  by  the  great 
Macedonian  officers  who  were  their  king's  earliest  and  best  historians. 

"The  Tyrrhenians  also,"  said  Aristobulus  and  Ptolemseus,  "sent  an  embassy 
Embassies  from  Italy  to  to  the  king  to  congratulate  him  upon  his  conquests."  The  ports 
Alexander  in  Babylon.  Of  t^e  western  COast  of  Italy  swarmed  at  this  time  with  piratical 
vessels,  which  constantly  annoyed  the  Greek  traders  in  those  seas,  and  some- 
times ventured  as  far  as  the  eastern  side  of  the  Ionian  gulf.  This  reproach  was 
not  confined  to  the  Etruscans  ;  it  was  shared  certainly  by  the  people  of  Antium  ; 
it  may  be  doubted  whether  Ostia,  Circeii,  and  Tarracina  were  wholly  free  from  it. 
These  piracies  had  been  reported  to  Alexander,5  and  he  sent  remonstrances  to 

*  Arrian,  VII.  15.  bring  the  death  of  Alexander  of  Epirus  to  the 

4  Livy,  VIII.  24.   Livy  sets  the  death  of  Alex-  consulships  either  of  M.  Valerius  and  M.  Atilrus 

ander  of  Epirus  in  the  consulship  of  Q.  Pub-  in  420  (415),  or  of  T.  Veturius  and  Sp.  Postu- 

lilius  and  L.  Cornelius.     This  consulship,  ac-  mius,  in  the  year  following.    Yet  the  treaty  ot 

cording  to  Diodorus,  synchronizes  with  Olymp.  Alexander  of  Epirus  with  Home  is  placed  in  the 

113-3,  and  he  places  the  embassies  to  Babylon  consulship  of  A.  Cornelius  and  Cn.  Domitins, 

and  the  death  of  Alexander  two  years  later,  in  that  is,  in  422  (417);  and  this  is  likely  to  be  a 

Olymp.  114-1.     But  his  reckoning  in  this  place  sure  synchronism,  because  the  treaty  would 

is  confused,  and  his  Fasti  differ  from  those  of  naturally  contain  the  names  of  the  Roman  ma- 

Livy  ;  for  with  him  there  is  a  year  between  the  gistrates  who  concluded  it.     It  seems  impossi- 

consulships  of  Publilius  and  Cornelius  and  Pea-  ble  to  fix  exactly  the  date  of  the  death  of  Alex- 

telius  and  Papirius,  which,  according  to  Livy,  ander  of  Epirus,  but  it  seems  from  every  calcu- 

were  next  to  one  another.     Again,  Livy  places  lation  that  we  may  safely  place  it  so  early  as  to 

the  death  of  Alexander  of  Epirus  in  the  same  make  it  certain  that  his  nephew  must  have  heard 

year  with  the  foundation  of  Alexandria.     But  of  it  at  the  time  when  he  received  the  Italian  am 

Alexandria,  according  to  Arrian,  was  founded  bassadors  at  Babylon. 

in  Olymp.  112-1,  and,  according  to  Diodorus,        6Strabo,V.  p.  232.  AidncpKal  'A\f£avtpos  npffrt- 

une  year  later,  in  Olymp.  112-2,  which  would  pov  fyKa\G>v  exf<rTei)(£,Kal  Anp',r(>io<;ZoTcpoi:    Some 


CHAP.  XXX.]  WAR  WITH  THE  SIDICINIANS.  277 

the  Romans  on  the  subject.  Perhaps  his  name  was  used  by  his  kinsman  Alex- 
ander of  Epirus,  with  whom,  in  the  course  of  his  campaigns  in  Italy,  the  Romans 
concluded  a  treaty.  But  having,  on  the  one  hand,  to  justify  themselves  from  the 
charge  of  supporting  pirates  to  the  injury  of  the  Greek  commerce,  and  being  able, 
on  the  other  hand,  to  plead  the  merit  of  their  alliance  with  the  king  of  Epirus, 
there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  among  the  Tyrrhenian  ambassadors  men- 
tioned by  Alexander's  historians  there  were  included  ambassadors  from  Rome. 
Later  writers,6  yielding  to  that  natural  feeling  which  longs  to  bring  together  the 
great  characters  of  remote  ages  and  countries,  and  delights  to  fancy  how  they, 
would  have  regarded  one  another,  asserted  expressly  that  a  Roman  embassy  did 
appear  before  Alexander  in  Babylon :  that  the  king,  like  Cineas  afterwards,  was 
so  struck  with  the  dignity  and  manly  bearing  of  the  Roman  patricians,  that  he  in- 
formed himself  concerning  their  constitution,  and  prophesied  that  the  Romans 
would  one  day  become  a  great  power.  This  story  Arrian  justly  disbelieves  ;  but 
history  may  allow  us  to  think  that  Alexander  and  a  Roman  ambassador  did  meet 
at  Babylon  ;  that  the  greatest  man  of  the  ancient  world  saw  and  spoke  with  a 
citizen  of  that  great  nation,  which  was  destined  to  succeed  him  in  his  appointed 
work,  and  to  found  a  wider  and  still  more  enduring  empire.  They  met,  too,  in 
Babylon,  almost  beneath  the  shadow  of  the  temple  of  Bel,  perhaps  the  earliest 
monument  ever  raised  by  human  pride  and  power,  in  a  city  stricken,  as  it  were, 
by  the  word  of  God's  heaviest  judgment,  as  the  symbol  of  greatness  apart  from 
and  opposed  to  goodness.  But  I  am  wandering  from  the  limits  of  history  into  a 
higher  region  ;  whither,  indeed,  history  ought  forever  to  point  the  way,  but  within 
which  she  is  not  permitted  herself  to  enter. 

During  the  period  of  Alexander's  conquests,  no  other  events  of  importance 
happened  in  any  part  of  the  civilized  world,  as  if  a  career  so  bril-  progres8  Of  the  sam- 
liant  had  claimed  the  undivided  attention  of  mankind.  The  issue  ^ontheUpporLin,, 
of  the  Latin  war  at  once  changed  the  friendship  between  the  Romans  and  Sam- 
nites  into  a  hollow  truce,  which  either  party  was  ready  to  break  at  the  first  favor- 
able moment :  neither  was  any  longer  needed  by  the  other  as  a  friend,  to  bring 
aid  against  a  common  danger ;  the  two  nations  from  this  time  forward  were  only 
rivals.  The  Samnites  had  made  conquests  from  the  Volscians,  as  the  Romans 
had  enlarged  their  dominion  in  Latium  and  Campania ;  they  had  won  a  portion 
of  the  upper  valley  of  the  Liris,  and,  as  it  seems,  were  still  carrying  on  the  war 
on  their  own  behalf  in  this  quarter,  after  the  Romans  on  the  one  side,  and  the 
Latins  and  Campanians  on  the  other,  had  retired  from  the  contest.  They  even 
crossed  the  Liris,7  had  taken  and  destroyed  Fregellse  upon  the  right  bank,  and 
had  thus  acquired  a  position  of  no  small  importance ;  for  Fregellse  stood  on  the 
Latin  road,  the  direct  line  of  communication  between  Rome  and  Samnium,  on  the 
frontier  of  the  Hernicans,  at  the  point  where  the  valley  of  the  Trerus  or  Sacco 
joins  that  of  the  Liris.8  This  was  not  unnoticed  by  the  Romans,  and  they  kept 
their  eyes  steadily  on  the  advance  of  the  Samnite  dominion  in  a  quarter  so 
alarming. 

Meantime  the  embers  of  the  great  Latin  war  continued  to  burn  for  a  time  on 
the  frontiers  of  Campania.  The  Sidicinians  still  remained  in  arms,9 

•,11.1  £  ,       ,     ,  .  ,  .       ,     War  with  the  Sidicin- 

with  what  hopes  or  from  what  despair  we  know  not ;  they  attacked  ians.   coiouy  planted 

the  Auruncans,  who  had  submitted  to  Rome,  and  destroyed  their 

principal  city ;  and  the  Romans  were  so  slow  or  so  unsuccessful  in  opposing  them, 

writers  have  understood  this  Alexander  to  be        8  Westphal  places  Fregellae  at  Ceprano,  a  small 

Alexander  of  Epirus  ;  but  it  is  quite  clear  from  frontier  town  of  the  pope's  dominions,  just  on 

Strabo's  language  that  he  meant  the  most  emi-  the  right  bank  of  the  Liris ;  but  says  that  there 

neut  man  of  the  name  of  Alexander,  as  well  as  is  no  vestige  of  the  ancient  city  in  existence. 

the  most  eminent  Demetrius ;  that  is  to  say,  Mr.  Keppel  Craven  is  disposed  to  identify  Fre- 

Alexander  the  Great,  and  Demetrius  Polior-  gellae  with  some  remains  about  four  miles  lower 

cetes.  down,  below  the  junction  of  the  Trerus,  near  to 

•  Arrian,  VII.  15.  the  present  village  of  S.  Giovanni  in  Carico. 

•  Livy,  VIII.  23.   Dionysius,  XV.  12,  Fragm.          •  Livy,  VIII.  15. 


278  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXJ5» 

that  they  were  in  the  next  year  joined  by  the  Opicans  of  Gales,10  whom  Livy 
calls  Ausonians.  Gales  stood  on  the  edge  of  the  plain  of  Capua, 
not  more  than  ten  miles  from  the  city :"  its  example  might  be- 
come contagious,  and  therefore  the  Romans  now  roused  themselves  in  earnest, 
and  sent  both  consuls  to  act  against  this  new  enemy  ;  and,  having  driven  both  the 
Sidicinians  and  the  Ausonians  within  their  walls,  they  chose  M.  Valerius  Corvus 
as  consul  for  the  succeeding  year,  and  committed  the  war  especially  to  his  charge. 
He  laid  regular  siege  to  Gales,  and  took  the  place :  but  although  both  he  and 
his  colleague,  M.  Atilius  Regulus,  proceeded  afterwards  to  attack  the  Sidicinians, 
yet  on  them  they  could  make  no  impression.  And  although  Gales  was  imme- 
diately made  a  colony,  and  garrisoned  with  2500  colonists,12  yet  the  Sidicinians 
held  out  during  the  two  following  years  ;  their  lands  were  wasted,  but  their  prin- 
cipal city,  Teanum,  was  not  taken,  and  as  neither  victories  nor  triumphs  over 
them  appear  in  the  annals  or  in  the  Fasti,  and  the  termination  of  the  war  is  never 
noticed,  we  may  suppose  that  they,  after  a  time,  obtained  favorable  terms,  and 
preserved  at  least  their  municipal  independence. 

Before  the  close  of  this  contest  it  was  noticed  in  the  annals13  that  Samnium 
L«a  ue  between  the  was  ^ecome  suspected  by  the  Romans.  This  was  in  421,  and  the 
Ronfa^and Zander  same  thing  is  remarked  of  the  year  following ;  so  that  the  Romans 
heard  with  pleasure  in  that  year,  that  Alexander,  king  of  Epirus, 
brother  of  Olympias,  and  thus  uncle  to  Alexander  the  Great,  had  landed  in  Lu- 
'  can^a>U  near  Psestum,  and  had  defeated  the  united  armies  of  the 
Lucanians  and  Samnites.  Immediately  after  this  battle,  the  Ro- 
mans concluded  a  treaty  of  peace  with  the  conqueror ;  a  treaty  which  could  have 
no  other  object  than  to  assure  him  of  the  neutrality  of  the  Romans,  and  that  the 
alliance,  which  had  so  lately  subsisted  between  them  and  the  Samnites  in  the 
Latin  war,  was  now  virtually  at  an  end.  Whether  there  were  any  stipulations 
for  a  division  of  the  spoil,  in  the  event  of  his  making  territorial  conquests  in  Italy, 
must  be  merely  matter  of  conjecture ;  but  the  Romans,  at  any  rate,  took  advan- 
tage of  Alexander's  invasion ;  and  when,  in  424,15  the  Volscians  of  Fabrateria 
sent  an  embassy  to  solicit  their  protection  against  the  Samnites, 
they  received  it  favorably,  and  threatened  the  Samnites  with  war 
if  they  did  not  leave  Fabrateria  unmolested.  And  yet  the  Samnites,  in  attack- 
ing it,  were  but  putting  down  the  last  remains  of  the  Latin  confederacy  on  the 
upper  Liris,  exactly  as  the  Romans  had  done  in  Campania;  the  Volscians  of 
Fabrateria  and  the  Sidicinians  had  been  alike  allied  with  the  Latins  against  Rome 
and  Samnium,  and  as  Rome  was  now  engaged  with  the  latter  for  her  own  sep- 
arate advantage,  so  it  was  just  that  Samnium  should  gain  her  own  share  of  the 
spoil  by  conquering  the  former.  But  the  Romans  treated  the  Samnites  now  as 
they  treated  the  JEtolians  after  the  battle  of  Cynocephalse,  or  the  Achseans 
after  the  defeat  of  Perseus  :  as  soon  as  the  common  enemy  was  beaten  down,  the 
allies  who  had  aided  Rome  in  his  conquest  became  her  next  victims.  Two  years 
afterwards,  in  42 6,16  the  Romans  went  a  step  further,  and  actually  planted  a 
colony  of  their  own  at  Fregellae,  a  Volscian  city,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  had 
been  taken  and  destroyed  by  the  Samnites,  so  that  its  territories  were  now  law- 
fully, so  far  as  the  Romans  were  concerned,  a  part  of  Samnium.  But  fortune 
had  now  turned  against  Alexander  of  Epirus,  and  his  power  was  no  longer  to  be 
dreaded ;  the  Samnites,  therefore,  were  in  a  condition  to  turn  their  attention  to 

M  Livy,  VIII.  16.  ™  In  422  it  is  said  that  "Samnium  jam  alte- 

11  Gales  is  the  modern  Calvi,  six  Neapolitan  rum  annum  turbari  novis  consiliis  suspectum 

miles  from  the  modern  Capua,  and  therefore  erat." — Livy,  VIII.  17. 

about  eight  Neapolitan  miles  from  the  ancient  "  Livy,  VIII.  17. 

Capua,  which  stood  on  the  site  of  the  modern  *  Livy,  VIII.  19.    Fabrateria  is  the  modem 
village  of  S.  Maria  di  Capua.    But  eight  Nea-  Falvaterra,  standing  on  a  hill  on  the  right  bank 
politan  miles  are  about  ten  English  ones,  the  oftheTrerus  or  Tolero,  a  little  above  its  June- 
Neapolitan  mile  being  nearly  li  English  mile.  tion  with  the  Liris. 
"Livy,  VIII.  16.  *  Livy,  VIII.  22. 


CHAP.  XXX.]  WAR  WITH  PRIVERNUM.  379 

other  enemies  ;  the  war  between  Rome  and  the  Greeks  of  Palsepolis  and  Neapo- 
lis  immediately  followed,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  and  this  led  directly  to  an 
open  renewal  of  the  contest  between  Rome  and  Samnium. 

In  the  mean  time  the  Romans  had  gained  a  fresh  accession  of  strength  nearer 
home.  The  unconnected  notices  of  these  events  recorded17  that  in  Wftr  with  priv<snMUB. 
424  a  war  broke  out  with  the  people  of  Privernum,  in  which  the  A-u-c-48i?- 
people  of  Fundi  took  a  part,  notwithstanding  the  favorable  terms  of  their  late 
treaty  with  Rome.  Not  a  word  of  explanation  is  given  as  to  the  causes  of  this 
war,  but  the  name  of  its  leader  has  been  recorded :  Vitruvius  Vaccus,  a  citizen 
of  Fundi,  who,  availing  himself  of  the  interchange  of  all  private  rights  of  citizen- 
ship between  the  inhabitants  of  the  two  countries,  had  acquired  property  at  Rome, 
and  actually  possessed  a  house  on  the  Palatine  Hill.  His  influence  at  Privernum, 
as  well  as  the  fact  of  his  having  a  house  at  Rome  in  such  a  situation,  prove  him 
to  have  been  a  man  of  great  distinction  ;  and  probably  he  was  ambitious  of  being 
admitted  to  the  full  rights  of  a  Roman  citizen,18  and  like  Attus  Clausus  of  Regil- 
lus  in  old  times,  of  becoming  a  member  of  the  senate,  and  obtaining  the  consul- 
ship. Disappointed  in  this  hope,  he  would  feel  himself  slighted,  and  seek  the 
means  of  revenging  himself.  Privernum  had  been  deprived  of  a  portion  of  its 
domain  after  the  late  war,  and  had  seen  this  land  occupied  by  Roman  settlers ; 
motives,  therefore,  for  hostility  against  Rome  were  not  wanting  ;  and  hopes  of 
aid  from  Samnium  might  encourage  to  an  attempt  which  otherwise  would  seem 
desperate.  But  either  these  hopes  were  disappointed,  or  Vitruvius  had  rashly 
ventured  on  an  enterprise  which  he  could  not  guide.  He  was  defeated  in  the 
field,  and  fled  to  Privernum  after  the  battle :  his  own  countrymen,  the  people  of 
Fundi,  disclaimed  him,  and  made  their  submission ;  but  the  Privernatians  held 
out  resolutely  against  two  consular  armies  till  the  end  of  the  Roman  civil  year ; 
and  the  new  consuls,  who  continued  to  beset  Privernum  with  the  whole  force  of 
Rome,  did  not  finish  the  war  for  some  months  afterwards.  At  length  Privernum 
submitted  ;19  Vitruvius  Vaccus  was  taken  alive,  kept  in  the  dungeon  at  Rome  till 
the  consuls'  triumph,  and  then  was  scourged  and  beheaded ;  some  others  were 
put  to  death  with  him  ;  the  senators  of  Privernum,  like  those  of  Velitree,  were 
deported  beyond  the  Tiber :  the  consuls,  L.  ^Emilius  and  C.  Plautius,  triumphed,20 
and  ^Emilius  obtained  the  surname  of  Privernas,  in  honor  of  his  conquest  over  so 
obstinate  an  enemy. 

What  follows  is  almost  without  example  in  Roman  history,  and  though,  like 
every  other  remarkable  story  of  these  times,  its  details  are  in  some  respects  uncer- 
tain, yet  its  truth  in  the  main  may  be  allowed,21  and  it  is  well  worthy  of  mention, 

17  Livy,  VITI.  19.  full  length  would  have  run,  C.  Plautius  Hyp- 

K  The  case  of  L.  Fuf  uis  of  Tusculum,  a  very  sseus  Decianus. — See  Eckhel,  Doctr.  Num.  Vol. 

few  years  later,  seems  to  throw  light  upon  the  V.  p.  275. 

views  of  Vitruvius  Vaccus.     It  is  mentioned  of  21  The  details  are  uncertain,  because  Dionys- 

Fulvius,  that  in  one  year  he  commanded  a  Tus-  ius  places  its  date  in  the  year  398,  and  ascribes 

culan  army  against  Rome,  and  in  the  next  was  the  questions  put  to  the  Privernatians,  not  to  a 

himself  elected  Roman  consul,  having  in  the  Plautius  or  JEmilius,  but  to  a  Marcius ;  that  is 

interval  obtained  the  full  citizenship  of  Rome,  to  say,  to  C.  Marcius  Rutilus,  the  first  plebeian 

Circumstances  favored  him,  and  were  adverse  dictator  and  censor.     There  are  also  some  varia- 

to  Vitruvius ;  but  the  object  in  view  was,  in  both  tions  in  the  circumstances  of  the  story.    It  ap- 

cases,  probably  the  same.  pears  to  me  that  the  story  itself  was  of  Priyer- 

19  Livy,  VIII.  20.  natian  origin,  and  that  when  the  Privernatians 

20  See  the  Fasti  Capitolini,  which  also  give  the  became  Roman  citizens,  they  used  to  relate  with 
consul  ./Emilius  his  title  of  Privernas.  pride  this  instance  of  the  unflattering  nobleness 

The  coins  of  the  Plan tian  family,  struck  at  the  of  their  fathers.     When  it  became  famous  at 

very  end  of  the  seventh  century  of  Rome,  still  Rome,  the  Romans,  as  it  reflected  credit  on  them 

record  the  triumph  over  Privernum  ;   in  the  also,  were  glad  to  adopt  it  into  their  history,  and 

legend,  C.  IIVPSAE.  COS.  PREIVER.  CAPT.  then  the  several  great  families  which  had  con- 

Hypsums  was  one  of  the  cognomina  of  the  Plau-  ducted  wars  at  different  periods  against  Priver- 

tian  family,  and  in  later  times  the  prevailing  num,  were  each  anxious  to  appropriate  it  to 

one ;  but  the  conqueror  of  Privernum,  accord-  themselves.     Thus  the  Marcii  wanted  to  fix  it 

ing  to  the  Fasti,  was  C.   Plautius  Decianus.  to  the  earlier  war  with  Privernum,  which  had 

That  is,  apparently,  he  was  a  Decius  adopted  been  carried  on  by  an  ancestor  of  theirs;  while 

into  the  Plautian  family,  so  that  his  name  at  the  JEmilii  and  Plau tii  claimed  it  for  the  last  war, 


280  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXX 

story  of  the  bold  ian.  as  a  solitary  instance  of  that  virtue,  so  little  known  to  the  Romans, 
SSSftiiJ^pSybetoi  respect  for  the  valor  of  a  brave  enemy.  After  their  triumph, 
the  Rom*n  wuate.  ^e  consuls  brought  the  case  of  the  people  of  Privernum  be- 
fore the  senate,  and  urging  their  neighborhood  to  Samnium,  and  the  likelihood 
of  a  speedy  war  with  the  Samnites,  recommended  that  they  should  be  gently 
dealt  with,  to  secure  their  fidelity  for  the  future.  Some  of  the  senators  were 
disposed  to  adopt  a  less  merciful  course  ;  and  one  of  these  called  to  the  Priver- 
natian deputies  who  had  been  sent  to  Rome  to  sue  for  mercy,  and  asked  them, 
"  Of  what  penalty,  even  in  their  own  judgment,  were  their  countrymen  deserv- 
ing ?"  A  Privernatian  boldly  answered,  "  Of  the  penalty  due  to  those  who  assert 
their  liberty."  The  consul,  dreading  the  effect  of  this  reply,  tried  to  obtain 
another  of  an  humbler  strain,  and  he  asked  the  deputy,  "  But  if  we  spare  you  now, 
what  peace  may  we  expect  to  have  with  you  for  the  time  to  come  ?"  "  Peace 
true  and  lasting,"  was  the  answer,  "  if  its  terms  be  good  ;  if  otherwise,  a  peace 
that  will  soon  be  broken."  Some  senators  cried  out  that  this  was  the  language 
of  downright  rebellion  :  but  the  majority  were  moved  with  a  nobler  feeling,  and 
the  consul,  turning  to  the  senators  of  highest  rank  who  sat  near  him,  said  aloud, 
"  These  men,  whose  whole  hearts  are  set  upon  liberty,  deserve  to  become  Ro- 
mans." Accordingly,  it  was  proposed  to  the  people,  and  carried,  that  the  Pri- 
vernatians  should  be  admitted  to  the  rights  of  Roman  citizenship  :  in  the  first 
instance,  probably,  they  were  admitted  to  the  private  rights  only,  but  ten  years 
afterwards  two  new  tribes  were  formed,  and  one  of  these,  the  Ufentine,  included 
among  its  members  the  inhabitants  of  Privernum.22 

The  year  425  is  further  marked  by  an  alarm  of  a  new  Gaulish  invasion,  which 
warm  of  a  new  Gaulish  was  thought  so  serious,  that  the  workmen  in  the  several  trades,  and 
even  those  whose  business  was  altogether  sedentary,23  are  said  to 
have  been  enlisted  as  soldiers  ;  and  a  large  army,  composed  in  part  of  such  ma- 
terials, marched  out  as  far  as  Veii  to  look  out  for  and  oppose  the  expected  enemy. 
A  similar  alarm24  had  led  to  the  appointment  of  a  dictator,  and  to  an  unusual 
strictness  in  the  enlistment  of  soldiers,  three  years  before  ;  but  in  neither  instance 
did  any  invasion  actually  take  place.  Polybius  says,25  that  at  this  period,  "  the 
Gauls,  seeing  the  growing  power  of  the  Romans,  concluded  a  treaty  with  them  :" 
he  does  not  mention  what  were  the  terms  of  this  treaty,  and  Livy  seems  to  have 
known  nothing  of  its  existence.  Probably  the  Gauls  found  that  their  arms  might 
be  turned  against  other  nations  with  more  advantage  and  less  risk  than  against 
Rome  ;  while  the  Romans,  looking  forward  to  a  war  with  Samnium,  would  be 
to  purchase  peace  on  their  northern  frontier  by  some  honorary  presents  to 


the  Gaulish  chiefs,  and  by  engaging  not  to  interfere  with  them,  so  long  as  they 
abstained  from  attacking  the  Roman  territory. 

On  theiii  southern  frontier,  the  Romans,  still  with  a  view  to  the  expected  war 
The  Rom*™  found  »  w^  tn6  Samnites,  secured  their  direct  communications  with  Cam- 
eoionyatTuxur.TTur-  pania,  by  sending  a  small  colony  or  garrison  of  three  hundred 
settlers  to  occupy  the  important  post  of  Anxur,26  or  Tarracina. 
Each  man  received  as  his  allotment  of  land  no  more  than  two  jugera,  so  that  the 
whole  extent  of  ground  divided  on  this  occasion  did  not  exceed  400  English 
acres.  We  are  not  to  suppose  that  these  three  hundred  colonists  composed  the 
whole  population  of  the  town  ;  many  of  the  old  inhabitants,  doubtless,  still  re- 
sided there,27  and  had  continued  to  do  so  ever  since  the  place  had  become  subject 

tn  which  their  ancestors  had  been  the  consuls,  a  Roman  colony  given  by  Servius,  JEn.  I.  12, 

The  Privernatian  story,  in  all  probability,  men-  that  "  deduct!  sunt  in  locum  certum  sedificiis 

lioned  no  Roman  general  by  name.  munitum."    The  colonists  were  sent  to  inhabit 

**  Festus,  in  "  Oufentina.'"  a  town  already  in  existence,  not  to  build  a  new 

B  "  Sellularii."    Livy,  VIII.  20.  one  for  themselves;  and  thus  by  the  very  na- 

*  Livy,  VIII.  17.  ture  of  the  case,  they  would  generally  form  a 

*  Livy,  II.  18.  part  only  of  the  whole  population  of  such  a 
8  Livy,  VIII.  21.  town,  as  the  old  inhabitants  would  rarely  be  al- 

*  It  is  a  part  of  the  well-known  definition  of    together  extirpated. 


CHAP.  XXX.]          WAR  WITH  THE  GREEKS  OF  PARTHEtfOPE.  281 

to  the  Romans  ;  but  they  had  ceased  to  form  a  state  or  even  a  corporate  society  ; 
all  their  domain  was  become  the  property  of  the  Roman  people,  and  they  were 
governed  by  a  magistrate  or  prsefect  sent  from  Rome.  The  Roman  colonists,  on 
the  other  hand,  governed  themselves  and  the  old  inhabitants  also  ;  they  chose 
their  own  magistrates  and  made  their  own  laws  :  and  over  and  above  the  grant 
of  two  jugera  to  each  man,  a  portion  too  small  by  itself  to  maintain  a  family, 
they  had,  probably,  a  considerable  extent  of  common  pasture  on  the  mountains, 
the  former  domain  of  the  city  of  Anxur,  and  of  which  the  colonists  would  have 
not,  indeed,  the  sovereignty,  but  the  beneficial  enjoyment.  It  should  be  remem- 
bered, too,  that  as  they  retained  their  Roman  franchise,  they  could  still  purchase 
or  inherit  property  in  Rome,  and  intermarry  with  their  old  countrymen  ;  and  thus, 
if  any  of  them  returned  to  Rome  at  a  future  period,  they  would  easily  enrol  their 
names  again  amongst  the  members  of  their  old  tribe,  and  so  resume  the  exer- 
cise of  all  their  political  rights,  which  had  been  suspended  during  their  residence 
in  the  colony,  but  not  actually  forfeited. 

Two  years  after  the  war  with  Privernum,  there  began  that  course  of  events 
which  finally  involved  the  Romans  in  open  hostilities  with  the  Sam-  War  with  tha  Greek, 
nites.  When  the  Latin  confederacy  was  broken  up  by  the  victory  °fparthenop«- 
of  Manlius  and  Decius,  Capua,  as  we  have  seen,  was  punished  for  her  accession 
to  it  by  the  loss  of  her  domain  land  ;  and  the  territory  thus  ceded  to  Rome  had 
been  partly  divided  out  by  the  government  to  the  commons  in  small  portions  of 
three  jugera  to  each  settler,  and  partly  had  been  occupied,  after  the  usual  man- 
ner, by  families  of  the  aristocracy.  Thus  a  large  body  of  strangers  had  been 
introduced  into  Campania  ;  and  disputes  soon  arose  between  them  and  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  Greek  towns  of  the  sea-coast.28  Of  these,  Palsepolis  and  Neapolis, 
the  old  and  new  towns  of  Parthenope,  were  at  this  period  almost  the  sole  sur- 
vivors. They  were  both  Cumaaan  colonies  ;  but  Cumse  itself  had,  about  eighty 
years  before,  been  taken  by  the  Samnite  conquerors  of  Capua  ;  and  since  that 
period  it  had  ceased  to  be  a  purely  Greek  city  :  a  foreign  race,  language,  and  man- 
ners were  intermixed  with  those  of  Greece,  and  lately  Cumse,  like  the  neighboring 
towns  of  Capua  and  Acerrae,  had  become  intimately  connected  with  Rome.  The 
two  Parthenopean  towns,  on  the  contrary,  had  retained  their  Greek  character 
uncorrupted  ;  when  their  mother  city  had  been  conquered,  they  opened  their 
gates  to  the  fugitives29  who  had  escaped  from  the  ruin,  and  received  them  as 
citizens  of  Parthenope  ;  and  although  a  short  time  afterwards  they  formed  an 
alliance  with  the  Samnites,  perhaps  from  dread  of  the  ambition  of  Dionysius  of 
Syracuse,  yet  this  connection  had  not  interfered  with  their  perfect  independence. 
They  kept  up  also  friendly  relations  with  the  people  of  Nola,  whose  admiration 
and  imitation  of  the  Greeks  was  so  great  as  to  give  them,  in  some  respects,  the 
appearance  of  a  Greek  people.30  Now,  for  the  first  time,  they  were  brought  into 
contact  with  the  Romans,  who  accused  them  of  molesting  the  Roman  settlers 
in  Campania,  and  demanded  satisfaction  for  the  injury.  Certainly  the  Greeks 
had  no  scruples  to  restrain  them  from  making  spoil  of  the  persons  and  property 
of  barbarians  ;  but  the  hostility  was  generally  mutual  ;  the  Greek  cities  in  south- 
ern Italy  had  suffered  greatly  from  the  attacks  of  their  Lucanian  neighbors  ;  and 
the  Roman  settlers  and  occupiers  of  land  in  Campania  might  sometimes  relieve 
their  own  wants  by  encroaching  on  the  pastures  or  plundering  the  crops  of  the 
Greeks  of  Parthenope. 

What  account  the  Neapolitans  gave  of  the  origin  of  their  quarrel  with  Rome, 
we  know  not  ;  but  the  Roman  story  was,  that  when  their  feciales  were  sent  to 

28  Livy,  VIII.  22.     Dionysius'  statement  rep-        20  Dionysius,  XV.  6.     Fragm.  Mai. 
resents  "the  wrong  as  offered  to    the  Campa-        *°  NwAovwi/  atyo&pa  TVU?  *EAA/7i>a? 


nians  themselves  ;   and  that  the  Romans  took    Dionys.  XV.  5.     The  coins  of  Nola  closely  re- 
up  the  cause  of  their  dependent  allies,  or,  in  the    semble  those  of  Neapolis,  and  the  legend  is  in 
well-known  Greek  term,  of  those  who  were    the  Greek,  not  in  the  Oscan  character. 
brrjKooi  rns  'Pco/jatav  ^ye^ovj'aj.    See  Dionys.  XV. 
i.    Fragtn.  Mai. 


282  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXX. 


It  involves  the  Roma 


•ites. 


with 


Palaepolis31  to  demand  satisfaction,  the  Greeks,  being  a  tongue- 
TeTam?  valiant  people,  returned  an  insulting  refusal.  Upon  this  the  senate 
submitted  to  the  centuries  the  resolution  that  war  should  be  de- 
clared with  the  people  of  Palaepolis  ;  and  the  centuries  having  approved  of  it,  war 
was  declared  accordingly.  Both  consuls  were  sent  into  Campania ;  Q.  Publilius 
Philo  to  attack  the  Greeks,  L.  Cornelius  Lentulus  to  watch  the  Samnites,  who 
were  expected  to  aid  them.  It  was  said  that  a  Samnite  garrison  of  4000  men,51 
together  with  2000  men  from  Nola,  were  received  into  Palsepolis ;  and  L.  Cor- 
nelius reported  to  the  senate  that  enlistments  of  men  were  ordered  all  over  Sam- 
nium,  and  that  attempts  were  making  to  excite  the  people  of  Privernum, 
Fundi,  and  Formise  to  rise  in  arms  again  against  Rome.  Upon  this,  the  ambassadors 
were  sent  by  the  Roman  government  to  the  Samnites,  to  obtain  redress  for  their 
alleged  grievances.  The  Samnites  wholly  denied  their  having  tampered  with 
Privernum,33  Fundi,  and  Formiae  ;  and  the  soldiers  who  had  gone  to  Palagpolis  were, 
they  said,  an  independent  body,  who  had  volunteered  into  the  Greek  service, 
and  had  not  been  sent  by  any  public  authority.  This  was  probable  enough,  at 
a  period  when  Campanian,  or  Opican,  or  Samnite  mercenaries, — for  the  same 
men  were  called  indifferently  by  all  these  names, — bore  such  a  high  renown  for 
valor,  and  were  enlisted  into  the  service  of  so  many  different  nations.  But  the 
Samnites  further  charged  the  Romans  with  a  breach  of  the  treaty  on  their  part, 
in  having  planted  a  Roman  colony  at  Fregellae  ;  a  place  which,  having  been  con- 
quered by  the  Samnites  from  the  Volscians  in  the  late  war  with  the  Latin  con- 
federacy, belonged  rightfully  to  them  as  their  share  of  the  spoil.  The  Roman 
annalists  seem  to  have  known  of  no  adequate  answer  that  was  made  to  this 
charge :  the  Romans  proposed,  it  is  said,  to  refer  the  question  to  the  decision  of 
some  third  power,  keeping  possession,  however,  of  Fregellae  in  the  mean  time. 
But  the  Samnites  thought  their  right  so  clear,  that  it  was  idle  to  refer  the  matter 
to  any  arbitration,34  and  to  allow  the  Romans  in  the  mean  while  to  exclude  them 
from  entering  upon  their  own  land.  They  replied,  that  no  negotiations,  and  no 
mediation  of  any  third  party,  could  decide  their  differences ;  the  sword  alone 
must  determine  them.  "  Let  us  meet  at  once  in  Campania,"  they  said,  "  and 
there  put  our  quarrel  to  issue."  The  answer  was  characteristic  of  the  Romans  : 
"  Our  legions  march  whither  their  own  generals  order  them,  and  not  at  the 
bidding  of  an  enemy."  Then  the  Roman  fecialis,  or  herald,35  stepped  forward  : 
"  The  gods  of  war,"  he  said,  "will  judge  between  us."  And  then  he  raised  his 
hands  to  heaven  and  prayed,  "  If  the  Roman  commonwealth  has  received  wrong 
from  the  Samnites,  and  shall  proceed  to  take  up  arms  because  she  could  obtain 
no  justice  by  treaty,  then  may  all  the  gods  inspire  her  with  wise  counsels,  and 
prosper  her  arms  in  battle !  But  if  Rome  has  been  false  to  her  oaths,  and  declares 
war  without  just  cause,  then  may  the  gods  prosper  neither  her  counsels  nor  her 
arms !"  Having  said  thus  much,  the  ambassadors  departed  ;  and  L.  Cornelius, 
it  is  said,  crossed  the  frontier  immediately,  and  invaded  Samnium. 

But  the  year  passed  away  unmarked  by  any  decisive  actions.  Q.  Publiiius 
Q.  Puwuiu.  phiio  is  established  himself  between  Palaepolis  and  Neapolis,  so  as  to  in- 
vade pro-con«ui.  tercept  all  land  communication  between  them,  and  to  be  enabled 
to  lay  waste  their  territory.  He  did  not  venture,  however,  to  besiege  either  city, 

11  Dionysius,  in    all  his    account    of  these  olis,  was  founded  in  a  more  advantageous  sit- 
affairs,  makes  mention  only  of  Neapolis ;   the  nation,  the  old  town,  or  Palsepolis,  went  to  de- 
name  of  Palapolis  does   not   once   occur  in  cay.     ^ 
his  narrative.     In  the  Roman  story,  Palrepolis  ^  Livy,  VIII.  23. 
holds  the  more  prominent  place ;  for  no  other  33  Livy,  VIII,  23. 

reason,  apparently,  than  because  Palsepolis  was  **  See  the  answer  of  the  Corinthians  when 

conquered  by  force,  and  enabled  Publilius  to  the    Corcyrseans,   like  the  Romans,   first  be- 

obtain  the  honor  of  a  triumph,  while  Neapolis  sieged  Epidamnus,  and   then  offered  to  refer 

entered  into  a  friendly  treaty  with  Rome.    But  the  dispute  to  the  arbitration  of  some  third 

Palsepolis  must  really  have  been  a  very  insig-  party.    Thucyd.  I.  39. 

nifbant  place  ;  for  it  followed  almost  as  an  in-  ^  Dionysius,  XV.  13.    Fragm.  Mai. 
falli  ole  rule,  that  whenever  a  new  town,  Neap- 


CHAP.  XXX.]         ATTEMPT  TO  INFRINGE  THE  LICINIAN  LAW.  283 

and  as  the  sea  was  open  to  their  ships,  they  were  not  likely  to  be  soon  reduced 
to  famine.  Thus  when  the  consular  year  was  about  to  close,  Q.  Publilius  was 
empowered  to  retain  his  command  as  proconsul,36  till  he  should  have  brought  the 
war  to  a  conclusion ;  and  this  is  the  first  instance  on  record  of  the  name  and  of- 
fice of  proconsul,  and  proves  the  great  interest  which  Publilius  must  have  had  both 
in  the  senate  and  with  the  people  at  large ;  for  certainly  no  urgent  public  neces- 
sity required  that  he  should  receive  such  an  extraordinary  distinction.  It  might 
ive  seemed  of  much  greater  consequence  to  leave  the  same  general  in  the  com- 
land  of  the  army  in  Samnium  ;  but  Cornelius37  was  only  excused  from  returning 
to  Rome  to  hold  the  comitia,  and  was  required  to  nominate  a  dictator  for  that 
purpose ;  as  soon  as  the  new  consuls  came  into  office,  the  conduct  of  the  war 
was  committed  to  them. 

The  consul  named  as  dictator  M.  Claudius  Marcellus,  a  man  who  had  been 
himself  consul  four  years  before,  but  was  of  a  plebeian  family. 

%  „  . .  ,,     XT.    i      i      >  .     .    J       Patrician   jealousies  a- 

And  here  we  may  observe  a  confirmation  ot  isiebunrs  opinion,  gnmst  a  plebeian  die. 
that  the  spirit  of  the  senate  at  this  period  was  very  different  from 
that  of  the  more  violent  patricians,  or  probably  of  a  majority  of  the  order.  The 
senate  had  just  conferred  an  unprecedented  honor  on  the  man  whom  the  patri- 
cians most  hated — on  the  author  of  the  Publilian  laws.  This  probably  excited 
much  bitterness ;  and  although  M.  Claudius  Marcellus  seems  to  have  given  no 
personal  cause  of  offence,  yet  as  he  was  a  plebeian,  the  more  violent  patrician  party 
determined  to  vent  their  anger  upon  him.  They  could  not  stop  the  proconsul- 
ship  of  Publilius,  for  that  was  solely  within  the  cognizance  of  the  senate  and 
people  ;  but  the  dictatorship  of  Marcellus  might  be  set  aside  by  a  power  which 
was  still  exclusively  patrician,  and  for  that  very  reason  was  likely  to  be  ani- 
mated by  a  strong  patrician  spirit,  the  college  of  augurs.  Reports  were  spread 
abroad  that  the  dictator  had  not  been  duly  appointed,  that  some  religious  im- 
pediment had  occurred ;  and  of  this  question  the  augurs  were  alone  judges.  It 
was  referred  to  them,  and  they  pronounced  that  in  the  appointment38  the  auspices 
had  not  been  properly  taken,  and  that  it  was  therefore  void.  The  dictator  ac- 
cordingly resigned  his  office ;  but  the  decision  of  the  augurs,  although  not  legally 
questionable,  was  openly  taxed  with  unfairness.  The  consul,  it  was  said,  was  in 
the  midst  of  his  camp  in  Samnium  ;  he  had  arisen,  as  was  his  custom,  at  the 
dead  of  night,  and  had  named  the  dictator  when  no  human  eye  beheld  him.  He 
had  mentioned  nothing  of  evil  omen  to  vitiate  his  act ;  there  was  no  witness 
who  could  report  any,  and  how  could  the  augurs,  whilst  living  quietly  at  Rome, 
pretend  to  know  what  signs  of  unlucky  import  had  occurred  at  a  given  time  and 
place  in  Samnium  ?  It  was  plain  to  see  that  the  real  impediment  to  the  dicta- 
tor's appointment  consisted  in  his  being  a  plebeian. 

The  patricians  appear  to  have  been  so  encouraged  by  this  victory,  as  to  ven- 
ture upon  another  attempt  of  a  far  more  desperate  nature :  they  Attempts  to  set  asia. 
m  to  have  tried  to  set  aside  the  Licinian  law,  and  to  procure  theLici"iaiilaw- 
e  election  of  two  patrician  consuls.  This  at  least  is  the  most  likely  explana- 
n  of  the  fact  that  after  the  dictator's  resignation,  when  the  comitia  were 
be  held  by  an  interrex,  the  election  was  so  delayed39  that  thirteen  inter- 
regna, a  period  of  more  than  sixty-five  days,  were  suffered  to  elapse  before  the 
new  consuls  were  appointed.  The  fourteenth  interrex  was  L.  JSmilius  Mamer- 
cinus,  a  man  whose  family,  since  the  days  of  the  good  dictator  Mamercus  j^Emil- 
ius,  had  always  been  opposed  to  the  high  patrician  party,  who  was  himself  a 
friend40  of  Publilius  Philo,  and  whose  brother  had  been  Publilius'  colleague  and 
associate  in  the  year  in  which  he  had  passed  his  famous  laws.  He  brought  on 
the  election  without  delay,  and  took  care  that  it  should  be  conducted  according 


Livy,  VIII.  28.  aa  .Livy, 

h* 


Livyj  VIII.  23.  40  He  had  named  Publilhis  his  master  of  the 

Livy,  VIII.  23.     "  Vitiosum  videri  dicta-    horse  a  few  years  earlier,  when  he  was  himself 
mpronuntia\erunt."  dictator.    Livy,  VIII.  16. 


284  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXI 

to  law ;  and  thus  the  efforts  of  the  patricians  were  baffled,  and  a  plebeian  con- 
sul, C.  Poetelius,41  was  elected  along  with  the  patrician  L.  Papirius  Mugillanus. 
It  was  an  untimely  moment  for  the  renewal  of  party  quarrels,  when  Rome  was 
entering  upon  her  second  and  decisive  war  with  Samnium.    In  the 

r  eelmgfs  of  both  nations     s»       ,  ,T  •  i        i  •   -i  • 

LVondSnlteVar1119  contests  the  two  nations  had  met  without  animosity,  and  the 

war  was  ended  between  them  soon  and  easily.  But  in  the  four- 
teen years  which  had  since  elapsed  their  feelings  had  become  greatly  changed. 
They  were  now  well  aware  of  each  other's  power  and  ambition ;  their  dominions 
were  brought  into  immediate  contact  ;  neither  could  advance  but  by  driving  back 
the  other.  The  Latin  states  were  now  closely  united  with  Rome,  and  it  was  be- 
come a  question  which  of  the  two  races,  the  Latin  or  the  Sabellian,  should  be 
the  sovereign  of  central  and  southern  Italy.  The  second  Samnite  war,  therefore, 
was  carried  on  with  feelings  of  bitter  hostility ;  and  instead  of  ending,  like  the 
first,  within  three  years,  it  lasted,  amidst  striking  vicissitudes  of  fortune,  for  more 
than  twenty. 


CHAPTER  XXXI, 

SECOND  SAMNITE  WAR— L.  PAPIRIUS  CURSOR— AFFAIR  OF  THE  FORKS  OR  PASS 
OF  CAUDIUM— BATTLE  OF  LAUTULJE— Q.  FABIUS,  AND  THE  WAR  WITH  ETRU- 
RIA.— A.  U.  C.  428-450  :  423-444,  NIEBUHR. 


"  Samnites  quinquaginta  annis  per  Fabios  et  Papiriospatres,  eorumqne  liberos,  ita  subegit  a  • 
domuit  (populus  Rpmanus),  ita  ruinas  ipsas  urbium  diruit,  ut  liodie  Samnium  in  ipso  Samnio 
requiratur;  nee  facile  appareat  materia  quatuor  et  viginti  triumphorum."— FLOBUS,  1. 16. 


THE  second  Samnite  war  brings  us  to  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  of  Rome, 
chronoio-y  of  the  eec-  and  within  little  more  than  three  hundred  years  of  the  Christian 
ond  samnite  war.  ^^  Alexander  died  almost  before  it  had  begun  ;  and  neither 
Aristotle  nor  Demosthenes  were  living  when  the  Romans,  in  the  fifth  year  of  the 
contest,  were  sent  under  the  yoke  at  the  memorable  pass  of  Caudium.  At  its 
conclusion,  sixteen  years  later,  we  are  arrived  at  the  second  generation  of  Alexan- 
der's successors ;  Eumenes  and  Antipater  were  dead,  Demetrius  Poliorcetes  was 
in  the  height  of  his  renown ;  and  Seleucus  and  Ptolemy  had  already  assumed 
the  kingly  diadem,  and  founded  the  Greek  kingdoms  of  Syria  and  of  Egypt.  So 
completely  had  Greece  arrived  at  the  season  of  autumn,  while  at  Rome  it  was 
yet  the  early  spring. 

The  war  on  which  we  are  going  to  enter  lasted,  on  the  lowest  computation, 
General  nature  and  ob-  about  twenty  years.  It  was  full  of  action,  but  its  events  present 
so  complicated  a  tissue,  that  it  is  not  easy  to  comprehend  its  gen- 
eral principle.  Here,  however,  as  in  the  Peloponnesian  war,  it  was  a  great  object 
with  either  party  to  tempt  the  allies  of  the  other  to  revolt ;  and  thus  the  Roman 
armies  were  so  often  employed  in  Apulia,  and  in  the  valley  of  the  upper  Liris, 
while  the  Samnites  were  eager  at  every  favorable  opportunity  to  pour  down  into 
Campania.  At  first  the  fidelity  even  of  the  Latin  states  to  Rome  seemed  doubt- 
ful ;  but  that  was  secured  by  timely  concessions,  and  Rome  and  Latium,  firmly 
united,  were  enabled  to  send  out  armies  so  superior  in  number  to  those  of  the 
Samnites,  that  while  revolt  from  the  Romans  was  an  attempt  of  the  greatest 

41  Livy,  VIII.  25. 


THE  ALLIES  OF  ROME.  285 

danger,  revolt  to  them  was  prompted  both  by  hope  and  fear.  The  Etruscan  war, 
like  all  the  other  military  attempts  of  that  divided  people,  offered  no  effectual 
diversion ;  and  at  last  Samnium  saw  her  allies  stripped,  as  it  were,  from  around 
her,  and  was  obliged  herself  to  support  the  havoc  of  repeated  invasions.  She 
then  yielded  from  mere  exhaustion ;  but  was  so  unsubdued  in  spirit  that  she  only 
made  peace  till  she  could  organize  a  new  force  of  allies  to  assist  her  in  renewing 
the  struggle. 

Q.  Publilius  Philo,1  in  his  new  office  of  proconsul,  was  continuing   his  land 
blockade  of  the  Greeks  of  Parthenope ;  while  the  new  consuls  of  „ 

...  .        ,  A     .  ,,  .  .        The     Lucanians      and 

the  year  428  with  their  united  armies  were  ordered  to  invade  ^lia7Ro^come  the 
Samnium.  But  the  Romans,  according  to  the  policy  which  they 
invariably  pursued  in  their  later  wars,  did  not  choose  to  carry  on  a  systematic 
war  in  their  enemy's  country  till  they  had  secured  the  alliance  of  some  state  in 
his  immediate  neighborhood.  Thus,  before  they  commenced  their  operations, 
they  concluded  treaties  of  alliance2  with  the  Lucanians  and  Apulians,  or,  at  any 
rate,  with  some  particular  states  or  tribes  of  these  two  nations.  The  Lucanians, 
although  a  kindred  people  to  the  Samnites,  were  politically  distinct  from  them  ; 
and  they  had,  moreover,  their  own  internal  factions,3  each  of  which  would  gladly 
apply  for  foreign  aid  to  enable  it  to  triumph  over  its  rival.  Besides,  they  were 
the  old  enemies  of  the  Greek  cities  on  their  coasts ;  and  as  Rome  was  now  in 
open  war  with  Neapolis,  and  on  the  brink  of  a  quarrel  with  Tarentum,  this  very 
circumstance  would  dispose  the  Lucanians  to  seek  her  alliance.  As  for  the  Apu- 
lians, they  were  treated  by  the  Samnites,  it  is  said,  almost  as  a  subject  people  ;4 
and  they  might,  therefore,  as  naturally  look  to  Rome  for  deliverance,  as  the 
allies  of  Athens  in  the  Peloponnesian  war  were  ready  to  revolt  to  Lacedsemon. 
But  the  Samnite  government  had  not  the  active  energy  of  the  Athenian  ;  and  the 
Romans  were  still  more  widely  distant  from  the  pusillanimity  and  utter  unskil- 
fulness  which  marked  the  military  plans  of  Sparta. 

We  know  nothing  but  the  mere  outside  of  all  these  transactions ;  the  internal 
parties  whose  alternate  triumph  or  defeat  influenced  each  state's  End  o*  the  war  with  the 
external  relations,  are  mostly  lost  in  the  distant  view  presented  Nreapo*i8ofbLaormeesnou!!e 
by  the  annalists  of  Rome.  But  it  is  recorded5  that  the  war  with  «>iy<>'the  Romans, 
the  Greeks  of  Parthenope  was  ended  by  the  act  of  a  citizen  of  Palaepolis,  who, 
preferring  the  Roman  to  the  Samnite  connection,  found  means  to  admit  the  Ro- 
mans into  hi?  city.  Publilius  obtained  a  triumph  for  his  conquest,  and  Palaep- 
olis  is  no  more  heard  of  in  history ;  but  Neapolis,  warned  in  time  by  the  fate 
of  her  sister  city,  did  not  allow  one  of  her  own  citizens  to  place  her  at  the 
enemy's  mercy,  but  at  once  concluded  peace  for  herself,  and  was  admitted  into 
the  Roman  alliance.6  From  that  day  forward  the  political  history  of  Neapolis 
is  a  blank  to  us,  till,  in  the  revolutions  of  ages,  the  Chalcidian  colony  became 
the  seat  of  an  independent  duchy,  and  afterwards  of  a  Norman  kingdom. 

The  people  of  Tarentum,7  it  is  said,  were  greatly  concerned  at  the  issue  of 

1  Livy,  VIII.  25.  (Dioclorus,  XVI.  62-88.)  But  of  the  subsequent 

2  Livy,  VIII.  25.  relations  between  Tarentum  and  the  Lucinians 
8  This,  Niebuhr  observes,  appears  from  the    we  have  not  a  word;  the  whole  of  the  17th  and 

statement  that  Alexander  of  Epirus,  during  his  18th  books  in  their  present  state  being  devoted 

wars  in  Italy,  was  attended  by  about  two  hun-  exclusively  to  the  aifairs  of  Greece  and  Asia ; 

dred  Lucanian  exiles  ;    and   that   tnese  exiles  and  the  portion  of  the  history  which  treated  of 

treated  with  the  opposite  party,  and  purchased  the  contemporary  events  in  Sicily  and  the  west, 

their  return  to  their  several  estates  by  betray-  having  been  entirely  lost. 

ing  him  and  murdering  him. — Livy,  VIII.  24.  4  Livy,  IX.  13.    See  chap.  XXVIII.  of  this 

It  5s  vexatious  that  Diodorus,  or  rather  his  work  history,  note  28. 

as  it  now  remains  to  us,  makes  no  mention  of  6  Livy,  VIII.  25. 

the  affairs  of  Italy  during  this  period.    He  no-  8  Livy,  VIII.  26,  speaks  of  a  "  fcedus  Neapoli- 

ticesthe  war  between  the  Lucanians  and  Taren-  tanum,"  not  "Paloepolitanum,"  which  he  ac- 

tum  in  the  110th  Olympiad,  in  which  Archid-  counts  for  by  saying,  "Eoenim  (scil.  Noapolin), 

am  us,  the  king  of  Sparta,  fought  on  the  side  of  deinde  summa  rei  Graecorum  venit."    But  sea 

the  Tarentines  and  was  killed  ;  and  which  was  chap.  XXX.  note  31. 

exactly  contemporary  with  the  battle  of  Chaero-  7  Livy,  VIII.  27. 

ftea,  and  the  beginning  of  the  great  Latin  war. 


286  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXI. 


this  war,  and  were  anxious  by  every  means  to  stop  the  alarming 
from  Rome""and 'agaTn  growtli  of  the  Roman  power.     A  strange  story  is  told  of  their 


The    Lucaniana    revolt 


inmtes. 


deceiving  the  Lucanians  by  false  representations  of  outrages  of- 
ferred  by  the  Roman  generals  to  some  Lucanian  citizens ;  and  the  effect  of  their 
trick,  it  is  said,  was  so  great,  that  the  whole  Lucanian  nation,  in  the  very  same 
year  in  which  they  had  concluded  their  alliance  with  Rome,  revolted  and  joined 
the  Samnites.  But  the  Samnites,  mistrusting  this  sudden  change,  obliged  them 
to  give  hostages  for  their  fidelity,  and  to  receive  Samnite  garrisons  into  their 
principal  towns. 

It  is  quite  evident  that  we  have  not  here  the  whole  explanation  of  the  conduct 
°^  ^e  Lucanians.  Some  internal  revolution  must  have  prepared 
^e  way  ^or  **'  anc^  ^en  any  s^or^es»  whether  true  or  false,  of  the 
insolence  of  the  Roman  generals  might  be  successfully  employed 
to  excite  the  popular  indignation.  But  how  the  Roman  party  was  so  suddenly 
and  completely  overthrown,  and  why  neither  of  the  consular  armies  made  any 
attempt  to  restore  it,  it  is  impossible  to  conjecture.  The  whole  account  of  the 
operations  of  the  two  consuls  is  confined  to  the  statement,8  that  they  penetrated 
some  way  from  Capua  up  the  valley  of  the  Vulturnus,  and  took  the  three  towns 
of  Allifse,  Callifse,  and  Rufrium.  But  no  success  was  obtained  of  sufficient  im- 
portance to  deserve  a  triumph,  and  the  conquered  towns  were  in  all  probability 
immediately  abandoned,  for  the  Romans  could  not  as  yet  hope  to  maintain  their 
ground  permanently  on  the  upper  Vulturnus ;  and  it  appears  that  fifteen  years 
afterwards  Allifse  was  still  held  by  the  Samnites.  Thus,  at  the  end  of  the  first 
campaign,  the  aspect  of  the  war  was  not  favorable  to  Rome. 

The  next  year  opened  still  more  unpromisingly ;  for  the  Vestinians9  joined  the 
Samnite  confederacy ;  and  if  the  Romans  attacked  them,  it  was 

A.  U.  C.  429.    Second    ...      ,         .  ,          , ,       J.  ..  ,  .     .  -     _.    ,.  '        ,        .. 

^n>p«igp-.anWar  with  likely  that  the  Marsians,  Marrucimans,  and  Pehgnians,  would  all 
take  up  arms  in  their  defence.  These  four  nations  lay  on  the  north 
and  northwest  of  Samnium,  and  their  territory  reached  from  the  coast  of  the 
Adriatic  to  the  central  chain  of  the  Apennines,  and  to  the  shores  of  the  lake 
Fucinus.  If  they  were  hostile,  all  communication  between  Rome  and  Apulia 
was  rendered  extremely  precarious  ;  and  Samnium  was  secured  from  invasion 
except  on  the  side  of  the  valley  of  the  Liris,  or  from  Campania.  The  Romans, 
therefore,  boldly  resolved  to  declare  war  at  once  against  the  Vestinians,  and  by 
a  sudden  attack  to  detach  them  from  the  Samnite  alliance.  One  of  the  new 
consuls,  Dec.  Junius  Brutus,  marched  immediately  into  their  country ;  the 
neighboring  nations  remained  quiet,  and  the  Vestinians,  overpowered  by  a  su- 
perior force,  saw  their  whole  country  laid  waste ;  and  when  they  were  provoked 
to  risk  a  battle  they  were  totally  defeated,  and  were  reduced  for  the  rest  of  the 
season  to  disperse  their  army,  and  endeavor  only  to  defend  their  several  cities. 
Two  of  these,10  however,  were  taken,  and  although  it  is  not  mentioned  that  the 
Vestinians  sued  for  peace,  yet  the  communication  between  Rome  and  Apulia 
seems  for  the  future  to  have  been  carried  on  through  their  country  without  in- 
terruption. 

Meanwhile  the  other  consul,  L.  Furius  Camillus,  who  was  to  have  invaded 
i.  Papirius  cursor  die-  Samnium,11  was  taken  ill,  and  became  unable  to  retain  his  com- 
mand. Being  then  ordered  to  name  a  dictator,  he  fixed  upon  L. 
Papirius  Cursor,  who  accordingly  appointed  Q.  Fabius  Rullianus  his  master  of 
ihe  horse,  and  marched  out  to  attack  the  Samnites.  Livy's  carelessness,  and  the 
extreme  obscurity  of  the  small  towns  and  villages  in  Samnium,  make  it  impossi- 


*  Livy,  VIII.  25.  included  that  highest  part  of  the  whole  range 

•  Livy,  VIII.  29.  of  the  Apennines  known  by  the  name  of  "  II 
10  Cutinaand  Cingilia. — Livy,  VIII.  29.  Both  gran  Sasso  d'  Italia."    But   the  sites  of  the 

uamcs  arc  entirely  unknown,  and  both,  there-  several  small  towns  in  it,  which  in  all  probabil- 

fore,  as  usual,  are  given  with  great  variations  it.y  had  perished  long  before  the  Augustan  age, 

in  the  MSS.    The  country  of  the  Vestinians  lay  it'is  impossible  to  ascertain  now. 

tn  the  left  bank  of  the  river  Aturnus,  and  it  "  Livy,  VIII.  29. 


CHAP.  XXXI]  L.  PAPIRIUS  AND  Q.  FABIUS.  287 

ble  to  ascertain  the  seat  of  this  campaign  exactly.  We  cannot  even  tell  whether 
the  Romans  invaded  Samnium,12  or  were  obliged  themselves  to  act  on  the  defen- 
sive, and  to  meet  the  Samnite  army  in  the  valley  of  the  upper  Anio,  under  the 
Imbrivian  or  Simbrivian  hills,  about  half  way  between  Tibur  and  Sublaqueum. 

The  faint  and  obscure  outline  of  the  military  transactions  of  this  campaign  af- 
fords a  strong  contrast  to  the  lively  and  full  picture  of  the  dispute 
between  the  Roman  dictator  and  his  master  of  the  horse,  which  twwd.  Q. 


the  annals  have  given  amongst  the  events  of  this  year.  As  the 
story  would  be  considered  honorable  to  both  the  actors  in  it,  the  traditions  and 
memoirs  of  both  their  families  would  vie  with  each  other  in  recording  it  ;  and  the 
historian,  Fabius  Pictor,  in  honor  of  his  own  name  and  race,  was  likely  to  give 
it  a  place  in  his  history.  It  is  told  by  Livy  with  his  usual  power  and  feeling  ; 
but  here,  as  in  the  story  of  T.  Manlius  and  his  son,  it  will  be  best  merely  to  re- 
peat the  outline  of  it,  as  we  have  no  other  knowledge  of  it  than  what  we  derive 
from  Livy  himself,  and  to  give  it  again  in  detail  would  be  either  to  translate  him, 
or  to  describe  with  less  effect  what  in  him  is  related  almost  perfectly. 

When  the  auspices  were  taken,13  as  usual,  by  the  dictator  at  Rome,  previously 
to  his  marching  out  to  war,  the  signs  of  the  will  of  the  gods  were 
not  sufficiently  intelligible.  It  was  necessary,  therefore,  to  take  8itt™B 
them  over  again;  and  as  they  were  auspices14  which  could  only  be  J«v!Si  o^te 
taken  lawfully  within  the  precinct  of  the  old  Ager  Romanus,  the  to  *pare 
dictator  was  obliged  for  this  purpose  to  return  to  Rome.  He  charged  his  mas- 
ter of  the  horse  to  remain  strictly  on  the  defensive  during  his  absence  ;  but  Fa- 
bius disobeyed  his  orders,  and  gained  some  slight  advantage  over  the  enemy  :  an 
advantage  which  the  annalists  magnified  into  a  decisive  victory,  with  a  loss  to  the 
Samiiites15  of  20,000  men.  However,  Papirius,  as  soon  as  he  heard  of  this  breach 
of  his  orders,  hastened  back  to  the  camp,  and  would  have  executed  Fabius  im- 
mediately, had  not  the  violent  and  almost  mutinous  opposition  of  the  soldiers 
obliged  him  to  pause.  During  the  night  Fabius  fled  from  the  camp  to  Rome, 
and  immediately  summoned  the  senate  to  implore  their  protection  ;  but  ere  the 
senators  were  well  assembled,  the  dictator  arrived,  and  again  gave  orders  to  arrest 
him.  M.  Fabius,  the  father  of  the  prisoner,  then  appealed  to  the  tribunes  for 
their  protection,  and  declared  his  intention  of  carrying  his  son's  cause  before  the 
assembly  of  the  people.  Papirius  warned  the  tribunes  not  to  sanction  so  fatal  a 
breach  of  military  discipline,  nor  to  lessen  the  majesty  of  the  dictator's  office,  by 
allowing  his  judgments  to  be  reversed  by  any  other  power.  The  tribunes  hesi- 

B  Livy  fixes  the  scene  of  action  in  Samnium,  other  countries  were  either  ager  peregrinus,  or 

and  calls  the  place  at  which  the  action  was  ager  hosticus,  or  ager  incertiis  ;  and  these  re- 

fought  "  Imbrinium."    VIII.  30.    But  Niebuhr  quired  different  auspices.—  See  Varro,  V.  §  33. 

observes,  that  the  circumstances  of  the  story  Ed.  Muller. 

which  follows,  imply  that  the  Roman  army        u  Livy,  VIII.  30.    Some  writers,  not  content 

could  have  been  at  no  great  distance  from  with  this,  asserted  that  two  pitched  battles  had 

Koine;  and  the  Imbrivian  or  Simbrivian  hills  been  fought  during  the  dictator's  absence,  and 

of  the  upper  valley  of  the  Anio  are  well  known,  that  Fabius  had  been  twice  signally  victorious. 

In  this  Samnite  war,  wherever  we  have  any  de-  "  In  quibusdam  annalibus  tota  res  prscteruiissa 

tails  of  a  battle,  the  geography  of  the  campaign  est,"  says  Livy;  that  is,  the  action  was  of  no 

is  generally  more  perplexed  than  ever  ;  because  importance  in  itself,  and  therefore  was  omitted 

ruch,    details  always  come  from  stories   pre-  in  those  annals  which  did  not  enter  into  the  de- 

served by  the  several  families  of  the  aristocracy,  tails  of  the  story  of  Papirius  and  Fabius.     But, 

whether  in  writing  or  traditionally  ;  and  these,  as  it  made  a  necessary  part  of  that  story,  it  was 

caring  nothing  for  the  military  history  of  the  mentioned,  of  course,  in   every  version  of  it; 

previous  operations,  only  sought  to  describe  and  both  the  Papirian  and  the  Fabian  tradi- 

thc  deeds  of  their  hero  in  the  battle.  tions  would  be  disposed  to  exaggerate  its  im- 

0  Livy,  VIII.  30.  portance  :  the  latter,  from  an  obvious  reason  ; 

14  This  appears  from  the  well-known  passage  but  the  former  would  be  disposed  to  do  it 

in  Varro,  in  which  he  gives  the  augurs'  division  equally,  for  the  glory  of  the  character  of  Papir- 

of  all  countries,  according  to  the  rules  of  their  ius  was  placed  in  his  unyielding   assertion  01 

art;  that  is,  according  to  the  several  kinds  of  the  sacredness  of  discipline  ;  and  this  would  be 

auspices  which  were  peculiar  to  each  of  them,  rendered  the  more  striking,  in  proportion  to 

The  ager  Romanus  and  the  ager  Gabinus  are  the  brilliancy  of  the  action,  which  he,  notwith 

classed  apart,  because  in  these  two  districts  the  standing,  treated  as  a  crime,  because  it  had  been 

luspices  might  be  taken  in  the  same  way.    All  fought  contrary  to  his  orders. 


288  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXI 

tated  ;  they  were  unwilling  to  establish  a  precedent  of  setting  any  limits  to  the 
absolute  power  of  the  dictator,  a  power  which  was  held  essential  to  the  office ; 
and  yet  they  could  not  bear  to  permit  an  exercise  of  this  power  so  extravagantly 
severe  as  to  shock  the  sense  and  feelings  of  the  whole  Roman  people.  They 
were  relieved  from  this  difficulty  by  the  people  themselves  ;16  for  the  whole  as- 
sembly, with  one  Voice,  implored  the  dictator  to  show  mercy,  and  to  forgive  Fabius 
for  their  sakes.  Then  Papirius  yielded ;  the  absolute  power  of  the  dictator,  he 
said,  was  now  acknowledged :  the  people  did  not  interfere  to  rescind  his  sen- 
tence,17 but  to  entreat  his  mercy.  Accordingly,  he  declared  that  he  pardoned 
the  master  of  the  horse  ;  "  and  the  authority  of  the  Roman  generals  was  estab- 
lished," says  Livy,  "no  less  firmly  by  the  peril  of  Q.  Fabius  than  by  the  actual 
death  of  the  young  T.  Manlius."  This  is  true,  if  by  peril  we  understand  not 
only  that  he  was  in  danger,  but  also  that  he  was  no  more  than  in  danger,  and 
that  he  did  not  actually  perish ;  for  the  execution  of  Fabius  would,  perhaps, 
have  been  more  ruinous  to  discipline  than  any  other  possible  result  of  the  trans- 
action, as  the  reaction  of  feeling  produced  by  laws  of  extreme  severity  has  a  di- 
rect tendency  to  utter  lawlessness.  It  may  be  observed  also,  that,  according  to 
this  story,  the  tribunes  possessed  the  power  within  the  city  of  staying  the  execu- 
tion, even  of  a  dictator's  sentence  ;  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  in  him,  no  less  than 
in  an  inferior  magistrate,  it  would  have  been  a  breach  of  the  solemn  covenant  of 
the  Sacred  Hill  to  have  touched  the  person  of  a  tribune.  And,  in  the  same  man- 
ner, the  people  in  their  centuries  could,  undoubtedly,  have  taken  cognizance  of 
the  offence  of  Fabius  themselves,  and  removed  it  out  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
dictator.  But  neither  the  tribunes  nor  the  people  wished  so  to  interfere,  because 
it  was  held  to  be  expedient  that  the  dictator's  power  should  be,  in  practice,  unre- 
strained ;  and,  therefore,  it  was  judged  better  to  save  Fabius  by  an  appeal  to  the 
clemency  of  Papirius,  rather  than  by  an  authoritative  reversal  of  his  sentence. 

From  this  story  we  return  again  to  the  meagerness  of  the  accounts  of  the  war. 
successes  of  Papiriu.  ^  is  sa^>  that  whilst  Papirius18  was  absent  in  Rome,  one  of  his 
foraging  parties  was  cut  off  by  the  Samnites  ;  and  that  after  his 
return  to  the  army,  the  soldiers  were  so  unwilling  to  conquer  under  his  auspices, 
that  in  a  bloody  battle,  fought  under  his  immediate  command,  with  the  enemy, 
the  fortune  of  the  day  was  left  doubtful.  Then,  said  the  story,19  Papirius  saw 
how  needful  it  was  to  win  the  love  of  his  soldiers  ;  he  was  assiduous  in  his  atten- 
tions to  the  wounded  ;  he  commended  them  by  name  to  the  care  of  their  respect- 
ive officers ;  and  he  himself,  with  his  lieutenants,  went  round  the  camp,  looking 
personally  into  the  tents,  and  asking  the  men  Ifow  they  were.  The  affections  of 
the  army  were  thus  completely  regained ;  another  battle  followed,  and  the  vic- 
tory of  the  Romans  was  so  decisive,  that  the  Samnites  were  forced  to  abandon 
the  open  country  to  the  ravages  of  their  enemies,  and  were  even  driven,  so  said 
the  stories  of  the  Papirian  family,  to  solicit  peace.  The  dictator  granted  an  ar- 
mistice, and  ambassadors  from  the  Samnites  followed  him  to  Rome,  when  he 
returned  thither,  about  the  end  of  February,20  to  celebrate  his  triumph.  But  as 
the  terms  of  a  lasting  peace  could  not  be  agreed  upon,  nothing  more  was  con- 
cluded than  a  truce  for  a  single  year ;  a  breathing-time  which  both  parties  might 
find  convenient. 

The  new  consuls,  however,  were  engaged  in  hostilities  with  the  Samnites  in 

the  course  of  their  magistracy,  so  that  the  Roman  annalists  accused 

SofX'i^'toJof  the  Samnites  of  having  broken  the  truce  as  soon  as  Papirius  went 

"  out  of  office.21     In  the  utter  confusion  of  the  chronology  of  this 

period,  and  the  obscurity  of  its  history,  we  cannot  tell  whether  the  charge  was 

18  Livy,  VIII.  35.  "  Livy,  VIII.  36. 

17  "  Nou  noxa  eximitur  Q.  Fabius,  sed  noxae  20  See  the  Fasti  Capitolini. 

damnatus  donatur  populo  Romano,  donatur  tri-  21  Livy,  VIII.  37.     "  Nee  earmn  ipsarum  (in- 

buniciae  potestati,  precarium  nonjustum  aux-  duciarum)  sancta  fides  fuit:   adeo,  postquam 

Jium  t'erenti." — Livy,  VIII.  35.  Papirium  abisse  magistrate  uuntiatum  est,  ar< 

u  Livy,  V11I.  35.  recti  ad  bellandum  aniuii  aunt." 


CHAP.  XXXI.]  RISING  OF  THE  CITIES  NEAR  ROMR  289 

well  founded  or  no.  But  the  events  of  this  year,  431,  according  to  the  common 
chronology,  have  been  more  than  ordinarily  disguised  and  suppressed,  for  the 
annalists  represent  it  as  a  year  marked  by  no  memorable  action  ;  whereas,  in  fact, 
it  witnessed  a  coalition  against  Rome,  which  was  indeed  quickly  dissolved,  but 
in  the  mean  time  had  exposed  the  republic  to  the  most  imminent  jeopardy.  We 
must  attempt  to  restore  the  outline  at  least  of  the  real  but  lost  picture. 

The  Samnites  had  employed  the  year  of  the  truce  in  endeavoring  to  procure 
assistance  for  themselves  amongst  the  allies  and  subjects  of  Rome.  The  con.uis  march  ini« 
They  succeeded,  either  wholly  or  in  part,  with  the  Apulians  -."some  Apulia 
of  whose  cities22  revolted  from  the  Romans,  and  called  in  the  Samnites  to  assist 
in  reducing  those  who  refused  to  join  them.  Thus  when  the  truce  was  either 
ended,  or  broken,  Q.  Aulius  Cerretanus,23  one  of  the  consuls,  was  obliged  to  march 
with  one  consular  army  into  Apulia ;  whilst  the  other  consul,  C.  Sulpicius  Lon- 
gus,  was  sent  into  Samnium.  Whether  he  made  his  attack  on  the  side  of  Cam- 
pania, or  from  the  country  of  the  Pelignians  and  Marsians,  we  know  not ;  but  it 
appears,  at  any  rate,  that  both  consuls  were  engaged  at  a  distance  from  Rome, 
and  their  communications  with  it  would,  therefore,  be  liable  to  great  interrup- 
tion. 

Five  years  had  now  elapsed  since  the  rights  of  Roman  citizenship  had  been 
bestowed  on  the  people  of  Privernum  ;  thirteen  years  had  passed  Q^^  ^^^,5, 
since  the  same  privileges  had  been  given  to  the  Tusculans.  But  near  Rome0  to  claim  th« 

t.  O  o      .  j  -  j     full   rights    ot    citizen- 

as  this  citizenship  extended  only  to  private  rights,  and  conferred  swp^  Julius  consul 
no  political  power  (for  neither  the  Privernatians  nor  the  Tuscu- 
lans were  as  yet  included  in  any  Roman  tribe,  and,  consequently,  they  enjoyed  no 
rights  of  voting),  so  it  was  felt  to  be  a  degradation  rather  than  a  benefit ;  or,  at 
any  rate,  it  was  fitted  only  for  a  temporary  measure,  which  ought  to  pave  the 
way  for  a  more  perfect  union.  We  may  conjecture  also,  from  what  has  taken 
place  in  other  countries,  that  hopes  had  been  held  out,  or  even  promises  made, 
by  the  Romans,  of  which  the  fulfilment  was  afterwards  indefinitely  delayed ;  and 
the  nobility  of  Privernum  and  Tusculum,  connected  with  those  of  Rome  in  their 
private  relations,  and  aspiring  to  share  with  them  also  their  political  distinctions, 
were  especially  impatient  of  their  actual  condition.  The  Samnite  war,  and,  above 
all,  the  absence  of  both  the  consular  armies  in  remote  parts  of  Italy,  seemed  to 
afford  them  an  opportunity  of  enforcing  their  claims,  and  obliging  the  Romans 
to  grant  them  a  full  equality  of  rights.  Suddenly,  therefore,  like  the  Irish  vol- 
unteers of  1782,  the  people  of  Tusculum  and  Privernum  flew  to  arms;  and  the 
spirit  which  actuated  them  must,  indeed,  have  been  general,  if  it  be  true  that  the 
people  of  Velitrae,24  although  already  included  in  a  Roman  tribe,  were  yet  per- 
suaded to  join  them.  One  of  their  leaders  was  L.  Fulvius  Curvus,  of  Tusculum, 
and,  like  the  leaders  of  the  Italian  allies  in  the  great  war  of  the  seventh  century, 
he  was  invested  with  the  title  of  consul.25  A  Privernatian  leader  was,  probably, 

22  Livy,  VIII.  37.  ment  of  the  language  of  the  bill  is  likely  to  be 

23  Livy  calls  him  Q.  JEmilius  Cerretanus,  but  authentic,  we  might  venture,  even  from  that 
says  "Aulium  quidam  annales  habent."    He  alone,  to  supply  the  defects  of  the  other  part  of 
himself  calls  him  Aulius,  however,  when  he  Livy's  narrative,  even  if  we  had  not  Pliny's  re- 
mentions  his  second  consulship  in  the  year  markable  notice  of  L.  Fulvius,  which  throws  a 
429. — Livy,  IX.  15.  light  upon  the  whole  transaction. 

24  In  the  bill  proposed  afterwards  by  M.  Fla-  2S  "  Est  et  L.  Fulvius  inter  insignia  exempla. 
vius  for  the  punishment  of  the  Tusculans,  it  Tusculanorum   rebellantium   consul ;    eodern- 
was  proposed  to  punish  all  those  "  quorum  ope  que  honore  quum  transisset  exornatus  confer- 
ac  consilia  Veliterni  Privernatesque  populo  Eo-  tim  a  populo  Romano :  qui  solus  eodem  anno 
mano  belluin  fecissent."    This  can  only  allude  quo  fuerat  hostis  Kornse  triumphavit  ex  iis  quo- 
to  the  short  war  of  this  year ;  but  the  account  rum  consul  fuerat."     Pliny,  Histor.  Natur.  VII. 
of  these  events  in  Livy  is  so  meager  that  if  we  44.     Now,  the  title  of  consul  was  Roman  exclu- 
only  followed  his  narrative  the  allusion  would  sively,  and  not  Latin ;  the  Latins  had  praetors 
be  unintelligible ;  for  not  a  word  had  been  said  and  dictators,  but  no  consuls ;  which  would  nat- 
of  Privernum  since  the  war  of  425,  nor  of  Veli-  urally  be  the  case,  if  the  origin  of  the  name  at 
treo  since  the  great  Latin  war.     Drakenborch,  Rome  were  as  accidental,  an  das  connected  with 
therefore,  is  naturally  at  a  loss  to  understand  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  time,  as  I  have 
the  meaning  of  the  passage  ;  but  as  the  state-  supposed  it  to  have  been.    See  p.  120.     If,  then. 

19 


290  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CUAP.  XXXI 

associated  with  him  in  this  dignity,  in  intimation  that  Tusculum  and  Privernum 
were  resolved  to  form  a  distinct  Roman  commonwealth  of  their  own,  they  too 
being  Roman  citizens,  if  the  inhabitants  of  the  capital  persisted  in  excluding  them 
from  the  government  and  honors  of  their  common  country. 

Their  measures  seem  to  have  been  taken  with  the  most  careful  secrecy,  and 
Night  march  of  L.FUI-  tne  execution  of  them  fell  upon  the  Romans  like  a  thunderbolt, 
dlmalFaT  fnhe'  inlur!  In  tue  dead  of  the  night,  an  alarm  was  given  that  an  enemy  was 
emu w granted.  before  the  walls  of  Rome;26  the  citizens  arose  in  haste,  each  man 
seized  his  arms,  and  ran  to  the  Capitol,  or  to  defend  the  walls  and  secure  the 
gates  of  the  city.  The  attempt  of  L.  Fulvius  to  surprise  Rome,  not  less  bold  than 
the  march  of  C.  Pontius  Telesinus  upon  the  Colline  gate,  was  timely  baffled; 
and,  finding  the  city  secured  against  a  surprise,  he  retreated  as  rapidly  as  he  had 
advanced.  But  although  this  single  blow  had  failed,  it  still  revealed  the  magni- 
tude of  the  actual  danger.  If  Velitras  had  joined  in  the  revolt,  what  hope  was 
there  that  the  other  cities  of  Latium  would  remain  faithful  ?  and  if  the  whole 
storm  of  the  Latin  war  should  again  gather,  when  the  Samnites  were  no  longer 
allies  of  Rome,  as  in  the  last  war,  but  her  deadly  enemies,  what  prospect  was  left 
of  victory  ?  The  pride  of  the  Roman  aristocracy  was  obliged  to  yield  ;  and  the 
self-same  conduct  which  in  Vitruvius  Vaccus  five  years  before  they  had  punished 
with  death,  they  were  now  obliged,  in  the  case  of  L.  Fulvius  Curvus,  to  reward 
with  the  consulship.  What  security  they  could  give  that  they  would  keep 
their  plighted  faith,  we  know  not ;  but  L.  Fulvius  was  so  satisfied  that  he  went 
over  to  the  Romans,  and  his  countrymen  and  their  allies,  assured  that  their  de- 
mands would  be  granted,  laid  down  their  arms.  A  mad,  if  not  a  treacherous, 
attempt  to  disturb  this  understanding  was  made  by  M.  Flavius,27  one  of  the  trib- 
unes ;  he  proposed  a  law  for  visiting  with  condign  punishment  those  citizens  of 
Tusculum  who  had  been  the  instigators  of  the  late  insurrection.  This  must,  un- 
doubtedly, have  included  L.  Fulvius  himself;  and  had  the  law  passed,  the  Latins, 
in  indignation  and  despair,  would  have  risen  as  one  man  ;  and  the  quarrel  would 
have  become  utterly  irreconcilable.  One  tribe,  the  Pollian,  voted  in  favor  of 
it,  and  even  expressed  its  wish  for  a  still  bloodier  vengeance  on  the  whole  peo- 
ple of  Tusculum,  such  as  the  Athenians  had  taken  upon  the  revolted  Melians  and 
Scionteans.  But  all  the  other  tribes,  to  the  number  of  eight  and  twenty,  had 
the  wisdom  to  reject  the  bill.  In  the  very  next  census  the  Tusculans28  and  Pri- 
vernatians  received  the  full  rights  of  citizenship;  but  L.  Fulvius  obtained  the 
object  of  his  ambition  even  without  this  short  delay ;  he  was  elected  at  once  Ro- 
man consul ;  and  the  man  who  in  one  year  had  led  a  hostile  army  to  assail  the 
very  walls  of  Rome,  was  in  the  next  year  invested  with  the  highest  civil  and  mili- 
tary power  in  the  Roman  commonwealth. 

Fulvius  was  really  called  consul,  and  not  prse-  have  ruined  his  design.    That  he  should  have 

tor,  the  title  must  have  been  chosen  with  the  retreated  instantly,  as  soon  as  he  found  that  ho 

same  feeling  as  in  the  Italian  war;  when  the  was  discovered,  was.  of  course,  necessary;  and 

Italian  allies,  claiming  to  be  the  true  representa-  thus  there  would  have  been  no  enemy  to  be 

lives  of  the  Eoman  nation,  elected  their  two  seen  from  the  walls  of  Home  when  the  day 

consuls  and  twelve  praetors  in  opposition  to  the  broke ;  and  yet  the  alarm  in  the  night  was  any 

consuls  and  praters  of  the  city  of  Rome.  thing  but  imaginary. 

86  Livy,  VIII.  37.     "  Romse  nocturnus  terror  M  Livy,  VII.  37. 

ita  ex  somno  trepidam  repente  civitatem  excivit,  M  This  is  known  with  regard  to  the  Priverna- 

ut  capitolium  atque  arxmoeniaque  et  portas  pie-  tians,  because  they  were  included  in  the  tribe 

na  armatorum  fuerint,  et  cum  concursatum  con-  Ufentina,  or  Oufentina,  which  was  created  ir 

clamatumque  ad  arina  omnibus  locis  esset,  pri-  436.  See  Livy,  IX.  20.  IJioclorus,  XIX.  10.  With 

ina  luce  nee  auctor  nee  causa  terroris  compa-  regard  to  the  Tusculans  it  is  only  a  conjecture; 

ruit."    The  story  thus  given  is  a  mere  absurd-  but  we  never  hear  of  them  afterwards,  except 

ity ;  but  it  is  probable  enough,  if  explained  as  as  full  citizens ;  and  their  being  enrolled  in  the 

in  the  text.     We  read  of  a  similar  night  attack  Papirian  tribe  (which  is  known  from  Livy,  VIII. 

made  by  the  JSquians  upon  Tusculum  towards  37)  seems  to  suit  with  the  supposition  that  they 

the  close  of  the  third  century  of  Rome,  Livy,  were  admitted  to  the  full  franchise  by  L.  Papir- 

III.  23  ;  and  in  the  same  manner  Appius  Her-  ius  Cursor,  who,  as  appears  from  the  Fasti  Ca- 

donius  had  actually  surprised  the  Capitol  at  pitolini,  was  one  of  the  censors  of  the  year  436, 

Rome  in  the  year  2y4.     It  may  be  that  Fulvius  when  the  Falerian  and  Ufentine  tribes  werecre- 

expected  to  be  joined  by  a  party  within  Rome  ated. 
itself,  and  the  failure  of  this  co-operation  may 


CHAP.  XXXL]  FOURTH  CAMPAIGN.— ROMAN  VICTORIES.  291 


What  became  of  the  consular  armies  in  Samnium  and  Apulia,  while  these  im- 
portant events  were  passing  in  the  neighborhood  of  Rome,  we  have 


Fourth  campaign  of  the 


no  means  of  discovering.  It  is  certain  that  they  gained  no  victo-  ™r.  victories  of  th* 
ries ;  it  is  possible  that  they  may  have  sustained  some  defeats, 
and  that  their  ill  fortune  may  have  helped  to  break  the  spirit  of  Roman  govern- 
ment, and  to  enforce  a  compliance  with  the  demands  of  the  Tusculans.  But 
when  the  seeds  of  dissension  near  home  were  destroyed,  and  Tusculum  and  the 
other  neighboring  cities  were  cordially  united  with  Rome,  the  war  in  Samnium 
assumed  a  different  aspect.  The  Roman  annals  represent  the  year  432  as  one 
marked  by  most  brilliant  victories ;  although  some  accounts29  ascribed  the  merit 
of  them  to  the  consuls,  Q.  Fabius  and  L.  Fulvius,  while  others  gave  it  to  a  dic- 
tator, A.  Cornelius  Arvina.  All  agreed,  however,  in  saying  that  the  Samnites 
sustained  a  bloody  defeat,  insomuch  that  the  party  in  Samnium  which  was  favor- 
able to  peace  obtained,  for  the  moment,  an  ascendency.  This  party  resolved  to 
purchase  the  friendship  of  Rome  by  the  humblest  concessions :  all  prisoners30  and 
all  plunder  taken  from  the  Romans  were  to  be  restored  ;  all  the  demands  of  the 
Romans  before  the  war  were  to  be  fully  satisfied ;  and  Brutulus  Papius,  the 
leader  of  the  war  party,  was  to  be  given  up  to  the  Romans,  as  the  man  who  had 
broken  the  peace  between  the  two  nations.  Brutulus  Papius,  it  is  said,  would 
not  be  given  up  alive ;  he  killed  himself,  and  only  his  lifeless  body  was  offered 
to  the  vengeance  of  his  enemies.  But  the  Romans,  thinking  that  a  party  which 
could  yield  so  much  would  not  dare  to  refuse  any  thing,  rejected  even  these 
terms,  and  would  be  contented  with  nothing  less  than  that  the  Samnites  should 
acknowledge  their  supremacy,  and  become  their  dependent  allies.31  One  unsuc- 
cessful campaign  was  not  enough  to  reduce  so  brave  a  people  to  such  a  humilia- 
tion ;  the  whole  nation  resolved  to  try  the  chance  of  war  once  more ;  and  their  choice 
of  an  imperator,  or  captain-general,  for  the  approaching  campaign  fell  on  a  man  who 
has  deserved  to  be  called  the  Samnite  Hannibal,  or  Caius  Pontius  of  Telesia.38 

The  military  history  of  the  ensuing  year  is  more  than  ordinarily  obscure,  be- 
cause the  annals  were  filled  with  nothing  but  the  stories  about  the 
disaster  of  Caudium ;  and,  as  usual,  these  stories  never  think  of 
connecting  the  event  to  which  they  relate  with  the  circumstance  m 
which  led  to  it,  but  plunge  into  the  midst  of  it  at  once.  The  two  new  consuls, 
it  is  said,  T.  Veturius  and  Sp.  Postumius,  at  the  head  of  two  consular  armies, 
consisting  each  of  two  Roman  legions,  and  a  considerable  force  of  auxiliaries, 
marched  from  Rome  into  Campania ;  as  if  it  was  intended  to  strike  a  blow  at  the 
great  Samnite  cities  on  the  southern  side  of  the  Matese  at  Caudium,  and  Telesia, 
and  Ben.-ventum,  or,  as  it  was  then  called,  Maleventum.  The  last  campaign  in 
Apulia  h.id,  probably,  recovered  the  revolted  cities  in  that  country,  and  the  Ro- 
man party  amongst  the  Apulians  was  supposed  to  be  strong  enough  to  retain 
their  countrymen  in  their  alliance  with  Rome.  Thus  the  seat  of  Avar  was  re- 
moved entirely  to  the  southern  frontier  of  Samnium ;  and  C.  Pontius,  the  Sam- 
nite general,  was  prepared  to  defend  the  passes  which  lead  from  the  plain  of. 
Naples  to  Beneventum  and  the  higher  valleys  within  the  line  of  the  Apennines. 

But,  in  order  to  tempt  the  Romans  to  plunge  blindly  into  these  defiles,  Pon- 
tius contrived  to  mislead  them  by  a  false  report  that  the  whole  They  enter  the  P«M  of 
Samnite  army  was  gone  off  into  Apulia,33  and  was  there  busily  Caudmm- 
engaged  in  besieging  Luceria ;  as  if  trusting  to  the  natural  strength  of  their  own 

M  Livy,  VIII.  38,  39.  a  descendant  of  the  Pontius  who  defeated  the 

80  Livy,   VIII.   39.      Dion  Cassius,   Fragm.  Romans  at  the  pass  of  Caudium. 

Ursiu.  143.  33  Livy,  IX.  2.    At  what  period  in  this  cain- 

Appian,  IIT.  Fragm.  4.  paign,  or  by  what  forces,  Luceria  was  really  won 

He  is  called  Pontius  Telesinus  by  the  au-  over  to  the  Samnite  alliance,  it  is  not  possible 

hor  of  the  little  work  "de  Viris  Illustribus,"  to  say.    A  part  of  the  Samnite  forces  may  have, 

n  the  notice  of  Sp.  Postumius.   The  great  Sam-  been  in  Apulia  when  the  Romans  entered  Sam- 

lite  leader  who  fought  so  obstinately  against  nium  ;  and  C.  Pontius  may  have  won  his  vic- 

$vlla  was  also  Pontius  Telesinus,  and,  possibly,  tory  with  an  army  much  inferior  in  numbers  to 


292  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXI 

country  to  withstand  the  invasion  of  the  Roman  consuls.  The  consuls  believed 
this  story,  and,  thinking  on  the  one  hand,  that  the  danger  of  their  allies  made  it 
necessary  to  choose  the  shortest  route  into  Apulia,  while  the  absence  of  the  Sam- 
nite  army  would  enable  them  to  force  their  way  through  Samnium  without  dif- 
ficulty, they  entered  the  fatal  pass  of  Caudium.  This  was  a  cut  or  valley  in  the 
outer  line  or  wall  of  the  Apennines,  leading  from  the  plain  of  Campania  under 
the  foot  of  Tiburnus  to  Maleventum.  The  modern  road  from  Naples  to  Bene- 
vento  still  runs  through  it,  and  it  is  now  called  the  valley  of  Arpaia.34 

In  this  valley  the  Roman  army  found  itself  on  a  sudden  surrounded  by  the 

They  are  defeated,  and  enemy,  who  showed  themselves  on  both  flanks  and  on  the  rear,  as 

«« retreat is cutoff.    soon  as  the  heads  of  ilie  co\umus  were  stopped  by  the  obstacles 

with  which  the  Samnites  had  blocked  up  the  road  in  front  of  them.  Thus 
entangled  in  a  situation  nearly  similar  to  that  of  Flaminius  at  Thrasymenus,  the  Ro- 
mans were  completely  defeated.35  Night,  however,  saved  them  from  total  de- 
struction ;  but  to  retreat  to  the  plains  was  impossible :  the  pass  in  their  rear,  by 
which  they  had  entered  the  valley,  was  secured  by  the  enemy ;  so  that  they  had 
no  other  resource  but  to  encamp  in  the  valley,  not  far  from  the  scene  of  their 
defeat,  and  there  hopelessly  to  abide  the  issue.  The  Samnites,  having  thus  got 
them  in  their  power,  waited  quietly  till  famine  should  do  their  work  for  them. 
Occupying  the  road,  both  in  front  and  on  the  rear  of  the  Romans,  and  guarding 
every  possible  track  by  which  the  enemy  might  try  to  escape  over  the  hills  on 
either  side  of  the  valley,  they  easily  repulsed  some  desperate  attempts  made  by 
the  Romans  to  break  out ;  and  a  large  army,  surprised  on  its  march,  with  all  its 
communications  cut  off,  and  hemmed  in  within  a  single  narrow  valley,  could  not 
possibly  have  the  means  of  subsistence  beyond  a  very  short  period.  Accord- 
ingly, the  Romans  soon  threw  themselves  on  the  mercy  of  the  conqueror :  le  Put 
us  to  the  sword,"36  they  said,  "  sell  us  as  slaves,  or  keep  us  as  prisoners  till  we 
are  ransomed :  only  save  our  bodies,  whether  living  or  dead,  from  all  unworthy 
insults."  They  might  have  remembered  how  their  own  countrymen  were  accus- 
tomed to  lead  their  captive  enemies  in  triumph,  and  to  execute  them  in  cold  blood 
in  the  common  prison ;  nay,  how  they  had  lately  demanded  even  the  lifeless  body 
of  a  noble  Samnite,  Brutulus  Papius,  to  be  given  up  to  them,  and  had  deprived 
it  of  the  rites  of  burial.  But  now  they  could  understand  that  it  became  a  noble 
nature  to  show  mercy,  and  that  an  unfortunate  enemy  deserved  to  be  treated 
with  compassion. 

that  of  the  Eomans.    But  the  history  of  this  name  of  a  plain.     It  is  said  that  the  valley  of 

campaign  cannot  be  completely  restored.  Arpaia  is  too  open  to  suit  such  a  description. 

34  The  situation  of  the  pass  of  Caudium  has  Both  Niebuhr  and  Mr.  Keppel  Craven  call  it, 

been  a  matter  of  dispute.     Mr.  Gandy,  in  a  me-  however,  a  narrow  valley,  and  the  Eomans,  as 

nioir  published  by  Mr.  Keppel  Craven,  in  his  they  have  disguised  every  other  part  of  the 

tour  through  the  southern  provinces  of  Naples,  story,  were  likely  also  to  exaggerate  the  natural 

p.  12-20,  places  it  in  a  narrow  gorge  on  the  lit-  difficulties  of  the  ground,  in  order  to  lessen  the 

tie   stream  of  the  Isclero,  above  Sant'   Agata  shame  of  their  defeat. 

de]  Goti.  But  Niebuhr  adheres  to  the  common  35  Livy,  as  is  well  known,  makes  the  Eomans 
opinion  that  it  was  the  valley  between  Arienzo  surrender  without  a  blow,  overcome  by  the  insu- 
and  Arpaia,  through  which  the  present  road  perable  difficulties  of  the  ground  where  they  had 
from  Naples  to  Benevento  runs.  A  village  in  been  entrapped.  ButAppian,whenheenumer- 
the  midst  of  this  defile  is  still  called  Forchia,  ates  the  officers  who  signed  the  capitulation  after- 
and  Niebuhr  says  that  the  defile  itself  was,  even  wards,  names  only  twelve  military  tribunes,  and 
in  the  middle  ages,  distinguished  by  the  name  says  that  those  who  signed  were  all  who  were 
of  la  Furcula  Caudina.  The  dispute  has  been  surviving;  avfnravres  Seroi  utra  rovg  SicfOapnivovs 
only  occasioned  by  the  supposition  that  Livy's  fyxov. — III.  Fragm.  4,  §  6.  Now  two  consular 
description  of  the  scene  was  topographically  armies  consisted  of  four  legions,  and  had  twenty- 
correct,  and  by  the  difficulty  of  reconciling  it  four  military  tribunes ;  so  that  half  of  the  full 
with  the  actual  character  of  the  valley  of  Arpaia.  number  must  have  been  either  killed  or  disa- 
But  Livy's  descriptions,  unless  we  can  be  sure  bled  by  their  wounds.  And  Cicero,  in  two 
that  they  are  taken  from  some  writer  who  was  places,  quoted  by  Niebuhr  (De  Officiis,  III.  30, 
careful  about  such  matters,  deserve  no  credit ;  and  De  Senectute,  12),  expressly  says  that  there 
and  the  picture  which  he  gives  of  the  pass  or  was  a  battle  of  Caudium,  in  which  the  Eomans 
Caudium  is  but  a  representation  of  almost  all  were  defeated. 

niountain  valleys,  which  contract  at  intervals  38  Appian,  III.  Fragm.  4.  §  2.     Compare  Dio- 

into  mere  gorges,  and  expand  between  these  nysius,  XVI.  4.  Fragm.  Mai. 
gorges  into  something   almost   deserving  the 


CHAP.  XXXL1  C.  PONTIUS  OF  TELESIA.  293 

They  spoke  to  one  who  could  feel  this  in  the  hour  of  triumph,  and  not  merely 
when  fortune  had  turned  against  him.     The  father  of  C.  Pontius  „ 

i  i   •»  ,  /*   s*t  i   •       •  ^'   Pontius  of   Telfiflia. 

had  been  no  stranger  to  the  philosophy  of  Greece ;  his  intercourse  He  offers  terms  to  th* 
with  the  Tarentines  had  made  him  acquainted,  it  was  said,  with 
Archytas  :37  nay,  he  had  even  taken  part  in  a  philosophical  conversation,  respect- 
ing pleasure,  so  went  the  story,  not  with  Archytas  only,  but  with  Plato.  These 
particulars  may  not  be  historical :  but  the  connection  with  Tarentum  was  likely 
to  have  an  influence  on  the  most  eminent  Samnites ;  and  C.  Pontius  was  proba-- 
bly  far  more  advanced  in  cultivation  of  mind  than  any  Roman  general  of  that 
age.  He  resolved  to  use  his  victory  generously,  and  to  make  it,  if  possible,  the 
occasion  of  an  equal,  and  therefore  of  a  lasting  peace.38  "  Restore  to  us,"  he 
said  to  the  consuls,  "  the  towns  and  the  territory  which  you  have  taken  from  us ; 
and  call  home  your  colonists  whom  you  have  unjustly  settled  upon  our  soil ;  and 
conclude  with  us  a  treaty  which  shall  acknowledge  each  nation  to  be  alike  inde- 
pendent of  the  other.  If  ye  will  swear  to  do  this,  I  will  spare  your  lives,  and 
let  you  go  without  ransom ;  each  man  of  you  giving  up  his  arms  merely,  and 
keeping  his  clothes  untouched ;  and  you  shall  pass  in  sight  of  our  army  as  pris- 
oners whom  we  had  in  our  power,  and  whom  we  set  free  of  our  own  will,  when 
we  might  have  killed  them,  or  sold  them,  or  held  them  to  ransom." 

When  Pontius  had  announced  these  terms,  he  called  for  the  Roman  fecialis, 
whose  office  it  was  to  conclude  all  treaties  and  to  take  the  oaths  The  COIiauU  accept 
in  behalf  of  the  Roman  people.39  But  there  was  no  fecialis  with  them- 
the  army ;  for  the  Romans  had  resolved  to  make  no  peace  with  the  Samnites, 
and  to  receive  no  proposals  from  them  but  their  absolute  submission.  So  the 
consuls  and  all  the  surviving  officers  took  the  oaths ;  and  six  hundred  Roman 
knights  were  to  be  delivered  as  hostages  to  the  Samnites  to  insure  the  ratification 
of  the  peace  by  the  Roman  people. 

When  the  Spartans  were  hopelessly  cut  off  from  all  aid  in  the  island  of  Sphac- 
teria,  the  Athenian  commanders  agreed  to  a  truce,40  in  order  to 
allow  time  to  the  Spartan  government  to  send  an  embassy  to  mem  ^asJnTuKIyTo" 
Athens,  and  to  purchase,  if  they  could,  the  deliverance  of  their 
soldiers  by  consenting  to  reasonable  terms  of  peace.  Why  Pontius  did  not  act 
in  a  similar  manner,  and  insist  upon  treating,  not  with  the  generals  of  the  block- 
aded army,  but  with  the  senate  and  people  of  Rome,  whose  consent  was  obvi- 
ously essential  to  the  validity  of  any  treaty  of  peace,  the  suspicious  and  imper- 
fect accounts  of  the  Roman  writers  will  not  enable  us  to  explain.  Did  he  know 
so  little  of  the  Romans  as  to  expect  that  they  would  ratify  the  treaty  because'its 
terms  were  so  moderate,  and  because  he  had  spared  the  lives  of  so  many  thou- 
sands of  their  citizens  ?  But,  according  to  Roman  notions,  no  peace  was  en- 
durable unless  they  themselves  dictated  its  conditions ;  and  the  mercy  of  an  ene- 
my was  a  deadly  insult,  because  it  reminded  them  that  they  had  been  van- 
quished. Or  did  he  trust  to  the  force  of  natural  affection ;  that  the  six  hun- 
dred knights  whom  he  had  demanded  as  hostages,  and  who  were  probably  the  sons 

17  Cicero,  deSenectute,  XII.  §41.  Cicero  makes  life  of  Archytas,  speaks  of  a  discussion  on 
Cato  relate  this  story  on  the  authority  of  Nearchus  bodily  pleasures  between  him  and  Polyarchus, 
of  Tarentum,  whom  he  had  himself  person-  and  he  seems  to  give  a  reality  to  the  conversa- 
ally  known,  and  who  had  repeated  it  to  mm  on  tion,  by  stating  that  Polyarchus  came  to  Taren- 
the  authority  of  some  old  men,  as  a  Tarentine  turn  on  an  embassy,  which  had  been  sent  thither 
tradition.  Cato  is  made  to  add,  that  according  by  the  younger  Dionvsius.  (Athenseus,  XII. 
to  his  own  calculation,  Plato's  visit  to  Taren-  64.)  At  any  rate,  as  Niebuhr  himself  allows, 
turn  had  taken  place  in  the  consulship  of  L.  the  very  introduction  of  the  name  of  C.  Pont  us 
Camillus  and  App.  Claudius;  that  is,  in  the  into  a  philosophical  dialogue  with  ArchyUis 
year  of  Rome  406,  according  to  the  common  and  Plato  would  show  that  the  eminent  Sam- 
reckoning.  Niebuhr  thinks  that  Nearchus'  nitcs  had  acquired,  through  their  intercourse 
Btory  only  means  that  Nearchus  had  himself  with  Tarentum,  an  interest  in  and  an  acquaint- 
written  a  dialogue  vepl  iJ<W?/?,  in  which  Archy-  ance  with  the  Greek  philosophy, 
tas,  Pontius,  and  Plato  were  made  the  speakers.  ^  Appian,  Samnitic.  Fragm.  IV.  §  5. 
(Vol.  III.  note  373.)  But  Aristoxenus,  a  scholar  IX.  4. 

of  Aristotle,  and  therefore  removed  from  the  8U  Appian,  Samnit.  Fragm.  IV.  §  5 

time  of  Archytas  only  by  one  generation,  in  his  40  Tnucydides,  IV.  15,  16. 


294  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXi 

or  near  relations  of  the  most  influential  members  of  the  senate,  would  be  so  fat 
regarded  by  their  fathers,  as  to  tempt  them  for  their  sakes  to  impair  the  majesty 
of  Rome  ?  But  those  fathers  were  the  countrymen  and  contemporaries  of  T. 
Manlius,  who  had  ordered  his  son  to  be  put  to  death,  even  when  victorious, 
rather  than  allow  of  any  example  which  might  be  injurious  to  military  discipline  ; 
how,  then,  could  the  lives  of  sons  who  had  degraded  themselves  by  becoming 
prisoners  to  the  Samnites  be  purchased  at  the  price  of  national  humiliation  ?  Or 
was  Pontius  really  guilty  of  no  such  imprudence  ;  and  was  it  his  only  fault  that 
he  relied  on  the  solemn  faith  of  a  people  whose  care  was  not  to  observe  their 
treaties  honestly,  but  to  devise  some  pretext  by  which,  whilst  they  broke  the 
spirit,  they  might  still  save  the  letter  ?  It  is  expressly  mentioned41  that  not  onty 
the  officers  of  the  army,  but  two  of  the  tribunes  of  the  commons,  gave  their  sanc- 
tion to  the  treaty  ;  and  it  seems  certain  that  they  gave  it  as  tribunes,  and  that 
they  were  not  merely  elected  tribunes  after  the  surrender,  having  been  at  the 
time  no  more  than  tribunes  of  the  soldiers.  But  if  two  tribunes  of  the  commons, 
as  such,  signed  the  treaty,  how  came  they  to  do  so,  or  how  was  it  that  during 
the  term  of  their  sacred  office  they  were  abroad  with  the  army,  and  not  within 
the  walls  of  Rome  ?  Were  they  sent  to  the  camp  for  the  very  purpose  of 
deceiving  the  Samnite  general,  by  accepting  the  treaty,  and  assuring  him  that  it 
would  be  ratified  ;  and  did  he,  knowing  their  sacred  character,  and  that  they 
were  the  leaders  and  representatives  of  the  Roman  commons,  rely  too  confidently 
on  their  word,  without  requiring  that  formal  authority  for  it,  which  alone,  accord- 
ing to  the  casuistry  of  the  Romans,  could  make  the  nation  responsible  ? 

When  the  consuls,  quaestors,  tribunes  of  the  soldiers,  and  the  two  tribunes  of 
the  commons,  had  taken  the  oaths,  the  first  fulfilment  of  the 


treaty  immediately  followed.     The  Romans  gave  up  their  arms, 

out  under  tk«  yske.  ,    J  ,       ,  /        -      ,      .  .  .  ^  .   . 

and  marched  out  or  their  camp  wearing  or  carrying  with  them 
nothing  but  one  single  article  of  clothing,42  the  campestre  or  kilt,  reaching  from 
the  waist  to  the  knees,  and  leaving  the  upper  part  of  the  body  naked,  now  that 
the  soldiers  had  been  obliged  to  give  up  their  coats  of  mail.  Even  the  consuls 
were  obliged  to  appear  in  this  humble  plight,  for  their  war  cloaks,  paludamenta, 
were  taken  from  them,  and  their  lictors  ordered  to  leave  them  the  instant  they 
came  out  of  the  camp.  The  six  hundred  knights  were  then  delivered  up  to  the 
Samnites,  and  the  rest  of  the  Roman  army,  stripped  of  their  arms  and  baggage, 
passed  in  order  through  an  opening  purposely  made  for  them  in  the  Samnite 
lines  of  blockade.43  Two  spears  were  set  upright  in  this  opening,  and  a  third  was 
fastened  across  them  at  the  top  ;  and  through  this  gateway  the  vanquished  army 
marched  out,  as  a  token  that  they  had  been  conquered  in  war,  and  owed  their 
lives  to  the  enemy's  mercy.  It  was  no  peculiar  insult  devised  for  this  occasion, 
but  a  common  usage,  so  far  as  appears,  in  all  similar  cases  j44  like  the  modern  cere- 

41  Cicero,  de  Officiis,  III.  30,  §  109.     Cicero's  observed  that  this  condition  of  allowing  each 

words  are,  "  Eodemque  tempore,  Ti.  Numicius,  soldier  to  march  out  with  a  single  article  o.l 

Q.  Mselius,  qui  turn  tribuni  plebis  erant,  quod  clothing  was  granted  by  the  Athenian  com- 

eorum  auctoritate  pax  erat  facta,  dediti  sunt,  ut  manders  to  the  Potidseans,  when  Potidsca  was 

pax  Samnitium  repudiaretur."  The  expression,  taken  in  the  second  year  of  the  Peloponnesian 

"  quod  eorum  auctoritate  pax  erat  facta,"  shows,  war  ;  and  that  the  Athenian  government  corn- 

I  think,  that  they  were  tribunes  of  the  com-  plained  of  the  treaty  as  too  favorable  to  the  van- 

mons  when  they  signed  the  treaty,  and  that  the  quished.  —  See  Thucydides,  II.  70. 


auctoritas"  here  spoken  of  was  the  sanction  43  'O  fiiv  n6vrios  napaXvaas  TI  rov 

of  their  sacred  office.     Livy  also  mentions  the  /mroy.      Appian,   Frag.  IV.  §6.      Aj 

fact,  that  two  men  who  were  tribunes  of  the  "across  or  dividing  wall,"  because  the  Samnite 

commons  in  that  year  were  amongst  those  who  blockade  would  be  effected  merely  by  carrying 

Bigned  the  treaty,  IX.  8.  two  lines  across  the  valley,  one  above  the  Ko- 

42  'Eieaarov  IpGiv  aim  Iparlqi.  —  Appian.  Samnit.  man  camp  and  the  other  below  it.    The  nature 

Fr.  IV.  §  5,  "cum   singulis   vestimentis    in-  of  the  ground  rendered  a  circumvallation,  or 

ermes."    Livy,  IX.  5.    In  this  state  Livy  calls  ntpiTtixtvua,  unnecessary. 

them  "  seminudi,"  IX.  6,  because  all  the  upper  M  This  is  shown  by  the  story  of  Cincinnatus, 

part  of  their  bodies  was  naked  :  Dion  Cassius  which  represents  the  ./Equians  as  made  to  pass 

less  correctly  calls  them  yu/ij/ou's  —  'ExAevov  avrovs  under  the  yoke  by  Cincinnatus  under  similar 

«ij  rb  aitro  fyybv  yu^vouj  ei<rr.  \Qelv  ovnep  iXtrjOivrts  circumstances.     And  Dionysius  expressly  calls 

i<pc(9rjaav.     Frag.  Mai.   XXXVII.    It  may  be  it  a  liornan  custom  to  make  an  enemy  who  had 


CHAP.  XXXI.]          THEY  RESOLVE  TO  BREAK  THE  TREATY.  2P5 

mony  of  piling  arras  when  a  garrison  or  army  surrender  themselves  as  prisoners 
of  war.  So  far,  indeed,  was  Pontius  from  behaving  with  any  unusual  insolence, 
that  he  ordered  carnages  to  be  provided  for  the  sick  and  wounded  of  the  Roman 
army ;  and  furnished45  them  with  provisions  sufficient  to  support  them  till  they 
should  reach  Rome. 

In  far  different  plight,  and  with  far  other  feelings  than  they  had  entered  the 
pass  of  Caudium,  did  the  Roman  army  issue  out  from  it  again  T^  ^^  ^  Ca  u 
upon  the  plain  of  Campania.  Defeated  and  disarmed,  they  knew  Bnd*wrthen£  retu£ 
not  what  reception  they  might  meet  with  from  their  Campanian 
allies ;  it  was  possible  that  Capua  might  shut  her  gates  against  them,  and  go 
over  to  the  victorious  enemy.  But  the  Campanians  behaved  faithfully  and  gen- 
erously ;46  they  sent  supplies  of  arms,  of  clothing,  and  of  provisions  to  meet  the 
Romans  even  before  they  arrived  at  Capua  ;  they  sent  new  cloaks,  and  the  lictors 
and  fasces  of  their  own  magistrates,  to  enable  the  consuls  to  resume  their  fitting 
state ;  and  when  the  army  approached  their  city  the  senate  and  people  went  out 
to  meet  them,  and  welcomed  them  both  individually  and  publicly  with  the  great- 
est kindness.  No  attentions,  however,  could  soothe  the  wounded  pride  of  the 
Romans  :  they  could  not  bear  to  raise  their  eyes  from  the  ground,  nor  to  speak 
to  any  one ;  full  of  shame,  they  continued  their  march  to  Rome :  when  they  came 
near  to  it,  all  those  soldiers  who  had  a  home  in  the  country47  dispersed  and  es- 
caped to  their  several  houses,  singly  and  silently  ;  whilst  those  who  lived  in 
Rome  lingered  without  the  walls  till  the  sun  was  set,  and  stole  to  their  homes 
under  cover  of  the  darkness.  The  consuls  were  obliged  to  enter  the  city  pub- 
licly and  in  the  light  of  day,  but  they  looked  upon  themselves  as  no  longer 
worthy  to  be  the  chief  magistrates  of  Rome,  and  they  shut  themselves  up  at 
home  in  privacy. 

Nor  was  the  blow  less  deeply  felt  by  the  senate  and  by  the  whole  people. 
The  actual  loss  in  the  battle,  and  the  captivity  of  six  hundred  of  o™*  MdjramuutioB 
the  flower  of  the  youth  of  Rome,  were  enough  of  themselves  to  pie. e " 
throw  the  nation  into  mourning ;  how  much  more  grievous  were  they  when  ac- 
companied by  such  utter  defeat  and  humiliation  I48  All  business  was  suspended ; 
all  orders  put  on  mourning ;  the  knights  and  senators  laid  aside  their  gold  rings, 
and  took  off  the  well-known  red  border  of  their  dress  which  marked  their  rank : 
in  every  house  there  was  weeping  and  wailing  for  those  who  had  returned  homo 
dishonored,  no  less  than  for  those  who  were  dead  or  captive :  and  all  ceremonies  of 
rejoicing,  all  festivals,  and  all  private  marriages,  were  suspended,  till  they  could 
be  celebrated  in  a  year  of  better  omen.  A  dictator49  was  named  to  hold  the 
comitia  for  the  election  of  new  consuls  ;  but  the  augurs  declared  that  the  appoint- 
ment was  null  and  void ;  another  dictator  was  then  chosen,  but  the  same  objec- 
tion was  repeated ;  till  at  last,  as  if  the  gods  abhorred  every  magistrate  of  this 
fatal  yeai,  the  elections  were  held  by  an  interrex.  This  interrex  was  M.  Valerius 
Corvinus,  and  the  consuls  chosen50  were  two  of  the  most  eminent  citizens  in  the 
commonwealth,  Q.  Publilius  Philo,  the  author  of  the  Publilian  laws,  and  L. 
Papirius  Cursor,  who  had  so  sternly  upheld  military  discipline  in  his  late  dicta- 
torship. 

We  cannot  suppose  that  the  Samnites  would  have  allowed  their  victory  to  re- 
main lono-  unimproved,  without  assuring  themselves  whether  it 

,,         ,°  .      r     .,     .     7  _.  ...        .  Ttis  resolved  t»  break 

was  the  intention  of  the  Roman  government  to  ratify  the  treaty  or  the  treaty  and  ^>  gjv« 
no.  But  the  chronology  and  history  of  these  events  are  alike  so  giU%il'^ndenofflw« 
meager,  or  so  wilfully  falsified,  that  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  ascer- 

Burrendered  pass  under  the  yoke,  III.  22,  p.  4T  Appian,  Fragm.  IV,  §  7.     Livy,  IX.  7. 

469,  Reiske.     The  same  thing'is  implied  in  the  48  Appian  and  Livy,  ubi  supra, 

definition  of  the  terms   "jugum,"  and  "sub  49  Zonaras  says,  that  the  consuls  were  obliged 

jugum  mitti,"  in  Festus.  to  resign  their  office  immediately:    irapavrlxa 

*  Appian,  Fragm.  IV.  §  6.  lnawav,  VII.  26. 

46  Livy,  IX.  6.    Dion  Cassius,  Fragm.  Mai,  w  Livy,  IX.  7. 
XXXVI. 


290  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXI 

tain  either  the  dates  or  the  real  character  of  the  transactions  which  followed.  As 
soon  as  the  new  consuls  came  into  office,  the  question  of  the  ratification  of  the 
treaty51  was  brought  before  the  senate.  Sp.  Postumius,  one  of  the  consuls  of 
the  last  year,  being  called  upon  to  deliver  his  opinion,  declared  at  once  that  the 
treaty  ought  not  to  be  accepted,  but  that  himself  and  his  late  colleague,  T. 
Veturius,  with  every  officer  who  had  taken  the  oaths  to  the  Samnites,  should  be 
given  up  to  them,  as  having  promised  what  they  were  unable  to  perform.  The 
senate  embraced  his  proposal  ;  and  to  many  of  the  senators  it  involved  a  personal 
sacrifice  scarcely  less  than  that  which  he  was  making  himself,  inasmuch  as  they 
were  exposing  their  sons,  who  were  amongst  the  six  hundred  hostages,  to  the 
vengeance  of  the  enemy.  But  the  Romans  were  as  regardless  of  their  own  indi- 
vidual feelings  as  of  the  laws  of  justice  and  good  faith,  when  either  was  set  in 
the  balance  against  national  pride  and  ambition.  The  consuls  and  all  the  other 
officers  who  had  sworn  with  them  to  the  Samnites,  were  committed  to  the  charge 
of  the  feciales,  and  were  by  them  conducted  into  Samnium.  They  were  then 
half  stripped,  as  when  they  passed  under  the  yoke,  their  hands  were  bound  be- 
hind their  backs,  and  the  feciales  solemnly  delivered  them  over  to  the  Samnites 
as  men  whose  persons  were  justly  forfeited  to  them  in  atonement  for  their 
breach  of  faith.  No  sooner  was  this  surrender  completed,  than  Sp.  Postumius 
struck  the  Roman  fecialis52  violently  with  his  knee,  his  hands  and  feet  being  fet- 
tered ;  and  cried  out,  "  I  now  belong  to  the  Samnites,  and  I  have  done  violence 
to  the  sacred  person  of  a  Roman  fecialis  and  ambassador.  Ye  will  rightfully 
wage  war  with  us,  Romans,  to  avenge  this  outrage."  It  is  hard  to  say  whether 
this  trickery,  at  once  so  base  and  so  foolish,  should  be  ascribed  to  mere  hypocrisy 
or  to  fanaticism  ;  for  the  fanatic  is  as  prone  to  falsehood  as  to  cruelty,  and  justi- 
fies to  himself  the  one  no  less  than  the  other,  by  holding  that  the  end  sanctifies 
the  means. 

Yet  it  is  a  fanaticism,  less  wicked,  indeed,  but  even  more  extraordinary,  when  a 
refuges  to  ac-  man  like  Livy  can  describe  such  a  scene,  and  can  represent,  as  he 
jjas  done)  the  conduct  of  Pontius  in  such  strong  contrast  with  that 
of  the  Romans,  without  appearing  to  feel  any  admiration  of  the  one  or  any  shame 
for  the  other.  Pontius  refused  the  offered  victims  :  "  They  were  not  the  guilty 
persons,"53  he  said,  "  nor  would  he,  by  transferring  the  punishment  to  them, 
acquit  their  country.  The  Roman  government  had  reaped  all  the  advantages  of 
the  treaty  of  Caudium,  but  refused  to  fulfil  its  conditions.  Either  the  legions 
should  be  replaced  in  their  desperate  position,  from  which  nothing  but  that  treaty 
could  have  delivered  them,  or  the  stipulated  price  of  their  deliverance  should  be 

M  Livy,  IX.  8.  slaves  had  plundered  the  Roman  territory,  the 

M  Livy,    IX.   10.      Niebuhr    supposes    that  Romans  would  have  called  upon  the  Samnites 

there  must  have  existed  between  Rome  and  to  give  them  satisfaction  for  the  wrong  ;  and  in 

Samnium  at  this  period  a  relation  of  isopolity  ;  this  sense  a  Samnite  slave  had  now  insulted  a 

that  is,  that  tf  >  citizens  of  either  country,  on  Roman  fecialis,  and  Rome  had  thus  received  a 

losing  or  relinquishing  their  own  franchise,  wrong,  for  which  she  might  either  demand  sat- 

might  take  up  at  pleasure  that  of  the  other;  isfaction,  or  seek  it  herself  by  arms.    The  latter 

and   that  in  this  sense  Sp.  Postumius,  when  course  might  lawfully  be  taken,  unless  there 

given  up  by  the  Ron-nns,  and  so  having  ceased  was  a  special  treaty  by  which  the  contracting 

to  be  a  Roman  citizeu,  immediately  took  up  his  parties  had  bound  themselves  to  appeal  to  ne- 

franchise  as  a  citizen  of  Samnium.    But  this  gotiation  in  case  of  any  dispute  between  them, 

supposition  appears  to  me  unnecessary  and  im-  before  they  had  recourse  to  arms.   And  accord- 

probable.    Sp.  Postumius  could  have  no  choice  ingly  we  find  such  a  clause  in  the  truce  con- 

of  becoming  a  citizen  of  Samnium,  for  he  was  eluded  between  Athens  and  Lacedajmon,  in  the 

given  up  by  the  Samnites,  deditus,  and  there-  ninth  year  of  the  Peloppnnesian  war,  Thucyd. 

fore  haa  no  rights  whatever  in  relation  to  them,  IV.  118,  where  the  parties  mutually  ei  ffage  r<j 

]5u 


but  became  their  absolute  property.     See  the  apQiXoya  tilicri   <5«aXvt«v  avcv  iro\ipov.      ]5ut  the 

language  held  with  respect  to  the  Campanians  Spartans  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  had  chosen 

when  they  surrendered  themselves  to  Rome,  to  follow  a  different  course,  and  to  seek  redress 

according  to  the  Roman  story,  to  obtain  protec-  for  their  alleged  grievances  by  a  direct  appeal 

tion  against  the  Samnites.    Livy,  VII.  31.    The  to  arms,  without  any  negotiation.  —  See  Thu- 

meaning  of  Postumius'  action  and  words  was  cyd.  I.  86. 

this  :   that  he  now  belonged  to  the  Samnites,  "  Dion  Cassius,  Fragm.  Mai,  XXXVII.  Liry, 

and  that  they  were  responsible  for  his  actions,  IX.  11. 
IB  for  those  of  their  slaves.    If  the  Samnite 


Cn; 
pai 


HAP.  XX  KL]  L.  PAPIRIUS  CURSOR.  297 


rJd.  The  gods  would  not  be  mocked  with  the  trickery  of  a  childish  supersti- 
tion, which  endeavored  to  abuse  their  holy  names  for  the  support  of  perfidy  and 
injustice."  So  Sp.  Postumius  and  his  companions  were  given  back  to  the  Roman 
feciales,  and  returned  unhurt  to  their  own  army. 

Such  is  the  account  which  the  Roman  annalists  have  given  of  the  famous  de- 
feat and  treaty  of  the  pass  of  Caudium.  It  differs  in  many  respects,  Exaggerated  .*>*»  of 
probably,  from  the  truth  ;  yet  it  is  accurate  and  trustworthy  when  L-  Pfti'irius  Cu"or 
compared  with  the  stories  of  the  transactions  which  followed.  L.  Papirius  Cursor 
was  one  of  the  favorite  heroes  of  Roman  tradition;  his  remarkable  swiftness  of 
foot,  his  gigantic  strength,  his  enormous  capacities  for  food,  and  the  iron  strict- 
ness of  his  ^discipline,  accompanied  as  it  was  by  occasional  touches  of  rough  hu- 
mor,54 all  contributed  to  make  his  memory  popular,  somewhat  in  the  same  way 
as  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion  has  been,  admired  amongst  us  ;  and  his  countrymen 
boasted  that  he  would  have  been  a  worthy  champion  to  have  fought  against 
Alexander  the  Great,  if  Alexander  had  ever  invaded  Italy.  This  favorite  leader 
was  consul  in  the  year  immediately  following  the  affair  of  the  pass  of  Caudium ; 
so  great  a  warrior  must  have  signally  avenged  that  disgrace ;  and,  accordingly, 
he  was  made  to  realize  the  most  sanguine  wishes  of  the  national  vanity ;  he  re- 
took Luceria,55  the  fatal  town  which  had  tempted  the  consuls  of  the  last  year  to 
rush  blindly  into  the  defile  of  Caudium ;  and  in  it  he  recovered  all  the  arms  and 
all  the  standards  which  had  been  taken  from  the  Romans,  and,  above  all,  he 
there  found  the  six  hundred  Roman  knights  who  had  been  given  up  as  hostages, 
and  delivered  them  all  safe  and  sound.  Thus  every  stain  of  the  late  disaster  was 
wiped  away ;  but  the  pride  of  the  Samnites  must  also  be  humbled :  seven  thou- 
sand Samnite  soldiers  were  taken  into  Luceria,  and  were  sent  away  unhurt  after 
having  been  made  to  pass  half  naked  under  the  yoke,  and  C.  Pontius  himself,  by 
the  especial  favor  of  the  gods,  was  their  commander,  so  that  the  ignominy  which 
he  had  inflicted  on  the  Romans  was  now  worthily  returned  upon  his  own  head. 
No  wonder,  after  such  a  marvellous  victory,  L.  Papirius  should  have  entered 
Rome  in  triumph  ;  and  never,  since  M.  Camlllus  had  triumphed  over  the  Gauls, 
had  there  been  seen,  it  was  said,  so  glorious  a  spectacle.  The  two  triumphs, 
indeed,  may  well  be  compared  with  one  another ;  both  are  equally  glorious,  and 
both  also  are  either  wholly  or  in  part  the  inventions  of  national  vanity. 

The  Fasti  Capitolini  for  this  year  are,  unluckily,  only  partially  legible  ;  but  it 
is  remarkable  that  they  contain  the  names  of  three  dictators,  of  But  the  Romans  were 
only  one  of  whom  there  is  the  slightest  notice  in  Livy,  and  that  they  really  very  8ucceasful- 
place  the  triumph  of  L.  Papirius  not  in  this  year,  but  in  the  following,  when,  ac- 
cording to  them,  he  was  for  the  third  time  elected  consul.  One  of  the  three  dic- 
tators was  L.  Cornelius  Lentulus ;  and  as  the  Cornelian  house  was  very  numer- 

s  and  powerful,  there  were  not  wanting  writers  who  claimed  for  him  the  glory 

all  the  supposed  victories56  of  this  year,  which  others  had  given  to  L.  Papir- 
ius.    Victories  as  unreal  as  the  pretended  conquest  of  Luceria  might  well  be 
ribed  to  different  persons;  that  town  had  only  been  just  taken  by  the  Sam- 

tes,  and  it  is  impossible  to  believe  that  they  would  have  kept  their  most  pre- 
ious  trophies  and  the  whole  number  of  their  hostages  in  a  foreign  and  conquered 
city,  rather  than  in  the  cities  of  Samnium  itself.  Besides,  there  is  reason  to  doubt 
whether  Luceria  was  recovered  at  all  before  the  year  440,  at  which  time  Livy 
places  what,  according  to  him,  was  its  second  recapture,  as  it  had  just  before  re- 
volted to  the  enemy.  The  real  events  of  this  year  cannot  be  ascertained ;  but 
there  is  every  probability  that  the  Romans  were,  in  truth,  successful ;  that  they 
did  much  to  remove  the  feeling  of  discouragement  from  the  minds  of  their  own 


2 

cioi 


M  Sec  the  character  given  him  by  Livy ,  IX.  are  to  he  found  in  Dion  Cassias,  Fragm.  Mui, 

16,  and  the  anecdotes  related  there,  and  by  Dion  XXXVIII.,  in  Dionysius,  Fragni.  Vaticana. 

Cassias,  Fr.  Mai,  XXXIX.  XXXVI.,  and  in  Floras,  I.  16. 

66  Papirius'  campaign  is  given  at  length  by  M  Livy,  IX.  15. 

vy,  IX.   13-15.      Traces  of  the  same  story 


HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXX 

soldiers,  and  to  lower  the  confidence  of  the  Saranites.  It  appteirs  that  the  victor) 
of  the  pass  of  Caudium  had  not  been  a  solitary  advantage  to  the  enemy ;  for 
they  had  also  taken  Luceria  in  Apulia,  and  driven  the  Roman  colonists  out  of 
Fregellce,57  the  occupation  of  which  place  had  been  one  of  the  immediate  causes 
of  the  Avar.  The  people  of  Satricum58  also,  in  the  heart  of  Latium,  are  said  to 
have  revolted  to  the  Samnites ;  a  fact  which  is  thus  barely  noticed,  with  the  re- 
markable addition,  that  the  Satricans  took  an  active  part  in  the  recovery  of  Fre- 
gellae.  Thus  the  consuls,  Publilius  and  Papirius,  had  an  arduous  task  to  accom- 
plish ;  and  they  well  justified  the  confidence  of  their  countrymen,  who  had  se- 
lected them  above  all  other  citizens  to  retrieve  the  honor  and  the  fortune  of 
Rome. 

Fregellae,  on  the  upper  Liris,  and  Satricum,  in  the  heart  of  Latium,  the  one 
The  Roman  consuls  in  on  the  upper  road,  the  Via  Latina,  from  Rome  to  Capua,  the  other 
nearly  on  the  lower  road,  by  Anxur  and  Fundi,  were  now  fallen 
into  the  power  of  the  enemy ;  and  the  war  might,  at  any  moment,  by  the  revolt 
of  the  Hernicans,  or  of  a  greater  number  of  the  Latin  or  old  Volscian  cities,  be 
brought  under  the  very  walls  of  Rome.  Yet  the  Romans  resolved  at  once  to  fix 
the  seat  of  war  in  Apulia,  in  the  same  spirit  of  courage  and  wisdom  which  made 
them  send  troops  to  Spain,  even  when  Hannibal  was  in  the  heart  of  Italy.  Lu- 
ceria had  fallen,  and  unless  the  Romans  could  effectually  support  their  party  in 
Apulia,  that  whole  country  would  soon  be  lost  to  them  and  strengthen  the  power 
of  their  enemy.  Accordingly,  L.  Papirius  Cursor  marched59  into  Apulia  by  the 
longer  but  uninterrupted  route  through  the  country  of  the  Vestinians  and  along 
the  coast  of  the  Adriatic ;  while  Q.  Publilius  was  to  force  his  way  through  Sam- 
nium,  and  so  effect  a  junction  with  his  colleague.  If  the  main  force  of  the  Sam- 
nites was  employed  in  Apulia,  it  is  possible  that  a  Roman  consular  army,  con- 
sisting of  two  Roman  legions  and  an  equal  number  of  allied  troops,  might  have 
found  no  army  in  Samnium  strong  enough  to  obstruct  its  march  ;  and  it  would 
of  itself  avoid  engaging  in  the  siege  of  any  of  the  Samnite  cities.  But  the  account 
of  Publilius'  exploit  is  so  extravagant,  and  at  the  same  time  so  vague,60  that  we 
cannot  tell  by  what  line  he  reached  Apulia:  it  is  only  certain  that  both  consuls 
were  engaged  on  the  other  side  of  Italy  during  the  whole  campaign,  and  that, 
whether  they  retook  Luceria  or  not,  the  progress  of  revolt  in  Apulia  was  effect- 
ually checked. 

Meanwhile  the  neighborhood  of  Rome  could  not  be  left  defenceless  ;  and  the 
dictators  of  this  year  were,  probably,  appointed  to  provide  for  the 

Successive  dictatorship*  -  „.  r    ,  i  I  ,\  ff  -i          te*         •  r 

rtEonwf<*th« protec-  safety  of  the  capital,  and  to  prevent  the  example  of  oatncum  trom 

spreading  amongst  the  other  cities  of  Latium.     But  traces  of  the 

old  patrician  party  spirit  may  here  be  again  observed,  as  in  the  dictatorship  of 

M.  Marcellus  six  years  before.     Q.  Publilius  had  named  C.  Maenius61  as  dictator, 

67  Livy,  IX.  12.  eign  country,  which  was  at  that  very  time  the 

68  Livy,  IX.  12,  16.  seat  of  active  warfare :  to  say  nothing  of  the  ab- 

69  Livy,  IX.  14.     "Locis  maritimis  pervene-  surdity  of  an  army  accomplishing  a  march  of 
rat  Arpos."  such  a  distance  in  a  disorderly  and  scattered 

60  The  account  is  vague,  for  it  names  no  scene  flight.     "  Apuliam  dissipati  £>ettiere.'] 

of  action  more  definite  than  Samnium.     "Pub-  Gi  Only  fragments  of  the  Fasti  Capitolini  are 

lilius  in  Samnio  substitit  adversus  Canclinas  le-  here  legible,  so  that  the  names  of  the  three  dic- 

K'ones."    Livy,  IX.  12.     "Adversus  Caudinas  tators  of  this  year,  and  of  their  masters  of  the 

giones"  is  also  a  vague  expression,  for  it  may  horse,  are  mutilated,  and  stand  thus : 

signify  either  the  troops  that  had  lately  been  C.  MA  .  .  . 

engaged  at  Caudium  under  C.  Pontius,  or  the  M.  Fos  .  .  . 

forces  of  the  city  of  Caudium,  or  of  the  whole  L.  CORN  .  .  . 

tribe  or  district  of  the  Caudinians,  one  of  the  L.  PAPIRIU  .  . 

great  divisions  of  the  Samnite  nation.    And  it  T.  MANLI  .  .  . 

is  extravagant,  because  it  represents  the  Sam-  L.  PAPIRIU  .  .  . 

nites  as  flying  from  the  field  of  battle  in  Sam-  That  the  first  dictator  and  master  of  the  horse 

niura  directly  into  Apulia,  when  they  were  in  were  C.  Msenius,  spelt  Mainius  in  the  Fasti, 

euch  a  state  of  total  rout  that  they  did  not  ven-  and  M.  Foslius,  admits  of  no  doubt,  as  the  Fasti, 

ture  to  defend  their  own  camp.     Had  this  been  in  noticing  the  dictatorship  of  C.  Maenius  six 

the  case,  they  would  rather  have  fled  for  shel-  years  later,  call  him  then  dictator  for  the  second 

ter  to  their  own  cities,  than  have  gone  to  a  for-  time.    [II.  DICT.]   The  second  dictator  is  clearlj 


CHAP.  XXXI J  TRUCE  FOR  TWO  YEARS.  299 

a  man  of  a  plebeian  family  like  himself,  and  who,  together  with  himself,  was  made 
the  subject  of  a  more  violent  attack  from  the  patricians  in  his  second  dictator- 
ship six  years  afterwards.  The  augurs,  no  doubt,  declared  his  appointment  to 
have  been  invalid,  as  they  had  done  in  the  case  of  Marcellus ;  and,  accordingly, 
he  resigned,  and  a  patrician  was  appointed  to  succeed  him,  P.  Cornelius  Len- 
tulus. Thus  far  the  accounts  are  intelligible ;  but  why  Lentulus  also  should 
have  resigned,  and  the  consuls  have  been  required  to  make  a  third  choice,  it  is 
not  so  easy  to  discover.  This  third  dictator  was  T.  Manlius,  apparently  the  same 
Manlius  who  eighteen  years  before  had  gained  the  great  victory  over  the  Latins 
by  Mount  Vesuvius ;  .and  it  is  probable  that  by  him  were  held  the  comitia  for 
the  following  year,  at  which  L.  Papirius  Cursor  was  again  elected  consul,  togeth- 
er with  Q.  Aulius  Cerpetanus.  It  may  be  that  the  patrician  party  were  anxious 
to  secure  the  re-election  of  Papirius ;  and  that  P.  Lentulus  had  been  opposed  to 
it.  Manlius,  on  the  contrary,  so  much  resembled  Papirius  in  the  sterner  points 
of  his  character,  that  he  was  likely  to  agree  with  those  who  thought  his  re-elec- 
tion desirable. 

Papirius,  in  his  military  conduct,  justified  the  confidence  of  his  countrymen. 
He  recovered  Satricum,6*  while  his  colleague  carried  on  the  war 

.  ..  m,  *      -.  i.        e    Recovery  of  Sfttricum. 

with  continued  success  in  Apulia.     The  authors  of  the  revolt  of 
Satricum  were  executed  ;  the  people  were  disarmed,  and  the  town  secured  by  a 
strong  garrison.     Thus  again  the  sparks  of  a  Latin  insurrection,  the  greatest  of 
all  dangers,  were  put  out  before  they  could  burst  into  a  flame. 

In  the  next  year  the  Samnites63  are  said  to  have  concluded  a  truce  with  the 
Romans  for  two  years ;  but  it  may  be  that  this  truce  only  re-  T^  {^      ^^ 
strained  the  two  parties  from  directly  invading  each  other's  terri- 
tories, while  it  left  them  at  liberty  to  support  their  respective  allies  in  Apulia. 
At  any  rate,  the  war  continued  in  that  country  without  intermission,  but  with  uni- 
form success  on  the  side  of  the  Romans.     Teanum,  Canusium,  and  Forentum,64 
submitted  to  Rome,  and'  became  her  dependent  allies ;  and  Apulia  was  so  far  re- 
duced that  the  consuls,  towards  the  end  of  the  second  year  of  the  truce,  437-8, 
proceeded  to  carry  the  war  into  Lucania,  and  took  a  place  called  Nerulum.65   But 
no  further  progress  was  made  in  that  quarter. 

During  these  two  years  of  truce  the  Romans  were  engaged  in  consolidating 
their  power  in  their  own  immediate  neighborhood.  The  censors,  TWO  new  Roman  tribe* 
L.  Papirius  Crassus  and  C.  Msenius,  created  two  new  tribes66  in  creftted' 
the  years  436-7,  the  Ufentine  and  the  Falerian,  and  enrolled  in  some  of  the  old 
tribes  an  accession  of  citizens.  The  Rf  man  settlers  in  Campania,  who  had  re- 
ceived grants  of  land  there  after  the  Lk*in  war,  were  put  under  the  government 
of  a  praefect,  who  was  yearly  sent  to  Capua  to  administer  justice  amongst  them 
and  amongst  the  Roman  citizens  residing  in  Capua  itself,  according  to  the  Roman 
law  ;67  and  a  new  constitution  was  given  to  the  colony  of  Antium,  probably  im- 

L.  Cornelius  Lentulus,  who  is  mentioned  by  therefore,  that  the  second  L.  Papirius,  who  was 

Livy,  and  the  third  is  as  certainly  T.  Manlius  ;  master  of  the  horse  in  this  year,  must  have  been 

but  the  two  L.  Papirii,  who  are  named  succes-  L.  Papirius  Mugillanus ;  the  same  man  whom 

siyely  as  masters  of  the  horse,  are  very  uncer-  some  annals,  according  to  Livy,  made  consul 

tain.    Sigonius  makes  the  latter  of  them  to  have  instead  of  L.  Papirius  Cursor  in  the  year  fol- 

been  L.  Papirius  Crassus,  who  was  censor  two  lowing. 

years  afterwards,  and  the  former,  he  thinks,  was  w  Livy,  IX.  16. 

L.  Papirius  Cursor,  the  son  of  the  consul,  who  3  Livy,  IX.  20. 

was  himself  afterwards  so  distinguished  in  the  M  Livy,  IX.  20. 

third  Samnite  war.    But  the  annals  which  Livy  »  Livy,  IX.  20.    If  this  place  was  the  Neru- 

notices  as  having  made  L.  Papirius  Cursor  mas-  lum  of  the  Itineraries,  the  consuls  must  have 

ter  of  the  horse  to  L.  Cornelius,  meant,  un-  penetrated  deeply  into  Lucania ;  for  the  Neru- 

doubtedly,  L.  Papirius  the  father,  and  not  the  lum  of  the  Itineraries  lay  far  to  the  south,  nearly 

son.    This,  however,  could  not  have  been  the  between  the  Greek  cities  of  Laos  on  one  sea, 

meaning  of  the  Fasti  Capitolini;  for  it  is  plain  and  Sybaris  on  the  other. 

that  they  made  L.  Papirius  consul  in  this  year,  M  L'ivy,  IX.  20.    Diodorus,  XIX.  10. 

although  the  names  of  the  consuls  do  not  exist  CT  Livy,  IX.  20,  and  compare  Niebuhr,  Vol, 

on  our'  present  fragments,  inasmuch  as  in  the  III.  339. 

next  year  they  call  him  "  Coa  •  III." — I  imagine, 


300  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXI 

proving  the  condition  of  the  old  Volscian  population.  The  importance  of  Antiura 
as  a  naval  station  made  it  desirable  to  leave  there  no  seeds  of  disaffection  ;  the 
more  so,  if  the  Tarentines,  as  is  not  improbable,  furnished  the  Samnites  with 
some  naval  assistance  at  this  period,  and  made  occasional  descents  on  the  coast 
of  Latium. 

Whether  there  had  been  any  interference  of  the  Romans  in  the  domestic  affairs 
nettled  Btete  of  men'.  °f  the  Campanian  cities  which  excited  jealousy;  or  whether  the 
minds  m  Campania.  increasing  success  of  EomQ  in  the  war  of  Samnium  created  a  gen- 
eral alarm  amongst  her  allies,  lest  they  should  be  left  without  any  power  capable 
of  checking  her  absolute  ascendency,  we  find  at  any  rate  that  about  this  time  there 
was  a  general  restlessness  amongst  the  Campanians,  and  that  the  Samnites  were  en- 
couraged to  adopt  the  wiser  policy  of  carrying  the  war  into  the  territory  of  their 
enemies'  allies,  rather  than  abide  the  storm  passively  at  home.  The  Falerian 
tribe,  which  had  been  recently  created  at  Rome,  included  that  part  of  Campania 
known  by  the  name  of  the  Falerian  territory ;  the  Roman  settlers  there  would 
certainly  be  enrolled  in  it,  while  it  did  not  comprise  the  inhabitants  of  Gales, 
Fundi,  or  Formiae.  Privileges  granted  to  some  are  a  source  of  discontent  if  de- 
nied to  others ;  and  the  creation  of  a  Roman  tribe  so  near  to  them,  into  which 
they  were  not  admitted,  might  make  the  Campanian  towns  more  impatient  of 
their  relation  of  mere  alliance.  Thus  Nuceria68  had  revolted  in  the  preceding 
year,  and  other  towns  were  ready,  on  the  first  opportunity,  to  follow  its  example. 

But  here  again  the  chronology  and  history  are  both  involved  in  inextricable 
confusion.  Livy's  account  is  so  imperfect  and  so  unreasonable 
per  that  it  is  clearly  impossible  to  rely  on  it ;  that  of  Diodorus  is  far 
more  sensible,  yet  it  also  has  omissions  which  it  is  difficult  to  sup- 
ply. As  soon  as  the  truce  was  over,  the  Samnites  resolved  to  act  on  the  offen- 
sive, and  turned  their  attention  to  the  valley  of  the  Liris,  where,  as  we  have  seen, 
they  had  recovered  and  still  held  Fregellse.  They  attacked  and  stormed  the 
town  of  Plistia,69  an  unknown  place,  but  apparently  situated  somewhere  in  that 
neighborhood ;  they  then  prevailed  on  the  Volscian  population  of  Sora  to  mas- 
sacre the  Roman  colonists  who  held  their  town,  and  to  join  the  Samnite  confed- 
eracy. It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  while  these  events  were  taking  place,  the 
Roman  consuls  were  sitting  idle  at  Rome  ;  it  is  much  more  likely  that  one  con- 
sular army  was,  as  usual,  in  Apulia,  and  the  other  either  watching  the  Samnites 
in  the  valley  of  the  Liris,  or  invading  Samnium  from  the  side  of  Campania.  But 
when  the  news  arrived  of  the  fall  of  Plistia  and  the  revolt  of  Sora,  it  was  judged 
necessary  to  appoint  a  dictator ;  and  L.  ^Emilius,"10  who  was  the  dictator  fixed 
upon,  immediately  began  to  act  on  the  offensive,  and  laid  siege  to  Saticula. 
Whether  this  town  belonged  to  the  Samnites,  or  was  only  in  alliance  with  them, 
and  was  still  possessed  by  the  old  Opican  population  of  Campania,  is  not  easy  to 
determine.  The  Samnites  made  a  desperate  effort  to  relieve  the  place,  but  they 
were  defeated  by  the  besieging  army  with  considerable  loss,  and  Saticula  was 
obliged  to  surrender.71 

88  Diodorus,  XIX.  65.     Compare  Livy,  IX.  stating,  that  in  the  following  year,  which,  ac- 

88,  41.  cording  to  the  Fasti,  was  the  year  of  Eome  438. 

69  Diodorus,  XIX.  72.  or  439,  according  to  the  common  reckoning,  and 

70  Fasti  Capitolini,  and  Livy,  IX.  21.    But  434  according  to  Niebuhr,  L.  Papirius  Cursor 
Livy  makes  the  appointment  of"  L.  ^milius  pre-  and  Q.  Publilius  Philo  were  again  elected  con- 
cede the  fall  of  Plistia  and  the  revolt  of  Sora.  suls  together;  and  Diodorus  places  the  battle 
I  have  followed  the  order  of  Diodorus,  who,  of  Lautulas  expressly  in  their  consulship.    Nie- 
without  naming  JSmilius,  places  the  siege  of  buhr's  latest  criticism  (Vol.  II.  p.  627,  2d  edit.) 
Saticula,  which  he  conducted,  after  the  other  seems  to  have  rejected  this  consulship  as  an 
two  events.  interpolation ;  and  it  is  remarkable  that  Livy, 

Saticula  stood  within  the  first  line  of  hills  although  he  certainly  makes  a  year  intervene 

which  rise  immediately  from  the  plain  of  Na-  between  the  consulship  of  Sp.  Nantius  and  M. 

pies,  in  a  small  valley  which  divides  these  first  Popilius,  and  that  of  M.  Poetelius  and  C.  Sul- 

nills  from  the  higher  and  bolder  mountains  of  picius,  does  not  give  the  consuls'  names.  He 

Taburnus.  says,  moreover,  that  they,  like  the  consuls  of 

"  The  Fasti  CapitolLru  and  Diodorus  agree  in  the  preceding  year,  stayed  at  Eome  and  did 


CHAP.  XXXI.]  REVOLT  OF  CAPUA,  ETC.  30 

After  the  fall  of  Saticula  the  consuls  of  the  new  year,  if  these  events  really 
belong  to  two  distinct  years,  proceeded  on  the  one  hand  to  in-  Thoy  defca,  the  Ro. 
vade  Samnium  on  the  side  of  Saticula,  and  on  the  other  to  miinsatLautulae- 
march  as  usual  into  Apulia.  The  army  which  invaded  Samnium  overran  the 
country  in  the  neighborhod  of  Saticula,  and  then  either  forced  its  way  into 
Apulia,  or  turned  aside  to  the  left  up  the  valley  of  the  Vulturnus,  and  from 
thence  crossed  over  by  the  line  of  the  Latin  road  to  the  valley  of  the  Liris,  and 
advanced  upon  Sora,  in  the  hope  of  punishing  it  for  its  revolt.  A  movement  was 
made,  at  any  rate,  which  left  Campania  open ;  and  the  Samnites,  seizing  the  op=~ 
portunity,  called  out,  it  is  said,72  their  whole  population  within  the  military  age, 
and  without  withdrawing  their  armies  from  Apulia  and  Sora,  they  burst  down 
into  Campania  with  this  third  army,  which,  though  hastily  raised,  was  strong  in 
its  numbers  and  in  its  determined  courage.  All  Campania  was  at  once  in  a  fer- 
ment, and  the  Romans  were  obliged  to  name  Q.  Fabius  Maximus  dictator,  and 
to  send  him  out  with  all  speed  with  such  a  force  as  could  be  found  or  raised  in 
and  near  Rome,  in  order  to  check  the  spirit  of  revolt.  Fabius  advanced  beyond 
Anxur,  and  occupied  the  pass  of  Lautulse  between  Anxur  and  Fundi,  already 
noticed  as  a  post  of  importance  on  the  coast  road  from  Rome  to  Campania.  Here 
the  Samnites  attacked  him,  and  notwithstanding  his  high  military  reputation, 
they  defeated  him  with  great  slaughter.  Q.  Aulius  Cerretanus,  the  master  of 
the  horse,  sacrificed  his  life  nobly  in  covering  the  retreat,  but  the  Samnites 
remained  masters  of  the  country,  and  it  is  stated  in  general  terms  that  every 
place  in  the  neighborhood  revolted  to  them,73  and  that  all  through  Campania,74 
and  even  at  Capua  itself,  the  party  opposed  to  the  Roman  alliance  began  to  ob- 
tain the  ascendency. 

How  the  consuls  effected  their  retreat  from  Apulia  and  from  Samnium  we 
know  not,  nor  how  far  the  Samnites  either  improved  or  neglected  consequences  of  th« 
their  present  opportunity.  The  Roman  citizens  of  the  new  Fale-  defefttl 
rian  tribe  must  have  been  exposed  to  the  greatest  dangers ;  for  the  open  coun- 
try of  Campania  was  now  in  the  power  of  the  enemy,  and  as  the  Roman  settlers 
had  no  strong  towns  of  their  own,  they  must  have  either  taken  shelter  in  the 
several  cities  of  their  allies,  or  have  made  their  escape  within  the  pass  of  Tarra- 
cina  into  the  old  Volscian  country,  now  the  Ufentine  tribe,  or  even  to  Rome 
itself.  But  within  the  limits  of  the  Campagna  we  hear  of  no  disposition  to 
revolt ;  there  the  timely  gift  of  the  full  Roman  franchise  had  converted  Volscians 
and  Latins  into  Romans,  and  neither  Privernum  nor  Tusculum  gave  any  cause  for 
suspicion  in  this  emergency.  The  new  consuls  were  C.  Sulpicius  Longus  and 
M.  Poetelius  Libo ;  the  latter  had  not  till  now  commanded  an  army ;  the  former 
had  indeed  been  already  twice  consul,  and  must  now  have  been  advanced  in 
years ;  but  we  do  not  know  that  he  had  acquired  any  remarkable  distinction. 

The  principal  seat  of  the  war  in  the  next  campaign  appears  to  have  been  the 
country  between  Tarracina  and  the  Samnite  frontier :  and  both  of 

,,  J       ,  i  j     •       ji   •  mi      •       -i  Barttlt   of  Cnpua   and 

the  consuls  were  employed  in  this  quarter.     Their  business  was  the  other  towns  of  cam- 
to  watch  the  Samnites,  and  to  protect  the  allies  of  Rome,  but  P* 
they  did  not  for  some  time  venture  to  encounter  the  enemy  in  the  field.    In  spite 
ot  all  their  endeavors,  however,  Suessa  Aurunca  and  Calatia75  either  revolted  or 

nothing,  which  in  a  time  of  such  danger  as  this  second  battle  after  the  defeat  at  Lautulae. — 

year  must  have  been,  even  according  to  his  own  IX.  23. 
account,  is  an  absolute  impossibility.    Diodo-        7*  Livy,  IX.  25,  26. 

rus  places  the  revolt  of  Sora,  the  siege  of  Sati-        76  This  appears,  because  Calatia  is  mentioned 

cula,  and  the  battle  of  Lautulte,  all  in  the  same  as  retaken  by  the  Romans  in  the  following 

ymr,  which  according   to  him  was  the  year  year;  and  a  Roman  colony  was  sent  to  Suessa, 

of  the  consulship  of  Papirius  and  Publiiius.  which,  it  is  said,  "  Auruncorum  fuerat."   That 

Amidst  all  this  confusion  it  is  impossible  to  de-  a  colony  was  sent  there  implies  that  the  place 

termine  the  order  of  events  with  certainty.  must  have  been  conquered  by  the  Romans, 

72  Diodorus,  XIX.  72.  which  could  not  have  happened,  unless  it  had 

"  Circa  omnia  defecerunt,"  are  the  words  previously  revolted  from  them,  or  been  other- 

which  Livy  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Fabius,  wise  in  the  enemy's  power, 
when  he  is  urging  his  soldiers  to  venture  a 


302  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXX* 

were  taken ;  and  Capua  itself,  as  if  judging  that  the  battle  of  Lautulee  was  now 
proved  to  have  decided  the  fate  of  the  war,  broke  off  its  alliance  with  Rome,  and 
declared  for  the  Samnites.76  This  last  misfortune  obliged  the  Romans  to  name 
a  dictator ;  and  C.  Msenius,  who  had  once  before  filled  that  office,  was  now 
again  invested  with  it,  and  was  sent  out  with  a  third  army  to  act  especially 
against  Capua.  An  obscure  report,  barely  noticed  by  Livy,77  has  acquainted  us 
with  the  existence  of  another  danger  which  beset  Rome  at  this  time,  and  which 
must  have  been  more  alarming  than  all  the  rest.  Cabals,  and  even  conspiracies, 
were  formed  amongst  some  of  the  Roman  aristocracy,  to  turn  the  perilous  crisis 
of  their  country  to  their  own  personal  advantage.  Who  were  the  individuals  con- 
cerned in  these  plots,  or  what  was  their  special  object,  we  know  not ;  we  can 
scarcely  be  mistaken,  however,  in  supposing  that  Appius  Claudius,  who  was 
censor  two  years  afterwards,  was  one  of  them;  and  his  subsequent  conduct 
makes  it  probable  that  he  wished  to  make  a  party  amongst  the  lowest  of  the 
people,  and  by  their  help,  combined  with  the  strength  of  the  more  violent  pa- 
tricians, to  overthrow  the  actual  constitution,  and  restore  the  exclusive  ascend- 
ency of  the  old  burgher  aristocracy.  Disasters  in  war  excite  discontent,  and  dis- 
content readily  attacks  the  existing  order  of  things,  however  unconnected  it  may 
be  with  the  immediate  evil ;  and  in  this  manner  the  defeat  of  Lautulse  might  be 
made  instrumental  to  a  patrician  revolution. 

But  the  domestic  and  foreign  danger  was  alike  dispelled  by  the  military  suc- 
cess of  the  consuls.     While  an  aristocratical  conspiracy  at  Rome 

The  Aueonian  cities  are  ,  ,  .,  .       .,  A  J 

*trayed  to  the  RO-  was  threatening  the  most  extreme  evils,  a  similar  conspiracy  in 
the  Ausonian  cities  of  Ausona,  Minturnse,  and  Vescia,  occurred 
most  critically  to  revive  the  cause  of  Rome  in  the  neighborhood  of  Campania. 
Twelve  of  the  young  nobility78  of  those  towns,  dreading  nothing  so  much  as  the 
ascendency  of  their  political  adversaries  through  Samnite  assistance,  offered  to 
the  Roman  consuls  to  betray  their  respective  countries  into  their  hands.  By 
their  means  Roman  soldiers  were  put  in  possession  of  the  gates  of  the  three 
cities,  and  the  mass  of  the  people  in  each  were  put  to  the  sword.  Thus  the  Ro- 
mans gained  three  places  of  considerable  importance  from  their  position  ;  and  the 
bloody  execution  done  upon  the  inhabitants  would  spread  the  impression  among 
the  neighboring  states,  that  to  revolt  from  Rome  might  even  yet  be  attended 
with  danger. 

Still  the  Samnite  force  was  yet  unbroken,  and  availing  themselves  of  the  effect 
produced  by  their  victory  at  Lautulos,  the  Samnite  armies  were 
RpmansTt'c^na0.  sib!  still  acting  on  the  offensive.  Where  the  great  battle  was  fought 
which  effectually  turned  the  tide,  it  is  not  possible  to  ascertain. 
Livy  places79  the  scene  at  the  edge  of  the  plain  of  Naples,  where  the  road  from 
Capua  to  Beneven^um  first  ascends  the  hills  of  Samnium,  apparently  not  far  from 
the  pAss  of  Madaaloni.  Diodorus  fixes  it  at  a  place  which  he  calls  Cinna,80  a 
name  wholly  unknown,  nor  will  his  account  enable  us  so  much  as  to  guess  its 
situation.  But  whatever  was  the  scene  of  the  action,  the  victory  of  the  Romans 
was  complete,  and  the  threatening  consequences  of  the  defeat  at  Lautulse  were 
entirely  prevented.  The  news  of  the  battle  instantly  struck  terror  into  the  Cam- 
panians,  and  they  at  once81  made  their  submission  to  the  dictator,  and  agreed  to 
give  up  to  him  the  principal  instigators  of  their  revolt.  Amongst  these  are  par- 
ticularly named  two  men  of  one  of  the  noblest  families  in  Capua,  Ovius  and 
Novius  Calavius.  They,  like  Vibius  Virrius  and  his  associates  in  the  war  of  Han- 
nibal, chose  to  perish  by  their  own  hands,  rather  than  by  the  axe  of  the  dicta- 
tor's lictors,  and  the  principal  offenders  having  thus  atoned  for  their  revolt,  the 
«tate  of  Capua  was  pardoned,  and  readmitted  to  its  former  alliance  with  Rome. 

w  Diodorus,  XIX.  76.  78  Livy,  IX.  25. 

"  IX.  26.     "  Nee  Capua  ipsa  crimine  caruit :  "  Livy,  IX.  27. 

qnin  Romam  quoque  et  ad  principum  quosdam  °  Livy,  XIX.  76. 

Inquirendos  veuturn  est."  81  Diodorus,  XIX.  76. 


CHAP.  XXXL]  COMMISSIONERS  FOR  NAVAL  AFFAIRS.  303 

The  strength  of  the  two  parties  in  the  Samnite  war  was  so  essentially  anequa! 
that  the  loss  of  a  battle  pressed  far  more  severely  on  the  one  than 

.  ,  .  T        i  c          ±1         j    f      A         i  •    i  t  11*       Continual   successes  of 

on  the  other.  Accordingly,  arter  the  defeat  which  rendered  their  the  Roman*,  coiome* 
victory  at  LautulaG  fruitless,  the  Samnites  were  again  reduced  to  •«•>  bMnaM,  MRP 
the  defensive,  and  saw  the  towns  which  they  had  won  successively 
wrested  from  them.  In  the  next  two  years82  Fregellae,  one  of  the  original  causes 
of  the  war,  Sora,83  which  had  revolted  just  before  the  battle  of  Lautulse,  arid  Atina,84 
another  Volscian  city  situated  among  the  mountains  which  look  down  on  the 
valley  of  the  Melfa,  one  of  the  early  feeders  of  the  Liris,  were  all  taken  by  the 
Romans  ;  while  in  Campania  and  its  neighborhood  they  made  themselves  masters 
of  Suessa  Aurunca,  of  Nola,  and  Calatia;85  and  in  Apulia  they  finally  obtained 
possession  of  Luceria.86  They  resolved,  too,  to  secure  these  conquests  by  per- 
manent occupation ;  and  thus  25008T  colonists  were  sent  to  Luceria ;  another 
colony  was  planted  at  Suessa  Aurunca ;  a  third  in  the  island  of  Pontia  ;88  and 
two  more,  to  consist  of  2000  colonists  each,  were  ordered  to  be  founded  at  In- 
teramna  on  the  Liris,  and  at  Casinum  on  one  of  the  feeders  of  the  Liris. 

These  three  last  colonies  were  settled  on  ground  which  had  formerly  belonged  to 
the  Volscians :  Interamna  and  Casinum  were  an  advance  of  the  Roman  frontier 
on  the  upper  road  into  Campania ;  but  Pontia  must  have  been  colonized  with  a 
different  object.  Two  years  afterwards  we  find  that  two  commissioners89  for 
naval  affairs  were  for  the  first  time  created  by  the  Romans ;  and  this  appoint- 
ment, coupled  with  the  occupation  of  Pontia,  make  it  probable  that  during  the 
war  with  Samnium  the  Roman  coasts  were  exposed  to  continual  plundering  de- 
scents, and  the  Roman  merchant-vessels  often  intercepted  on  their  voyages. 
Whether  this  annoyance  proceeded  from  the  Lucanians,  or  whether  the  Taren- 
tines  had  really  lent  to  the  Samnites  the  aid  of  their  maritime  power  in  this  long 
struggle,  are  amongst  the  many  points  in  the  history  of  these  events  of  which  we 
must  be  content  to  be  ignorant. 

The  Samnite  war  lasted  eight  years  longer ;  nor  was  even  this  latter  period  of 
the  contest  unchequered  by  some  changes  of  fortune;  still  Rome  superiority  of  the  RO- 
was  continually  becoming  more  powerful,  and  the  various  attempts  "il"inaUo0nVserop^Ld 
made  by  several  of  the  Italian  nations  to  check  her  growing  su-  toit- 
premacy  served  only  to  set  in  a  clearer  light  the  greatness  of  her  resources. 
Etruria,  which  had  remained  at  peace  for  nearly  forty  years,  now,  as  if  alarmed 
by  the  danger  of  the  Samnites,  exerted  her  whole  strength  against  Rome,  but 
in  vain.  The  Umbrians,  a  people  whose  name  we  have  scarcely  hitherto  had 
occasion  to  mention,  attacked  the  Romans  in  entire  ignorance  of  their  own  and 
their  enemy's  power,  and  were  defeated  and  struck  down  in  an  instant.  The 
Hernicans,  so  long  united  with  Rome  in  a  close  alliance,  revolted  only  to  be- 
come more  completely  subjected ;  the  hardy  nations  of  the  Marsians,  Pelignians, 
and  Marrucinians,  after  having  from  jealousy  stood  aloof  hitherto  from  their  Sam- 
nite kinsmen,  now  at  last  endeavored  to  aid  them  when  it  was  too  late,  and  did 
but  involve  themselves  in  their  humiliation.  Northwards,  and  southwards,  in 
the  central  Apennines,  and  on  the  coast  of  the  Adriatic,  the  Roman  power  was 
alike  irresistible,  and  Rome  towered  above  the  nations  who  were  jointly  or  sev- 
erally assailing  her,  like  one  of  the  heroes  of  the  Homeric  poems  when  "beset  by 
a  multitude  of  common  men. 

To  those  who  estimate  the  power  of  a  nation  by  its  geographical  extent,  this 

Livy,  IX.  28.    Diodorus,  XIX.  101.  rather  of  rocks,  in  the  largest  of  which,  now 

Livy,  IX.  24.  Ponza,  the  Roman  colony  was  founded.    Ponza 

Livy,  IX.  28.  has  a  good  harbor,  and  was  taken  possession 

Livy,  IX.  28.     Diodorus,  XIX.  101.  of  by  the  British  in  1813.    It  is  volcanic,  and  is 

Diodorus,  XIX.  72.     Livy,  IX.  26.  about   14  Neapolitan  miles  in  circumference 

Livy,  IX.  26.  (nearly  17*  British),  and  exhibits  several  re- 

™  Livy,  IX.  28.    Diodorus,  XIX.  101-105.  mains  of  ancient  buildings.    See  Giustiniani 

iebuhr  observes,  that  the  plural  form,  "Pon-  Dizionario  del  Regno  di  Napoli,  in  Ponza 

10  "  belongs  only  to  the  group  of  islands,  or  *  Livy,  IX.  30. 


s. 


ment- 


304  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAV.  XXXL 

«•  causes ;  the  gre*ter  constant  superiority  of  Rome  may  appear  extraordinary:  for  un- 
*"^  doubtedly  the  portions  of  Italy  possessed  by  the  Etruscans,  Um- 
™*  brians,  and  Samnites,  were  many  times  larger  than  the  territory 

of  Rome  and  her  allies.  But  their  superiority  in  population  was 
by  no  means  equally  great ;  nor  is  it  likely  that  either  Etruria  or  Samnium  were 
peopled  as  densely  as  Latium  and  Campania.  Livy  does  not  give  the  returns  of 
the  several  census  taken  at  this  period,  but  he  states  generally,  that  the  number 
of  Roman  citizens  averaged  about  250,000  ;90  to  which  the  Latin  and  Campanian 
allies  are  to  be  added.  Now  we  do  not  know  what  was  the  population  of  Sam- 
nium or  Etruria  at  this  time  ;  but  if  we  may  at  all  be  guided  by  the  famous 
return  of  the  military  force  of  the  several  nations  of  Italy  in  the  great  Gaulish 
war  of  529,91  we  may  conclude  that  it  fell  far  short  of  that  of  the  Romans  and  their 
confederates.  To  this  must  be  added  the  still  greater  advantages  on  the  side  of 
Rome,  of  a  central  position,  a  unity  of  counsels,  and  a  national  spirit,  as  sys- 
tematic as  it  was  resolute.  A  single  great  nation  is  incomparably  superior  to  a 
coalition ;  and  still  more  so  when  that  coalition  is  made  up  not  of  single  states, 
but  of  federal  leagues  ;  so  that  a  real  unity  of  counsels  and  of  public  spirit  is 
only  to  be  found  in  the  individual  cities  of  each  league ;  which  must  each  be 
feeble,  because  each  taken  separately  is  small  in  extent  and  weak  in  population. 
The  German  empire  alone,  setting  aside  the  Spanish,  Italian,  and  Hungarian 
dominions  of  the  house  of  Austria,  could  never,  even  with  the  addition  of  the 
Netherlands,  have  contended  on  equal  terms  with  France. 

The  sudden  breaking  out  of  the  Etruscan  war  at  this  period  was  determined, 

no  doubt,  by  the  expiration  of  the  forty  years'  peace  which  had 
EtZ^nrrmybes^e!  been  concluded  with  the  Tarquinians  in  the  year  404.  As  usual, 

Sutriiim.    Campaign  of         1,1  /•  J  •  j.  1  j.1  1 J    i 

Q.  ^miiius  on  the  when  the  term  of  peace  was  drawing  to  a  close,  there  would  be 

Etruscan  frontier,    and  .       .  ,      *  ,  °        .         q9  .  -1,1 

of  c.  junius  in  Sam-  some  negotiation  between  the  two  countries,^  to  ascertain  whether 
the  treaty  would  be  renewed,  or  whether  its  close  was  to  be  fol- 
lowed by  immediate  war ;  and  this  explains  Livy's  statement,93  that  in  the  consul- 
ship of  M.  Valerius  and  P.  Decius  there  arose  rumors  of  hostilities  with  Etruria ; 
and  that' great  preparations  were  made  by  both  nations,  although  no  actual  attack 
was  begun  by  either  till  the  year  following.     But  if  we  may  trust  the  Roman 
accounts,94  not  Tarquinii  only,  but  all  the  Etruscan  cities  except  Arretium  took 
part  in  rthe  renewed  quarrel.     This  probably  was  owing  to  a  jealousy  of  the 
Roman  power  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  the  cessation  of  the  Gaulish  inroads  into 
northern  Etruria  on  the  other,  so  that  Clusium  and  Perusia  and  Cortona  were  no 
longer  prevented  by  a  nearer  danger,  as  in  the  last  war  with  Veii,  from  giving 
their  aid  to  the  cities  on  the  southern  frontier.     Accordingly  a 
'  great  Etruscan  army  laid  siege  to  Sutrium,95  which  was  still,  as  it 
had  been  nearly  eighty  years  before,  the  most  advanced  point  of  the  Roman  do- 

1)0  Livy,  IX.  19.     "Censebantur  ejus  setatis  great  Gaulish  war,  were  more  numerous  thai? 

lustris  duccna  quinqnagena  millia  capitum."  the  Etruscans,  Urnbrians,  Samnites,  and  Lu- 

91  The  return  of  free  citizens  within  the  mill-  canians,  nearly  in  the  proportion  of  two  to  one. 

tary  age,  gave  for  the  Samnites,   Lucanians,  And  although,  in  the  course  of  the  eighty  01 

Marsians,  Marrucinians,  Frentanians,  and  Ves-  ninety  years  which  elapsed  between  the  second 

tinians,  the  number   of  120,000  foot  soldiers,  Samnite  war  and  the  Gaulish  invasion,  the  pop- 

and  14,000  horse.    Polybius,  II.  24.    The  Um-  illation  of  Etruria  and  Samnium  may  be  sup- 

brians  were  20,000 :    the    Etruscans  and  Sa-  posed  to  have  decreased,  while  that  of  Eome 

bines  together  (the 'number  of  the  Etruscans  undoubtedly  had  increased  by  the  accession  oi 

separately  is  not  given)  were  50,000  foot  and  the  Ilernicans,  JEquians,  and  a  large  part  of  the 

4000  horse.    Here  we  have  a  total  of  190,000  Sabines,  to  the  rolls  of  Eoman  citizens,  yet  still, 

foot  and  18,000  horse.     But  the  same  return  with  every  possible  allowance  that  can  be  made, 

reckons  the  Eomans,  Latins,  and  Campanians  we  must  believe  that  the  Eomans  and  their 

at  330,000  foot  and  23,000  horse,  besides  the  allies  in  the  second  Samnite  war  considerably 

forces  actually  at  that  time  in  the  field,  which  surpassed  their  enemies  even  in  mere  num- 

amounted  to  50.000  Eomans  and  Campanians  bers. 

more,  and  probably  too  at  least  20,000  Latins,  y2  See  of  this  history,  chap.  xvi.  note  48,  and 

with  not  more  than  40,000  of  the  Samnites,  Lu-  chap,  xviii.  p.  147. 

canians,  &c.,  on  the  very  highest  calculation,  93  IX.  29. 

and  probably  much  less.     Thus  the  Eomans,  4  Livy,  IX.  32. 

Latins,  and  i.'ampanians,  at  the  time  of  the  95  Livy,  IX.  32. 


CHAP.  XXXI.]  ETRUSCAN  WAR.  305 

minion  on  the  side  of  Etruria.  Q.  ^Erailius  Barbula,  one  of  the  consuls,  marched 
with  a  single  consular  army  to  protect  the  Sutrians,  and  a  battle  was  fought  with 
no  decisive  result ;  but  it  was  most  obstinately  contested,  and  the  loss  on  both 
sides  was  immense.  The  Etruscans,  however,  continued  to  besiege  Sutrinm,  and 
they  apparently  constructed  lines  around  it,  as  the  Romans  had  done  at  Veii,  in 
which  they  proposed  to  keep  a  part  of  their  army  through  the  winter,  that  the 
blockade  might  not  be  interrupted.  Meantime  the  campaign  of  this  year  in 
Samnium  had  been  decidedly  favorable  to  the  Romans,  although  the  details  are 
utterly  uncertain;  for,  if  we  compare  Livy's  account  with  that  of  Diodorus,~no~ 
one  would  suspect  that  both  writers  were  describing  the  events  of  the  same  war 
and  the  same  period.  According  to  Livy,96  the  scene  of  action  lay  in  Samnium, 
and  one  consular  army  only,  that  of  C.  Junius  Bubulcus,  was  engaged.  By  this 
army,  Bovianum,  the  chief  city  of  the  Pentrian  Samnites,  on  the  north  side  of  the 
Matese,  is  said  to  have  been  taken ;  and  afterwards,  when  the  Samnites  had 
nearly  surprised  the  consul  by  an  ambuscade,  the  practised  valor  of  the  soldiers 
repelled  the  danger,  and  even  obtained  a  complete  victory.  According  to  Di- 
odorus,97  both  consuls  were  employed,  and  the  seat  of  war  was  Apulia.  Here 
the  Romans,  after  a  battle  which  lasted  two  days,  gained  a  complete  victory,  and 
from  that  time  forwards  they  remained  masters  of  the  field,  overran  the  open 
country  without  opposition,  and  took  by  storm  or  by  the  terror  of  their  arms 
several  of  the  enemy's  cities.  In  order  to  reconcile  these  apparent  contradictions, 
we  must  suppose  that  Diodorus  describes  the  winter  campaign,  and  Livy  that  of 
the  summer  following :  that  both  consuls,  after  entering  upon  their  office  in  Sep- 
tember or  October,  were  employed  in  Apulia  during  the  winter,  which,  as  Nie- 
buhr  has  observed,  is  the  best  season  for  military  operations  in  that  country; 
that  in  the  summer  of  the  following  year  the  Etruscan  war  broke  out,  and  that 
then  Q.  ^Emilias  was  sent  to  relieve  Sutrium,  while  C.  Junius  carried  on  the  war 
in  the  centre  of  Samnium.  The  siege  of  Bovianum,  where  the  climate  is  so  cold, 
that  the  snow  must  render  military  operations  impracticable  till  very  late  in  the 
spring-,  and  the  ambuscade  formed  by  the  Samnites  to  surprise  the  Romans  while 
pursuing  the  cattle  into  the  high  mountain  pastures,  clearly  imply  a  summer 
campaign.  And  when  C.  Junius  marched  home  with  his  army  to  celebrate  his 
triumph  on  the  5th  of  August,  he  probably  found  his  colleague  still  engaged 
with  the  Etruscans  on  the  side  of  Sutrium. 

Q.  Fabius  Maximus  was  elected  one  of  the  consuls  for  the  new  year ;  the  same 
person  who,  when  master  of  the  horse  fourteen  years  before,  had 
so  nearly  forfeited  his  life  for  his  disobedience  to 'the  orders  of  the  p«j»  of'  Q4'  F«buJ» 
dictator.  L,  Papirius  Cursor.  As  the  Fabian  house  was  both 
powerful  and  popular,  he  was  a  favorite  hero  in  the  stories  of  these  times  ;  and 
his  exploits  in  this  campaign  have  been  disguised  by  such  exaggerations  that  it 
is  difficult  to  appreciate  his  real  merit  justly.  We  can  hardly  believe  that  he  de- 
feated the  whole  united  force  of  the  Etruscan  nation  in  a  great  battle  under  the 
walls  of  Perusia,  with  such  slaughter  that  sixty  thousand  Etruscans  were  killed 
or  taken ;  nor  were  the  Ciminian  mountains  so  impassable  a  barrier  as  to  justify 
the  statement,  that,  before  the  daring  expedition  of  Fabius  they  had  not  even 
been  crossed  by  any  Roman  traders,  and  that  the  country  beyond  was  as  unknown 
as  the  wilds  of  Germany  before  the  conquests  of  Drusus.  Yet  the  campaign  of 
Fabius  was,  doubtless,  in  a  very  high  degree,  able,  enterprising,  and  successful, 
and  the  triumph  which  he  obtained  in  the  following  year  for  his  victories  over 
the  Etruscans  was  assuredly  well  deserved 

According  to  Diodorus,98  both  the  consuls,  R.  Fabius  and  his  colleague,  C.  Mar- 
cius  Rutulus,  marched  together  to  relieve  Sutrium ;  and  it  was  by 
their  joint  force  that  the  Etruscan  besieging  army,  which  had  ven-  tnuIlntoThe  he»rtnoit 
tured  to  attack  them,  was  beaten  and  obliged  to  take  refuge  within 


the  eiicmy'a  country. 


"  IX.  31.  i  XIX.  26.  <»  XX.  85. 

20 


306  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CnAP.  XXXI 

its  lines.  But  the  employment  of  both  the  consular  armies  in  Etruria  was  not 
unobserved  by  the  indefatigable  Samnites.  They  poured  down  into  Apulia,  and 
ravaged  the  territory  of  the  allies  of  Rome  in  that  country  without  meeting  with 
any  opposition.  This  obliged  the  Romans  to  recall  C.  Marcius  from  Sutrium. 
and  to  send  him  with  his  army  against  the  Samnites.  Fabius  was  thus  left  alone, 
and  the  Etruscan  lines  before  Sutrium  were  too  strong  to  be  attacked  with  suc- 
cess. But  it  struck  him  that  a  sudden  and  rapid  invasion  of  central  Etruria  might 
oblige  the  enemy  to  recall  their  army  from  Sutrium,  and  would,  at  the  same 
time,  enrich  his  soldiers  with  the  plunder  of  a  wealthy  and  untouched  country. 
It  was  thus  that  Hannibal  hoped  to  relieve  Capua  by  his  unexpected  march  upon 
Rome ;  and  the  same  policy  led  Scipio  into  Africa,  as  the  surest  method  ot 
obliging  Hannibal  to  evacuate  Italy.  Fabius  sent  to  Rome  to  acquaint  the  senate 
with  his  purpose,  that  an  army  of  reserve"  might  be  raised  to  cover  the  Roman 
territory  during  his  absence  :  he  had  also  previously  sent  his  brother100  across  the 
Ciminian  mountains  to  collect  information,  and  to  persuade,  if  possible,  some  of 
the  Umbrian  states  to  ally  themselves  with  Rome.  His  brother  could  speak  the 
Etruscan  language,  and  in  the  disguise  of  a  shepherd,  accompanied  only  by  a 
single  slave  who  had  been  brought  up  with  him  from  a  child,  and  also  was  acquainted 
with  Etruscan,  he  penetrated  through  Etruria  as  far  as  Camerte  or  Camerinum  in 
Umbria,  a  town  on  the  northern  side  of  the  Apennines,  near  the  modern  road 
from  Foligno  to  Ancona.  The  Camertians  received  him  in  the  most  friendly 
manner,  and  desired  him  to  assure  the  consul,  that  if  he  came  into  their  neigh- 
borhood their  entire  force  should  join  his  army,  and  that  they  would  supply  him 
with  provisions  during  a  whole  month.  With  this  encouraging  message  the  Ro- 
man officer  returned  to  his  brother,  and  Q.  Fabius  resolved  to  lose  no  time  in 
carrying  his  plan  into  execution,  suspecting,  perhaps,  that  if  he  delayed  he  might 
receive  a  peremptory  order  from  the  senate  not  to  risk  his  army  in  so  hazardous 
an  enterprise. 

The  Ciminian  hills,  for  we  should  scarcely  call  them  mountains,  are  the  ridge  which 
The  Ciminian  hiii.  divides  tnc  valley  of  the  Tiber  from  the  basin  of  the  lake  of  Bolsena, 
Fabius  crosses  them',  and  from  the  valley  which  runs  from  the  foot  of  the  lake  down  to 

and  carries  (lie  war  into      ,  „-.  •'.  ,      ,.  TT.         i          ,        T>  j.1 

Etruria.  His  victories  the  sea.  Where  the  road  from  Viterbo  to  Rome  crosses  them 
they  are  still  covered  with  copse-wood,  and  the  small  crater  of  the 
lake  of  Vico,  which  lies  high  up  in  their  bosom,  is  surrounded  by  the  remains  of 
the  old  forest.  In  the  fifth  century  of  Rome  the  woods  were  far  more  extensive ; 
and  the  hills,  having  now  become  the  boundary  between  the  Roman  and  Etrus- 
can nations,  were,  perhaps,  studiously  kept  in  their  wild  state  in  order  to  prevent 
collisions  between  the  borderers  of  both  frontiers.  They  are  a  remarkable  point, 
because,  as  they  run  up  to  a  crest,  with  no  extent  of  table-land  on  their  summits, 
they  command  a  wide  view  on  either  side,  reaching  far  away  to  the  southeast 
over  the  valley  of  the  Tiber,  even  to  the  Alban  hills,  whilst  on  the  north  and  west 
they  look  down  on  the  plain  of  Viterbo  ;  and  the  lake  of  Bolsena  is  distinctly 
visible,  shut  in  at  the  farthest  distance  by  the  wild  mountains  of  Radicofani. 

89  That  such  an  army  was  raised,  appears  from  left  bank  of  the  Tiber,  between  Todi  and  Amc- 
Livy,  IX.  39 ;  and  Niebuhr  well  observes,  that  lia,  is  proved  decisively,  if,  indeed,  it  could  ever 
the  mission  of  five  senators,  accompanied  by  have  been  reasonably  doubted,  by  an  inscrip- 
twoof  the  tribunes  of  the  commons,  who  arrived  tion  found  at  Carnerino,  in  which  the  Camcr- 
in  the  camn  before  Sutrium  too  late  to  stcn  the  tians  express  their  gratitude  to  the  emperor 
expedition  into  Etruria  (Li vy,  IX.  36),  seen,  s  to  Severus,  for  having  confirmed  to  them  "the 
imply  that  some  earlier  communications  had  equal  rights  of  their  treaty," ''jure  »quo  foede- 
passecl  upon  the  subject,  and  that  Fabius  hav-  ris  sibi  confirmato  :"  an  allusion  to  their  well- 
ing shewn  a  disposition  to  disobey  the  prohibi-  known  fedus  sequum,  concluded  ut  this  very 
tion  of  the  senate,  the  two  tribunes  were  sent  to  time  of  the  first  Koman  invasion  of  Etruria,  and 
arrest  him,  which  they  alone,  by  virtue  of  their  which  existed  to  the  end  of  the  commonwealth, 
inviolable  character,  could  do  with  safety.  and  nominally,  at  least,  as  the  inscription  above 

""Livy,  IX.  36.  That  the  Camertians,  who  quoted  shows,  to  the  third  century  of  the  Chris- 
tian era.  It  was  in  the  territory  of  Camerinum 


concluded  the  treaty  with  the  Romans  on  this 
occasion,  were  the  people  of  Camerinum,  the 
modern  Camerino,  and  not,  as  Dr.  Cramer  sup- 
poses, of  the  obscure  place  of  Camerata,  on  the  above  inscription  is  given  by  Orelli,  No.  920. 


occasion,  were  the  people  of  Camerinum,  the    also  that  L.  Scipio  was  defeated  by  the  Gauls 
modern  Camerino,  and  not,  as  Dr.  Cramer  sup-    and  Samnites  in  the  third  Samnitc  war.     The 


PAPIRIUS  CURSOR  APPOINTED  DICTATOR.  307 

Fabius,  having  sent  on  his  baggage  and  infantry  during  the  night,  followed  him- 
self with  his  cavalry  about  the  middle  of  the  day  following ;  and  on  the  next 
morning  the  whole  army  crossed  the  summit  of  the  Ciminian  ridge,  and  poured 
down  into  the  plains  beyond.  Some  of  the  Etruscan  chiefs101  assembled  their 
peasantry,  and  attempted  to  stop  the  plunder  of  their  lands ;  but  they  were  de- 
feated with  great  loss ;  and  the  invaders  overran  the  country  far  and  wide,  and 
carried  off  cattle  and  prisoners  in  great  numbers.  How  far  they  penetrated  into 
Etruria  is  uncertain.  According  to  Livy  it  was  a  mere  plundering  inroad,  and 
could  not  have  extended  beyond  the  territory  of  Vulsinii ;  but,  according  to  Dio- 
dorus,102  the  Roman  army  advanced  into  the  very  heart  of  Etruria,  fought  a  great 
battle,  and  won  a  decided  victory  in  the  neighborhood  of  Perusia ;  insomuch  that 
the  siege  of  Sutrium  was  raised,  and  three  of  the  greatest  of  the  Etruscan  cities, 
Perusia,  Arretium,  and  Cortona,  sued  for  peace,  and  concluded  a  truce  for  thirty 
years.  Livy103  represents  the  decisive  victory  as  having  been  won  near  Sutrium 
after  the  return  of  the  Romans  from  their  expedition  ;  an  immense  army  of  Etrus- 
cans, joined  by  the  forces  of  some  of  the  states  of  Umbria,  hastened  to  pursue 
and  take  vengeance  on  the  invaders,  but  did  not  overtake  them  within  the  Etrus- 
can territory,  and  thus  followed  them  to  their  old  position  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Sutrium.  Both  accounts  agree  in  describing  the  victory  as  signal,  and  in  stating 
that  it  was  followed  by  a  peace  with  three  of  the  principal  cities  of  Etruria. 

Meanwhile,  the  war  was  raging  with  no  less  fury  in  Samnium.  C.  Marcius, 
after  having  been  recalled  from  Sutrium,  had  marched  with  his  Samninm.  The  Roman* 
army  into  Apulia,104  and  there  at  first  relieved  the  allies  of  Rome  S^dttl&rt'i 
from  the  plundering  incursions  of  the  enemy.  But  the  Samnites  poillted  dictator- 
had  no  intention  to  act  merely  on  the  defensive ;  they  were  eager  to  crush  the 
army  of  Marcius,  while  Fabius  was  engaged  in  Etruria ;  and  they  attacked  him 
with  such  vigor105  that  the  Roman  annals  themselves  acknowledge  that  the  issue 
of  the  battle  was  doubtful,  and  that  it  seemed  to  be  unfavorable,  owing  to  the 
loss  of  several  superior  officers,  and  especially  as  the  consul  himself  was  wounded. 
The  truth  is  sufficiently  evident  that  the  Romans  were,  in  fact,  defeated.  When 
the  news  of  this  battle  reached  Rome,  the  senate  resolved  immediately  that  L. 
Papirius  Cursor  should  be  again  appointed  dictator;  but  it  was  necessary  that 
one  of  the  consuls  should  name  him,  and  as  nothing  certain  was  known  of  the 
fate  of  C.  Marcius,  a  deputation  was  sent  to  Fabius  in  Etruria,  to  request  that  he 
would  perform  this  office.  Fabius  and  Papirius  were  personal  enemies:  the  con- 
sul had  not  forgotten  how  nearly  he  had  once  fallen  a  sacrifice  to  Papirius'  inex- 
orable temper;  and  political  difference  had  since,  perhaps,  contributed  to  keep 
alive  the  personal  quarrel.  The  deputation  sent  to  Fabius  consisted,  therefore,  of 
senators106  of  consular  rank,  whose  private  influence  with  him  might  be  supposed 
likely  to  aid  the  expressed  wish  of  the  senate,  and  to  induce  him  to  sacrifice  his 
own  personal  feelings.  He  heard  the  senate's  decree  read,  and  listened  to  the 
arguments  with  which  the  deputies  urged  him  to  obey  it ;  but  he  gave  them  no 
answer,  either  by  look  or  word,  and  retired  abruptly  from  the  interview.  In  the 
dead  of  the  night,  however,  according  to  the  usual  form,  he  pronounced  the 
nomination  of  Papirius ;  but  when  the  deputies  ventured  to  thank  him  for  his 
noble  conquest  over  his  feelings,  he  again  heard  them  in  silence,  and  finally  dis- 
missed them  without  any  answer. 

The  dictator  found  an  army  at  once  disposable  in  the  troops  which  had  been 
raised  to  cover  Rome  when  Fabius  began  his  march  across  the  Hi8  Rreat  victory  ant 
Ciminian  hills.  With  this  force  he  marched  into  Samnium ;  there  •P1*"^"^^-' 

11  The  character  of  the  Etruscan  government  and  Poland,  formed  the  bulk  of  the  national  Kf 

is  well  given  in  Livy's  short  statement,  "tu-  inies. 
multuance  agrestiuin  Etruscorum  cohortes  re-        m  Livy,  XX.  85. 
pcnte  a  principibus  regionis   ejus   eoncitataj,"        M3  IX.  37. 
IX.  36.     These   "  principes"  were  the  Luco-        104  Diodorus,  XX.  35. 
mencs  or  nobles  of  Etruria,  and  the  "  agrestium        10G  Livy,  IX.  38. 
cohortes"  were  their  serfs,  who,  as  in  Kussia        J08  Livy,  IX.  38. 


308  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAT.  XXXI 

he  was  joined  by  the  wreck  of  the  consul's  army,  and  by  the  contingent  of  the 
Campanian  allies  of  Rome  ;  but  he  did  not  immediately  venture  upon  a  battle. 
Again  all  the  previous  movements  of  both  armies  are  unknown,  nor  is  even  the 
scene  of  the  battle  mentioned,  but  we  are  told107  that  after  a  short  time  a  general 
action  took  place,  in  which  the  dictator  Papirius,  his  master  of  the  horse,  C. 
Junius  Bubulcus,  and  his  two  lieutenants,  M.  Valerius  and  P.  Decius,  both  men 
of  consular  rank,  all  alike  distinguished  themselves;  and  which  ended  in  a  com- 
plete victory  on  the  side  of  the  Romans.  Papirius  triumphed  on  the  15th  of 
October  ;108  and  his  triumph  was  distinguished  by  the  splendor  of  the  captured 
arms  which  were  carried  in  the  procession.  There  were  a  number  of  gilded  and 
silvered  shields109  which  had  been  borne  by  two  different  bands  of  Samnites  in 
the  late  battle ;  the  silvered  shields  had  belonged  to  a  band,  each  man  of  which 
had  been  pledged  by  solemn  oaths,  accompanied  by  a  ceremonial  of  the  most 
mysterious  and  appalling  character,  to  return  victorious  or  to  die.  As  sacred 
soldiers,  these  men  had  worn  in  the  field  coats  of  white  linen,  and  silvered  arms  ; 
and  had  their  station  on  the  right  wing,  which  was  the  post  of  honor.  The  band 
with  gilded  shields  had  worn  coats  of  various  colors,  like  a  plaid ;  and  both  bands 
had  plumes  of  an  imposing  height  waving  on  their  helmets.  All  these  particu- 
lars of  the  Samnite  arms  are  mentioned  for  the  first  time  at  the  triumph  of 
Papirius ;  which  proves  that  on  no  former  occasion  had  the  Samnites  sustained 
so  great  a  defeat,  or  had  attached  such  great  importance  to  the  issue  of  the  con- 
test, as  to  adopt  the  unwonted  expedient  of  a  sacred  or  devoted  band.  It  is  added 
that  these  gay  shields  were  divided  out  amongst  the  several  silversmiths  in  the 
Forum,110  that  they  might  hang  them  up  to  decorate  their  shops  on  those  great 
festivals  when  the  Forum  was  dressed  up  as  a  part  of  the  pageant. 

The  chronology  is  here  again  involved  in  confusion.     According  to  the  Fasti 
Capitolini,  L.  Papirius  held  his  dictatorship  for  a  whole  year,  dur- 

Confusions  again  in  the    •       *       •••  V     .1.  i  J    r\     T<    -^'  J     J     • 

chronology,  satam.  ing  woiCQ  there  were  no  consuls;  and  Q.  jabms  commanded  in 
Etruria  as  proconsul,  and  triumphed  in  that  office  on  the  13th  of 
November.  To  this  version  of  the  story  belongs,  apparently,  the  account  of  a 
second  Etruscan  campaign  of  Q.  Fabius,  of  a  great  victory  gained  by  him  over 
the  Umbrians,  and  of  a  second  gained  over  the  Etruscans  at  the  lake  of  Vadi- 
mon ;  then  of  the  revolt  and  subsequent  submission  of  Perusia,  of  the  occupa- 
tion of  that  strong  city  by  a  Roman  garrison,  and  of  embassies  sent  from  the 
other  cities  of  Etruria  to  sue  for  peace.  It  would  be  difficult-  indeed  to  find  room 
for  all  these  great  achievements  in  the  single  year  of  Fabius'  consulship  ;  but,  on 
the  other  hand,  this  second  Etruscan  campaign  is  unknown  to  Diodorus,  and  both 
he  and  Livy  agree  in  making  the  second  consulship  of  Q.  Fabius  follow  imme- 
diately after  his  first,  without  any  such  interval  as  that  mentioned  in  the  Fasti. 
It  is  remarkable,  also,  that  the  little,  lake  of  Vadimon  should  have  been  the  scene 
of  two  victories  over  the  Etruscans,  within  a  period  of  about  thirty  years ;  and 
we  are  tempted  to  ask  whether  the  first  of  these  battles  has  not  been  greatly 
exaggerated.  Yet  the  Etruscans  must  have  been  signally  humbled  by  Fabius  ; 
for,  in  the  next  year,  when  P.  Decius  invaded  Etruria,  he  met  with  little  opposi- 
tion; the  people  of  Tarquinii  obtained  a  peace  for  forty  years,111  and  the  other 
Etruscan  cities  were  glad  to  obtain  a  truce  for  a  single  year ;  and  even  this  they 

107  Livy,  IX.  40.  towns  of  Italy  at  this  day.    The  shields  were 

108  Fasti  Capitolini.  hung  up  on  the  outside  front  of  the  square 
MS  Livy,  IX.  40.  piers,  or  pilse,  looking  towards  the  Forum.   The 
110  These  shops  of  the  silversmiths  lined  the  butchers^  shops,  which,  in  the  time  of  the  de- 

Via  Sacra,  which,  on  its  course  from  the  Velia  cemvirs,  had  occupied  this  side  of  the  Forum, 
to  the  foot  of  the  Capitol,  ran  along  the  north-  had  lately  disappeared  with  the  growing  mag- 
em  side  of  the  Forum.  They  were  like  cells,  nificence  of  the  city,  and  had  been  succeeded 
open  in  front,  built  of  peperino,  and  with  a  row  by  the  shops  of  goldsmiths  and  silversmiths, 
of  square  massy  supports,  or  piers,  in  front  of  See  Beschreibung  der  Stadt  Eom,  Vol.  Ill,  2d 
them,  supporting  the  first  story  of  the  houses  part,  p.  25. 

above  ;  exactly  like  the  covered  passages  in  1U  Livy,  IX.  41.    Diodorus,  XX.  44. 
vhich  the  shops  are  ranged  in  so  many  of  the 


CHAP.  XXXI.]  WAR  WITH  THE  SALLENTINES.  309 

purchased  at  the  price  of  giving  a  year's  pay  to  the  consul's  army,  and  two  coats 
to  each  soldier. 

Q.  Fabius,  who  had  been  chosen  consul  for  the  third  time  as  the  colleague  of 
P.  Decius,  had  this  year  the  conduct  of  the  war  in  Samnium.    But  „ 

•  -  ,,  ,.  .  ,.  .  Continued  successes  of 

the  Sammtes  were  so  weakened,  that  their  speedy  sumugation  the  Romans,  short  ww 

,    .  ,  ,  ,      ,  .  «r,      ,    J,  •     i  i  with  the  Umbrians. 

seemed  inevitable  ;  and  this,  we  may  suppose,  filled  the  neighbor- 
ing nations  with  a  sense  of  their  own  danger  if  Samnium  should  fall,  and  in- 
duced not  only  the  Marsians  and  Pelignians112  to  take  part  with  the  Samnites,  - 
but  even  shook  the  long-tried  friendship  of  the  Hernicans  with  Rome,  and  aroused 
the  Sallentines,  at  the  southern  extremity  of  Italy,  to  look  on  the  Samnite  cause, 
as  their  own.  But  all  was  of  no  avail,  and  the  success  of  the  Romans  was  unin- 
terrupted. Nuceria  Alfaterna,  in  Campania,  which  had  revolted  seven  years  be- 
fore, was  now  recovered,  the  Marsians  and  Pelignians  were  defeated,  and  Fabius 
was  enabled  to  leave  his  province  without  danger,  and  to  hasten  into  Umbria;113 
the  Umbrians,  it  is  said,  having  raised  so  formidable  an  army  as  to  threaten  to  march 
straight  upon  Rome,  and  P.  Decius  having  thought  it  necessary  to  retreat  from 
Etruria,  in  order  to  watch  over  the  safety  of  the  capital.  Here,  again,  we  cannot 
but  suspect  some  exaggeration ;  for  Fabius  is  said  to  have  won  an  easy  victory 
over  the  Umbrians,  and  the  Umbrian  towns  immediately  submitted.  This  may 
be  doubtful ;  but  it  is  certain  that  the  people  of  Ocriculum  concluded  an  alliance 
with  Rome,  and  that  Fabius  obtained  no  triumph  either  for  his  victory  over  the 
Umbrians,  or  for  those  which  he  is  said  to  have  won  in  Samnium.  Yet  his  com- 
mand in  Samnium  was  continued  to  him  for  another  year,  with  the  title  of  pro- 
consul :  the  new  consuls  were  Appius  Claudius  and  L.  Volumnius. 

As  the  Etruscan  war  was  now  over,  and  Q.  Fabius  continued  to  command  the 
army  in  Samnium,  only  one  of  the  consuls  for  this  year  was  re-  War  with  the  SalleD_ 
quired  to  take  the  field.  This  was  L.  Volumnius,  and  he  was  sent  tines- 
against  the  Sallentines,"4  an  Apulian  or  lapygian  people,  who  dwelt,  as  we  have 
seen,  at  the  extreme  heel  of  Italy,  and  who  were  now  attacked  by  the  Romans, 
under  pretence,  we  may  suppose,  of  their  having  annoyed  some  of  the  Apulian 
allies  of  Rome.  But  Volumnius  did  nothing  worthy  of  notice,  although,  accord- 
ing to  Livy,  he  gained  some  victories,  took  several  towns,  and  made  himself  very 
popular  with  his  soldiers  by  his  liberality  in  the  disposal  of  the  plunder.  The 
Fasti  Capitolini,  however,  show  that  he  obtained  no  triumph  ;  and  one  of  the 
annalists,  Piso,115  omitted  his  consulship  altogether,  as  if  he  doubted  its  reality. 

Fabius,116  on  his  part,  defeated  the  Samnites  near  Allifa?,  and  obliged  their 
army  to  surrender.  The  Samnites  themselves  he  disarmed,  and 
then  dismissed  them  unhurt ;  but  all  the  other  prisoners,  to  what- 
ever  nation  they  belonged,  were  sold  for  slaves.  Amongst  this 
number,  there  were  several  who  declared  themselves  to  be  Hernicans,  and  these 
were  immediately  sent  off  to  Rome,  and,  by  order  of  the  senate,  were  committed 
to  the  custody  of  the  several  allied  cities  of  the  Latins.  Q.  Fabius  then  led  his 
army  home ;  but  either  his  victory  has  been  exaggerated,  or  it  was  balanced  by 
some  defeats  which  the  Roman  writers  did  not  choose  to  mention,  for  he  obtained 
no  triumph. 

The  new  consuls  were  Q.  Marcius  Tremulus,  and  P.  Cornelius  Arvina.     They 
brought  the  case  of  the  Hernican  prisoners  before  the  senate,  which, 

T  •          117  i      i     j.i  i      i  A*  _ii  i  t  i>    The  Hermcans  revolt. 

says  Livy,'  so  exasperated  the  whole  nation,  that  the  people  of 
Anagnia  summoned  a  general  council  of  deputies  from  every  Hernican  city,  and 
all,  with  three  exceptions,  voted  for  war  with  Rome.  It  is  manifest  that  some- 
thing is  omitted  in  this  narrative,  the  decision  of  the  senate  upon  the  case  which 
was  brought  before  them.  This  it  was,  no  doubt,  which  so  exasperated  the  Her- 
nicans ;  and  no  wonder,  if,  as  there  is  every  reason  to  believe,  it  ordered  the  pris- 


»  Livy,  IX.  41.  '»  Livy,  IX.  44. 

»»  Livy,  IX.  41.  "«  Livy   IX.  42. 

»  Livy  IX.  42.  >«  Livy  IX.  42. 


310  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXI 

oners  to  be  scourged  and  beheaded.  Such  a  bloody  execution  would  naturally 
excite  a  deep  and  general  indignation,  and  the  common  feeling  of  the  Hernican 
people  would  call  aloud  for  vengeance. 

Meanwhile  the  indomitable  spirit  of  the  Samnites  kindled  at  the  prospect  of 
this  accession  to  their  league  against  Rome :  and  they  thought  that  if 

Combined  operations  of      ,  111  ,1  11  r>     i        T  •    •  11  i      • 

&»  Hernican  and  Sam-  they  could  clear  the  valley  oi  the  Lins,  and  thus  open  their  commu- 
nications with  the  country  of  the  Hernicans,  their  combined  forces 
might  possibly  again  carry  the  war  into  the  heart  of  Latium,  through  the  great 
mountain- portal  by  Prseneste.  Accordingly,  they  attacked  and  carried  the  two 
posts  of  Calatia,  on  the  Vulturnus,  and  Sora,  on  the  upper  Liris,  and  sold  the 
prisoners  as  slaves.118  Thus  the  communication  with  the  Hernicans  was  opened, 
and  a  Samnite  army  must  have  taken  up  its  position  in  the  valley  of  the  upper 
JLiris,  on  the  edge  of  the  Hernican  country.  The  Romans  then  hoped,  by  a  com- 
bined operation  of  both  the  consular  armies,  to  penetrate  into  the  heart  of  the 
enemy's  seat  of  war  in  two  different  directions ;  and  Q.  Marcius  proceeded  to 
invade  the  Hernican  territory  from  the  side  of  Latium,  while  P.  Cornelius  was  to 
ascend  the  valley  of  the  Liris  from  Campania,  and  to  dislodge  the  Samnites  from 
Sora.  But  the  enemy  held  their  ground  so  well,119  and  availed  themselves  so 
effectually  of  their  central  position,  that  the  consuls  could  make  no  progress ;  and, 
being  kept  in  total  ignorance  of  each  other's  movements,  it  is  likely  that  each 
successively  sustained  a  severe  check  from  a  concentration  of  the  enemy's  force 
against  his  particular  army.  This  state  of  affairs  excited  great  alarm  at  Rome  ; 
all  citizens  within  the  military  age  were  enlisted,  and  two  regular  armies  of  two 
legions  each  were  raised,  to  be  ready  for  any  emergency. 

Thus  supported,  Q.  Marcius  soon  overbore  the  resistance  of  the  Hernicans, 
and  obliged  them  to  purchase  a  truce  for  thirty  days  by  furnish- 

The   Hemicans   solicit    .  "    •  +  -,  i      >  t          ^  f 

and  obtain  a  truce,  mg  the  Koman  army  with  two  months  pay  and  rations  oi  corn, 
vi"TOTtht™bJ  two  and  with  clothing  for  each  soldier.  They  then  sued  for  peace, 
and  were  referred  by  the  senate  to  the  consul,  who  received  ac- 
cordingly their  entire  submission.  He  hastened  to  effect  his  junction  with  his 
colleague,  and  the  Samnite  army,  oppressed  by  their  united  forces,  was  defeated 
with  great  slaughter.120  Marcius  returned  to  Rome  and  triumphed  on  the  30th 
of  June,121  and  his  services  were  accounted  so  eminent  that  an  equestrian  statue 
was  set  up  in  honor  of  him  in  the  Forum,122  in  front  of  the  temple  of  Castor,  or 
rather  of  the  twin  heroes,  Castor  and  Pollux.  After  his  triumph,  he  rejoined 
his  colleague  in  Samnium,  and  their  two  armies  being  completely  masters  of  the 
field,  ravaged,  the  whole  country  with  the  utmost  perseverance  for  the  space  of 
nearly  five  months  ;123  cutting  down  the  fruit-trees,  burning  the  houses  that  were 
not  secured  within  the  fortified  towns,  and  doing  all  the  mischief  in  their  power, 
in  the  hope  of  forcing  the  enemy  into  submission.  The  consuls  were  thus  de- 
tained so  long  in  the  field,  that  a  dictator  was  named  to  hold  the  comitia ;  and  L. 
Postumius  and  Ti.  Minucius  were  elected  consuls  for  the  year  following. 

Before  the  close  of  this  year  the  senate  had  decided  the  fate  of  the  Hernicans.184 
d  ^ree  c^es  wnicn  hacl  taken  no  part  in  the  late  war  were  left  in 
.  the  enjoyment  of  their  municipal  independence  ;  but  Anagnia  and 
the  other  towns  were  obliged  to  receive  the  Roman  franchise  with- 
out the  right  of  voting ;  or,  in  other  words,  to  become  the  subjects  of  Rome, 
without  any  share  either  in  the  general  government  or  in  their  own  municipal 
administration.  They  were  forbidden  to  hold  any  common  meetings,  or  to  inter- 
marry with  one  another,  and  their  magistrates  were  prohibited  from  exercising 
any  other  function  than  that  of  superintending  the  performance  of  the  rites  of 
religion. 

118  Livy,  IX.  43,    Diodorus,  XX.  80.  The  temple  of  Castor  was  on  the  southern  sid« 

1W  Livy,  IX.  43.  of  the  Forum,  opposite  to  the  line  of  the  Via 

130  Livy,  IX.  43.  Sacra. 

m  Fasti  Capitolim.  12S  Diodorus,  XX.  80. 

m  Livy,  IX.  43.  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  XXXIV.  6.  124  Livy,  IX.  43. 


CHAP.  XXXI]  PEACE  BETWEEN  ROME  AND  SAMNIUM.  31] 

The  long  contest  with  the  Samnites  was  now  drawing  to  a  conclusion.  Before 
the  new  consuls  took  the  field,  and  after  Marcius  and  Cornelius  ^. 
had  returned  home,  the  Samnites  revenged  in  some  degree  the  t^ 
devastation  of  their  own  country,  by  making  several  plundering 
inroads  into  the  plain  of  Campania.125  But  when  the  legions  opened  the  cam- 
paign, the  power  of  the  Romans  was  again  irresistible.  The  seat  of  the  war  was 
now  in  the  very  heart  of  Samnium,  on  the  north  side  of  the  Matese,  in  the  coun- 
try of  the  Pentrians ;  and  the  two  consuls  attacked  the  two  cities  of  Tifernum 
and  Bovianum.  One  last  desperate  effort  was  made  by  the  Samnite  imperator  or 
captain-general,  Statius  Gellius,  to  relieve  Bovianum:  but  it  was  vain,  although 
the  battle  was  so  stoutly  contested,  that  the  Roman  consul  Ti.  Minucius  was 
mortally  wounded,  and  did  not  live  to  reap  the  fruits  of  his  victory.  But  Gellius 
was  himself  taken  prisoner,  and  the  greater  part  of  his  army  destroyed.  Bovia- 
num then  surrendered,  and  the  consuls,  on  their  return  home,  recovered  the 
towns  which  had  been  lately  lost  in  the  valley  of  the  Liris,  Sora,  Arpinum,  and 
an  unknown  place,  Cerennia,126  or  Censennia. 

This  campaign  was  decisive.  The  new  consuls  were  P.  Sulpicius  and  P.  Sem- 
pronius,  and  Sulpicius  immediately  took  the  field  in  Samnium.127 

iT  .         ,  11  i  •       ji  i  i       i    •  The  Samnite»  and  theii 

He  gained  some  advantages,  small  perhaps  in  themselves,  but  im-  aines  submit  to  the  R»- 
portant,  as  the  last  drop  poured  into  the  brimming  vessel  and 
causing  the  water  to  overflow.  The  Samnites  at  last  sued  for  peace,  and  the 
Marrucinians,  Marsians,  Pelignians,  and  Frentanians  followed  the  example.  They 
were  all  obliged  to  become  the  allies  of  Rome,  but  the  alliance  was  no  longer  on 
equal  terms  ;128  they  became,  in  fact,  politically  subject,  and  consented  to  ac- 
knowledge and  respect  the  majesty,  or,  in  other  words,  the  supremacy  of  Rome. 
In  comparison  with  such  a  full  confession  of  the  superior  strength  of  the  Ro- 
mans, any  partial  acquisitions  of  territory  were  of  slight  import- 

T>     ,    ±1        -r>  1       i       i  j.    •         i    •       ,1  r?i  Accessions  pained  to  t1i» 

ance.  But  the  Romans  had  obtained  in  the  course  of  the  war  the  Roman  dominion  int* 
important  position  of  Luceria  in  Apulia,  which  secured  their  as- 
cendency in  that  part  of  Italy ;  and  they  had  also  won  the  whole  line  of  the 
Liris,  all  those  Volscian  towns  which  had  been  the  Samnite  share  of  the  spoil  at 
the  conclusion  of  the  great  Latin  war.  Campania  had  been  retained,  and  its 
connection  with  Rome  was  rendered  closer  than  ever ;  and  above  all,  the  timely 
extension  of  the  full  Roman  franchise  to  so  many  of  the  Latin  and  Volscian  cities 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Rome,  had  made  the  Roman  power  sound  at  the  heart, 
and  had  consolidated  that  mass  of  citizens,  and  of  allies  scarcely  less  true  than 
citizens,  within  the  confines  of  Latium,  of  which  neither  the  arms  nor  the  arts 
of  Hannibal  could  tempt  a  single  individual  to  join  his  standard. 

The  conquest  of  the  Hernicans  gave  the  Romans,  it  is  probable,  a  considerable 
accession  of  territory  in  the  forfeited  domain  land  of  the  several  cities ;  and  it 
put  an  end  to  the  old  equal  alliance  which  entitled  the  Hernicans  to  a  share  of 
all  plunder  taken  by  the  armies  of  the  allied  nations.  The  victories  over  the 

28  Livy,  IX.  44.    Diodorus,  XX.  90.  year  401,  he  says  that  the  Samnites  solicited 

126  Diodorus  calls  it  Serennia.  Is  not  this  the  friendship  of  Rome ;  that  "  Legatis  eorum 

place  the  "Cisauna"  m  Samnium,  mentioned  comiter  ab  senatu  responsum ;  fcedere  in  socie- 

111  the  inscription  on  the  tomb  of  L.  Scipio  tatem  accepti."  VII.  19.  In  the  same  man- 

Barbatns  ?  ner  he  misrepresents  the  early  relations  between 

27  This  appears  from  the  Fasti  Capitolini,  Eome  and  Latium.  But  the  negotiations  had 

which  state  that  Sulpicius  obtained  a  triumph  broken  off  in  the  year  432  on  this  very  point, 

for  his  victories  over  the  Samnites  in  this  year,  because  the  Samnites  would  not  become  tho 

38  Dionysius,  Excerpt,  de  Legation,  p.  2331.  dependent  allies  of  Kome  ;  and  as  the  Romans 
Reiske.  His  words  are,  speaking  of  the  Sam-  never  receded  from  the  conditions  on  which 
nites,  roi>s  vnrjKtow;  bno\oyfiaavTa<;  caeaOai.  Livy  they  had  once  insisted,  we  may  be  sure  that 
^ays,  |*  Fcedus  antiquum  Samnitibus  redditum."  they  would  have  granted  no  peace  to  the  Sam- 
This  is  because  he  never  seems  to  have  con-  nites  which  did  not  include  their  complete  sub- 
ceived  that  any  nation  could  ever  have  been  mission ;  nor  can  we  suppose  that  the  Sam- 
the  equal  ally  of  Rome,  but  that  from  the  very  nites  would  have  persevered  so  long  in  carrying 
beginning  it  must  have  acknowledged  the  Ro-  on  the  war  amidst  such  repeated  disasters,  if 
man  supremacy.  Thus,  when  he  speaks  of  the  they  could  have  ended  it  on  any  terms  less  in- 
first  treaty  between  Rome  and  Samnium  in  the  tolerable. 


312  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXIL 

Etruscans  and  Umbrians  had  revealed  the  secret  of  the  comparative  weakness  of 
those  once  dreaded  nations,  and  had  taught  the  Romans  that  their  frontier 
might  be  extended  as  soon  as  they  chose  beyond  the  Ciminian  hills. 

Thus  in  the  twenty  years  of  the  second  Samnite  war  Rome  had  risen  to  the 
Rsmewa.  now  the  first  first  place,  beyond  dispute,  amongst  the  nations  of  Italy.  And 
power  in  it«iy.  amidst  the  divisions  and  corruption  of  the  several  kingdoms  which 

had  grown  up  out  of  the  fragments  of  Alexander's  empire,  there  was  scarcely  a 
power  in  the  civilized  world,  except  Carthage,  which  could  have  contended  suc- 
cessfully with  Rome  single-handed. 

Half  a  century  was  yet  to  elapse  before  Carthage  entered  upon  the  contest. 
Meanwhile  the  Roman  power  was  yet  to  be  sharply  tried ;  what  Etruria  and 
Samnium  could  neither  singly  nor  by  their  joint  efforts  effect,  they  were  to  try 
again  with  the  help  of  the  Gauls ;  what  they  had  filled  to  accomplish  through 
barbarian  aid,  they  were  to  attempt  in  their  last  struggle  with  the  assistance  of 
the  arms  and  discipline  of  the  Macedonian  phalanx,  and  guided  by  the  genius  of 
Alexander's  genuine  successor,  the  hero-king  of  the  race  of  Achilles. 


CHAPTER  XXXIL 

INTERNAL  HISTORY  FROM  428  to  454— ABOLITION  OF  PERSONAL  SLAVERY  FOB 
DEBT— DICTATORSHIP  OF  C.  M^ENIUS— CENSORSHIP  OF  APPIUS  CLAUDIUS- 
CENSORSHIP  OF  Q.  FABIUS  AND  P.  DECIUS— THE  OGULNIAN  LAW. 


"  Nothing  has  contributed  more  than  this  lenity  to  raise  the  character  of  public  men.  Am- 
bition is  of  itself  a  game  sufficiently  hazardous  and  sufficiently  deep  to  inflame  the  passions, 
without  adding  property,  life,  and  liberty  to  the  stake." — EDINBURGH  REVIEW,  No.  XCV.  p.  161. 


WE  have  seen  that  m  the  year  immediately  preceding  the  first  campaign  of  the 
Altered  position  of  Samnite  war,  several  symptoms  had  been  manifested  by  a  strong 
Eewieo8raiowern popular  party  amongst  the  patricians  of  the  old  jealousy  towards  the 
I*rty>  commons  ;  M.  Marcellus,  a  plebeian,  had  been  forced  to  resign  his 

dictatorship  by  the  augurs,  on  the  alleged  reason  that  his  appointment  was  in- 
valid from  some  religious  objection ;  and  the  most  obstinate  attempts  were  made 
to  set  aside  the  Licinian  law,  and  to  procure  the  election  of  two  patrician  con- 
suls. In  the  course  of  the  Samnite  war  occasional  traces  of  the  same  feeling  are 
discernible.  But  its  shape  was  no  longer  what  it  had  been  in  the  earlier  days 
of  the  commonwealth.  It  was  no  longer  a  struggle  between  an  aristocracy  in  the 
exclusive  possession  of  the  government,  and  a  people  impatient  of  their  own  ex- 
clusion from  it.  It  was  no  longer  a  struggle  between  the  whole  patrician  order 
on  one  side,  and  the  whole  body  of  the  commons  on  the  other.  A  considerable 
portion  of  the  patricians  and  a  majority  of  the  senate  were  well  reconciled  to  the 
altered  state  of  things,  and  cordially  received  the  distinguished  commoners  who 
had  made  their  way  to  the  highest  offices  in  the  commonwealth,  and  composed  a 
new  nobility  fully  worthy  to  stand  on  equal  terms  by  the  side  of  the  old.  Thus 
the  moderate  patricians,  the  new  nobility  of  the  commons,  and  the  mass  of  the 
old  plebeians  were  now  closely  linked  together  ;  and  their  union  gave  that  energy 
to  the  Roman  councils  and  arms,  which  marks  in  so  eminent  a  manner  the  mid- 
dle of  the  fifth  century.  But  as  these  elements  had  tended  more  and  more 
towards  each  other,  so  they  parted  off  on  either  side  from  other  elements  with 
which,  at  an  earlier  period,  they  had  been  respectively  connected.  The  moderate 


CHAP.XXXIL]  RISE  OF  A  NEW  POPULAR  PARTY.  313 

patricians  stood  aloof  from  the  high  or  more  violent  party,  who  still  dreamt  of 
recovering  the  old  ascendency  of  their  order :  whilst  a  new  popular  party,  though 
as  yet  very  inconsiderable  in  power  or  influence,  was  growing  up  distinct  from 
the  old  plebeians,  regarding  them  with  envy,1  and  regarded  by  them  in  turn  with 
feelings  of  dislike  and  suspicion.  This  new  party  consisted  of  freed  men,  and  of 
citizens  engaged  in  the  various  trades  and  occupations  of  a  city  life,  who  were 
despised  by  the  old  agricultural  plebeians  as  a  low  and  unwarlike  populace,  and 
who,  by  a  strong  public  opinion,  were  excluded  from  all  prospect  of  political  dis- 
tinctions. Many  of  these  persons,  indeed,  had  not  even  the  right  of  voting,  as  they 
were  not  included  in  any  tribe  ;  and  they  bore  this  exclusion  as  impatiently  as 
the  old  plebeians  had  borne  their  exclusion  from  the  highest  curule  offices.  This 
was  a  class  which  was  daily  becoming  more  numerous,  in  proportion  as  Rome 
grew  in  wealth  and  population,  and  it  formed  the  origin  of  the  popular  party  of 
the  later  period  of  the  commonwealth ;  a  party  very  different,  both  in  its  charac- 
ter and  feelings,  from  the  commons  of  its  earlier  history. 

These  extremes  of  civil  society,  the  highest  aristocrats  and  the  lowest  populace, 
have  often  made  common  cause  with  each  other  against  that  mid- 

.,  i  '    i      i        t       t  11  till  i  Coalition  of  the  two  er- 

dle  class  which  both  hate  equally.  And  when  the  malcontent  {^J^8  a*fainit 
aristocratical  families  are  few  in  number,  but  of  the  highest  nobil- 
ity, any  ambitious  individual  among  them  is  tempted  to  court  the  populace  for 
objects  more  directly  personal ;  he  tries  to  make  them  the  instrument,  not  of  the 
greatness  of  his  order,  but  of  his  own.  Thus  it  was  commonly  remarked  of  the 
tyrants  of  the  ancient  world,  that  they  began  by  playing  the  demagogue.  In 
such  a  union  between  the  highest  and  the  lowest  classes  of  society,  the  gain  is 
mostly  for  the  former ;  the  latter  derived  little  advantage  from  the  alliance,  ex- 
cept the  pleasure  of  the  horse  in  the  fable,  when  he  saw  his  old  enemy,  the  stag, 
effectually  humbled.  But  the  coalition  is  not  solely  one  of  political  expediency ; 
it  arises  partly  out  of  certain  moral  affinities  existing  between  those  whose  social 
and  political  conditions  are  the  extremest  opposites.  The  moral  bond  between 
them  is  their  common  impatience  of  law  and  good  government ;  that  anarchical 
and  selfish  restlessness,  which  sees  in  the  existing  order  of  society  an  equal  restraint 
upon  the  pride  and  passion  of  the  highest,  and  on  the  needy  cupidity  of  the  low- 
est.2 This  is  the  feeling  which  has  so  often  brought  together  the  proudest  despot 
or  the  most  insolent  aristocrat  and  the  lowest  and  most  profligate  populace  ;  and 
it  was  this,  though  in  a  far  milder  degree,  which  associated  in  one  common  party 

1  Th's  is  the  progress  of  all  popular  parties,  is  so  difficult,  that  it  has  rarely  or  never  been 

from  the  necessity  of  the  case.     As  the  ruling  attempted;  tl-.e  excluding  party,  strengthened 

body  in  the  earliest  state  of  society  is  extremely  by  all  those  who  were  once  excluded,  is  now 

exclusive,  the  popular  party  then  comprises  extremely  powerful,  and  its  power  is  moral  as 

what  Sieves  would  call  the  nation  minus  a  well  as  'physical;    the    excluded    or   popular 

privileged  individual  or  a  very  small  privileged  party,  no  longer  a  nation  contending  against  a 

class.     Each  success  of  this  party  satisfies  the  caste,  but  yet  much  more  than  a  worthless  fac- 

wishes  of  a  portion  of  its  members,  and  thus  tion  contending  against  a  nation,  are  conscious 

makes  them  for  the  future  its  enemies.    And  a  of  a  wrong  done  to  them,  and  are  embittered 

repetition  of  this  process  would  at  last  place  the  by  this  feeling ;  but  being  unable  to  carry  their 

anti-popular  party  iti  that  same  position  which  point,  and,  from  their  very  inability  to  obtain  a 

was  at  first  occupied  by  their  adversaries  ;  they  share  of  the  benefits  of  society,  becoming  more 

would,  in  their  turn,  become  the  nation,  minus  and  more  morally  unfit  to  enjoy  them,  their  tri- 

a  very  small  excluded  class,  a  class,  in  fact,  ex-  umph  and  their  continued  exclusion  are  alike 

eluded  by  nothing  but  their  own  ignorance  or  deplorable.     Their  triumph  is  but  the  triumph 

profligacy.    This  would  be  the  natural  perfec-  of  slaves  broken  loose,  full  of  brute  ignorance 

A.* _/>     _      _._!._         1 I          1 M Al_  •  -  A.      1 J ?   _1^-1  .       Al  •        '_    -         A.* .1       _      _  _1     7"    -  • 


sively  all  those  whose  exclusion  was  wholly  un-  involves  injustice.  The  great  and  hardest  prob- 

natural,  that  is,  who  were  excluded  by  dis-  lem  of  political  wisdom  is  to  prevent  any  part 

tinctions  purely  arbitrary,  or  overbalanced  by  of  society  from  becoming  so  socially  degraded 

many  more  points  of  resemblance  and  fitness  by  poverty,  that  their  political  enfranchisement 

for  political  power.     But  when  it  reaches  those  becomes  dangerous,  or  even  mischievous. 

who  differ  really  from  the  governing  body,  as  a  /J  ph  -Ktvia.  avdyicri  rfiv  r<5A/j«v 

' 


in  the  case  of  the  rich  and  the  poor,  then  con-  <5'  l^ovda  ti/?p«  T»JV  i>\£ovt£iav  Kal  00<w///uri, 
vulsion  and  decline  have  mostly  followed.  The  ifayovaiv  t'j  TWS  KivMvovs.  Thucy  dides,  II. 
work  of  smoothing  down  these  real  differences 


314  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXII 

at  Rome,  m  the  period  now  before  us,  the  humblest  of  the  city  populace  and 
the  representative  of  the  proudest  family  in  the  commonwealth,  Appius  Clau 
dius. 

But  in  these  coalitions,  which  are  forever  occurring  in  history,  the  two  coa- 
character  of  such  eoa-  lescing  parties  are  far  from  deserving  the  same  judgment.  His- 
luions-  torians  have  justly  pronounced  their  full  condemnation  on  the  sel- 

fish hypocrisy  of  the  tyrant,  who  talks  of  liberty  in  order  to  establish  his  own 
despotism.  And  for  those  who,  despising  all  the  honors  and  benefits  of  society 
which  are  fully  open  to  them,  aspire  to  a  rank  and  greatness  of  a  higher  and 
more  exclusive  sort  than  the  nature  of  society  allows,  no  condemnation  can  be  too 
severe,  for  no  wickedness  can  be  greater.  But  the  lowest  class,  when  they  are 
misled  into  such  alliances,  deserve  even  in  their  worst  excesses  a  milder  sentence. 
Not  only  are  they  entitled  to  all  the  excuse  which  may  be  claimed  by  ignorance, 
and  an  ignorance  arising  rather  from  their  condition  than  from  their  choice ;  but 
in  their  quarrel  against  the  existing  order  of  things,  there  is,  and  ever  will  be, 
amidst  much  of  envy,  and  cupidity,  and  revenge,  a  certain  mixture  also  of  justice. 
Nothing  is  more  horrible  than  the  rebellions  of  slaves ;  yet  it  is  impossible  to  re- 
gard even  these  with  unmixed  abhorrence.  Nor  can  we  ever  place  on  the  same 
level  those  who,  being  excluded  from  the  benefits  of  society,  do  but  seek  a  share 
of  them,  and  those  who,  enjoying  all  these  benefits  in  ample  measure,  cannot 
rest  without  something  more.  Neither  are  the  middle  classes  apt  to  be  wholly 
guiltless  in  their  treatment  of  those  below  them ;  when  they  have  established 
their  own  rights  against  the  aristocracy,  they  become  a  new  aristocracy  them- 
selves, and  having  themselves  passed  through  the  door,  they  shut  it  against  those 
who  would  fain  follow.  But  here,  as  in  their  own  earlier  contest  with  the  old 
aristocracy,  the  fault  does  not  consist  in  denying  political  rights  to  those  who 
are  not  yet  fit  for  them,  for  this  may  be  often  necessary  and  just;  but  in  pre- 
venting them  from  ever  becoming  fit,  by  retaining  institutions  which  have  an 
inevitable  tendency  to  keep  the  lowest  classes  morally  degraded,  or,  at  the  best, 
by  taking  no  pains  to  introduce  such  as  may  improve  them. 

In  the  high  aristocratical  party  at  Rome  during  the  period  now  before  us,  two 
individuals  are  eminent :  L.  Papirius  Cursor,  and  Appius  Claudius. 

Eminent    men    of  this    -p,     .    ,1      •         >,  •  -,          l   •,  •••«•  ,          T»       •   • 

period.  |.oftheiiiKh  But  their  obiects  seem  to  have  been  different.     Papirius  appears 

aristocrat  ical  party,  L.  ,  ,  *.     .  ,  t       i    i       *i  11  •  •       i  • 

Papirius  cursor  mid  Ap-  to  have  been  sincerely  attached  to  the  old  aristocratical  constitu- 
tion, and  to  have  honestly  wished  to  restore  what  in  his  eyes  was 
the  uncorrupted  discipline  of  the  Roman  commonwealth.  Appius,  like  his  an- 
cestor the  decemvir,  or  Dionysius  of  Syracuse,  wished  to  overthrow  the  existing 
order  of  things,  not  in  favor  of  the  old  patrician  ascendency,  but  of  his  own  per- 
sonal dominion. 

The  moderate  or  middle  party,  composed  as  it  was  of  the  majority  of  the  sen- 

2.  or  the  middle  or  ate  arid  of  the  whole  body  of  the  old  commons,  numbered  amongst 

moderate  party.          fa  members  most  of  the  distinguished  men  of  the  time.     To  this 

party  belonged  Q.  Fabius  Maximus,  eminent  alike  in  peace  and  in  war,  and  who 

enjoyed  the  love3  of  his  countrymen  no  less  than  he  commanded 

their  admiration  and  esteem.    With  him  stood  his  friend  P.  Decius 

Mus,  thrice  his  colleague  in  the  consulship  when  Rome  needed  the  services  of  her 

bravest  and  ablest  generals  against  her  foreign  enemies ;  and  his 

P.  Deciu»Mus.  ,b  &.  ,  i  •     &      T  •    i  • 

colleague  also  in  that  memorable  censorship,  which  required  and 
found  in  them  all  the  statesman's  wisdom.  P.  Decius  might  have  disputed  the 
palm  of  happiness  in  Solon's  judgment  with  Tellus  the  Athenian.  Born  to  the 
truest  nobility,  the  son  of  that  P.  Decius,  who,  when  consul,  had  devoted  himself 

1  When  he  died  the  people  contributed  by  Fabius  Gurges,  the  son  of  the  old  Q.  Fabius, 
subscription  a  large  sum  for  the  expenses  of  his  employed  the  money  in  giving  a  public  enter- 
funeral,  which  seems  to  have  been  a  method  of  tainment  to  one  part  of  the  people,  cpulum, 
expressing  the  public  feeling  towards  the  dead,  and  in  sending  portions  of  meat  to  the  rest,  vis- 
even  when  his  family  was  tioo  wealthy  to  require  ceratio.  See  the  writer  "  de  Viris  HluBtribus," 
it  as  an  actual  assistance.  On  this  occasion,  Q.  in  his  life  of  Q.  Fabius. 


CHAF.  XXXII]  EMINENT  MEN  OF  THIS  PERIOD.  315 

to  death  for  his  country  in  the  great  battle  with  the  Latins,  he,  like  his  father, 
obtained  the  highest  honors  with  the  purest  fame  ;  and  after  having  performed 
the  greatest  services  in  peace  and  in  war,  and  having  been  rewarded  in  the  fullest 
measure  with  the  respect  and  affection  of  his  fellow-citizens,  he  too,  like  his 
father,  devoted  himself  to  death  to  save  Rome  from  defeat,  and  so  consigned  the 
glory  of  his  life,4  safe  from  all  stain,  and  crowned  with  the  yet  higher  glory  of 
his  death,  to  his  countrymen's  grateful  memory  forever.  Of  the  same  band,  yet 
rather  to  be  ranked  first  than  third,  was  M.  Valerius  Corvus,  to  Vftl  L  Com] 
whom,  no  less  than  to  Decius,  Solon  might  have  allowed  the  name 
of  happy.  His  youth  had  caught  the  last  rays  of  the  romantic  glory  of  earlier 
times  ;  and  his  single  combat  with  the  giant  Gaul,  and  the  wonderful  aid  which 
the  gods  had  then  vouchsafed  him,  was  sung  in  the  same  strains  as  the  valiant 
acts  of  the  heroes  of  old,  of  Camillus,  or  Cincinnatus,  or  Cornelius  Cossus.  His 
manhood  was  no  less  rich  in  glory  of  another  sort,  which,  if  less  brilliant,  was  more 
real.  Elected  consul  for  the  first  time  at  three-and-twenty,  five  years  afterwards, 
in  his  third  consulship,  he  won  this  famous  battle  of  Mount  Gaurus  against  the 
Samnites,  and  gave  in  the  victorious  issue  of  the  first  encounter  a  happy  omen  ot 
the  final  result  of  the  long  contest  between  the  two  nations.  He  was  elected 
consul  three  times  afterwards,  and  twice  dictator  ;  and  in  his  political  course, 
true  to  the  character  of  his  family,  he  finally  relieved  the  long  distress  of  the 
poorer  commons,  and  appeased  the  most  dangerous  commotion  which  had  ever 
yet  threatened  Rome  ;  and  he  re-enacted  the  famous  Valerian  law  in  his  fifth  con- 
sulship, that  great  law  of  appeal  from  the  sentence  of  the  magistrate  which  the 
Romans  regarded  as  the  main  bulwark  of  their  freedom.  In  his  sixth  consulship 
he  was  nearly  seventy  years  old,  but  he  lived  thirty  years  longer,  and  died  at 
the  full  age  of  a  hundred  years,5  after  having  witnessed  the  triumphant  end  of 
the  long  contest  with  the  Samnites,  which  three  generations  earlier  had  been 
under  his  own  auspices  so  successfully  begun.  Next  to  these  three  great  men 
we  may  rank  Q.  Publilius  Philo,  the  author  of  the  Publilian  laws, 

,     ,.  ,.  ,  Q.  Publilius  Ptilo. 

praetor,   dictator,  censor,  and  four  times  consul,  who  was  chosen 

consul  with  L.  Papirius  Cursor  after  the  disaster  of  Caudium,  as  being  with 

him  the  man  most  able  to  retrieve  the  honor  of  Rome.    Nor  should  c  Mceoiu3 

we  omit  C.  Maenius,7  twice  dictator,  a  man  odious  to  the  high 

patrician  party  for  the  firmness  with  which  he  opposed  their  projects,  but  re- 

pelling their  attacks  by  the  spotless  innocence  of  his  public  life.     To  the  same 

party  belonged  also,  in  all   probability,  Q.  Aulius    Cerretanus,8 

J    ,,  -L^     ,^     -r.    i  •         •      i  •      c     \    Q-  Auliu»  CerreUnui. 

twice  consul,  chosen  master  of  the  horse  by  Q.  Fabius  m  his  first 

dictatorship,  who  sacrificed  his  life  in  covering  the  retreat  of  the  Romans  in  the 

route  of  Lautulae,  and  M.   Foslius,  master  of  the  horse  to  C. 

Msenius  in  his  second  dictatorship,  like  him  obnoxious  to  the  high 

patrician  party,9  and  like  him  protected  by  his  integrity. 

*  AoKd  Si  noi  $ri\ovi>  av&pbs  atptrriv  n-puriy  re  /jirj-  two  last  consulships,  and  they  cannot  be  fixed 

vvovaa  Kal  rcXevraia  fitpaiovaa  t'i  vvv  TiiivSs  xaraff'  positively.     In  his  first  consulship  he  was  only 

rpoQt.    TJiucydid.  II.  42.    In  Decius'  case  his  three-and-twenty  (Livy,  VII.  26)  ;   which,  fol- 

death  was  not  the  "first  indication"  of   his  lowing  the  chronology  of  the  Fasti,  would  give 

worth,  but  the  "  last  confirmation"  of  it  ;  it  was  382  for  the  year  of  his  birth.    He  lived,  there- 

the  worthy  close  of  a  noble  life.  fore,  to  the  year  482  [475,  Niebuhr]  ;  that  is,  to 

6  Pliny,  Histor.  Natur.  VII.  48.    Pliny  says  the  year  after  the  capture  of  Tarentum,  and  the 

that  forty  six-years  intervened  between  his  first  end  of  the  fourth  Samnite  war. 

consulship  and  his  sixth.     His  sixth  consulship  6  Livy,  VIII.  15.    VIII.  12.    VIII.  17.     For 

was  in  the  year  453.  according  to  Pliny's  own  his  four  consulships  see  Livy,  VIII.  12-22,  IX. 

chronology  [446  Niebuhr],  if  we  place  it  four  7,  and  Diodorus,  XIX.  66,  and  the  Fasti  Capit- 

years  after  the  consulship  of  P.  Semnronius  and  olini. 

P.  Sulpicius,  which  with  Pliny  is  the  year  449.  7  For  his  second  dictatorship,  see  Livy,  IX. 

(Hist.  Natur.  XXXIII.  §  20.)    His  first  consul-  26  ;  for  his  first,  see  the  fragments  of  the"  Fasti 

ship  accordingly  would  fall  in  406,  but  accord-  Capitolini,  and  note  61  of  Chap.  XXXI.  of  this 

ing  to  the  Fasti  Capitolini,  which  place  his  sec-  volume. 


ond  consulship  two  years  afterwards,  in  407,  it        B  Livy,  VIII.  37,  IX.  15,  and  for  his  deatt 
His  third  according  to  the    see  the  Fasti  Capitolini,  and  Diodorus,  XIX. 


would  fall  in  405. 

&amc  chronology  was  in  410  ;  and  his  fourth  in    72.  Livy,  IX.  23. 

418.   The  Fasti  are  wanting  at  the  period  of  his        6  Livy,  IX.  26. 


316  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXII 

The  third  or  new  popular  party  could  not  be  expected,  from  its  very  nature, 
s.  or  the  new  popniar  to  produce,  as  yet,  any  men  of  high  distinction.  Yet  one  individual 
party.  Cn.  Fiavius.  belonging  to  it  made  himself  remarkable,  and  will  claim  a  place  in 
this  history,  Cn.  Flavius,  the  scribe  or  clerk,  who  divulged  the  secrets  of  the  pon- 
tifical calendar,  and  of  the  technicalities  of  actions  at  law,  and  was  rewarded 
with  the  curule  eedileship  in  spite  of  his  humble  origin  and  occupation. 

That  we  are  able  to  notice  so  many  individual  characters  at  this  period,  shows 
that  we  are  arrived  at  the  dawn  of  what  may  be  called  real  history.  And  this 
previous  sketch  of  the  parties  of  the  commonwealth,  and  of  their  most  eminent 
members,  may,  perhaps,  make  the  account  of  the  transactions  in  which  they  were 
engaged,  not  only  clearer,  but  more  interesting. 

During  the  first  half  of  the  Samnite  war,  but  in  what  year10  is  uncertain,  there 
Abolition  of  personal  was  passed  that  famous  law  which  prohibited  personal  slavery  for 
»»very  for  debt.  debt ;  no  creditor  might  for  the  future  attach  the  person  of  his 
debtor,  but  he  might  only  seize  his  property ;  and  all  those  whose  personal  free- 
dom was  pledged  for  their  debts  (nexi),  were  released  from  their  liability,  if  they 
could  swear  that  they  had  property  enough  to  meet  their  creditor's  demands. 
It  does  not  appear  that  this  great  alteration  in  the  law  was  the  work  of  any  trib- 
une, or  that  it  arose  out  of  any  general  or  deliberate  desire  to  soften  the  severity 
of  the  ancient  practice.  It  was  occasioned,  we  are  told,  by  one  scandalous  in- 
stance of  abuse  of  power  on  the  part  of  a  creditor  towards  his  debtor,  who,  ac- 
cording to  the  old  law,  had  been  given  over  to  him  as  a  slave  (addictus),  because 
he  had  pledged  his  person  for  his  debts,  and  had  been  unable  to  redeem  his 
pledge.  The  outrage  excited  so  general  a  feeling,  that  the  senate  immediately 
passed  a  bill  for  the  effectual  prevention  of  such  atrocities  for  the  future  ;  and  the 
consuls,  or  rather,  as  it  would  seem,  the  dictator,  C.  Poetelius,  was  desired  to  pro- 
pose it  to  the  people,  that  it  might  become  a  law.  But  although  personal  slavery 
for  debt  was  thus  done  away,  yet  the  consequences  of  insolvency  were  much  more 
serious  at  Rome  than  they  are  in  modern  Europe.  He  whose  property  had  been 
once  made  over  to  his  creditors  by  the  praetor's  sentence,  became,  ipso  facto, 
infamous  ;n  he  lost  his  tribe,  and  with  it  all  his  political  rights ;  and  the  for- 
feiture was  irrevocable,  even  though  he  might  afterwards  pay  his  debts  to  the 
full ;  nor  was  it  even  in  the  power  of  the  censors  to  replace  him  on  the  roll  of 
citizens.  So  sacred  a  thing  did  credit  appear  in  the  eyes  of  the  Romans  ;  and  so 
just  did  they  consider  it,  that  a  failure  in  the  discharge  of  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant social  obligations  should  be  visited  with  a  forfeiture  of  social  and  politi- 
cal rights. 

As  the  internal  history  of  Rome  during  this  period  can  only  be  collected  from 
state  of  partie.  with  a  few  detached  notices,  we  are  compelled  to  pass  over  in  silence 
ri-  those  memorable  years  which  were  marked  by  the  rising  of  the 
Tusculans  and  Prtvernatians,  and  by  the  defeat  at  the  pass  of 
Caudium.  This  last  disaster,  indeed,  was  such  as  to  still  for  a  time  all  domes- 
tic disputes,  and  to  make  every  Roman  feel  alike  for  the  national  calamity ; 
and  the  election  of  L.  Papirius  Cursor  and  Q.  Publilius  as  consuls  for  the  follow- 
ing year,  seems  to  show  a  common  desire  to  appoint  the  two  ablest  generals  of 

10  Livy  places  the  story  in  the  consulship  of  Miiller  has  corrected  this  into,  "  Hoc  C.  Popilio 

C.  Poetelius,  in  the  very  first  year  of  the  war  ;  auctore  Visolo  dictatore  sublatuin."     "  Visolo" 

VIII.  28.    But  as  Dionysius  (Fragm.  Vol.  IV.  having  been  a  conjecture  of  Anton.  Augustino, 

r2338,  Reiske)  and  Valerius  Maximus  (VI.  1,  and  approved  by  Scaliger,  because  the  cogno- 
9)  relate  it  as  having  happened  after  the  affair  men  of  C.  Poetelius  was  Visolus,  as  we  learn 
of  the  pass  of  Caudium.  Niebuhr  refers  it  to  the  from  the  Fasti  Capitolini.  .But  I  would  rather 
dictatorship  of  C.  Poetelius,  in  the  12th  year  of  read  "  C.  Popilio  provocante,"  in  the  former  part 
the  war.  (Livy,  IX.  28.)  A  passage  in  Varro,  of  the  sentence,  than  "  C.  Popilio  auctore." 
de  Ling.  Lat.  (VII.  105,  ed.  Miiller),  relates  to  "  "  In  pudoris  notam  capitis  poena  conversa, 
this  subject,  but  is  so  corrupt  in  the  MSS.  that  bonorum  adhibitS  proscriptione,  suffundere  ma- 
its  testimony  cannot  be  appealed  to  with  cer-  luithominissanguinemquamettundere." — Ter- 
tainty.  It  runs  "  Hoc  C.  Popilio  vocare  Sillo  tullian,  Apologet.  4. 

dictatore  sublatum  ne  fieret,  ut  omnes,  qui  bo-  See  also  the  strong  language  of  Cicero  pro 

namcopiainjurarunt,neessentnexi,sedsoluti."  Quintio,  15,  16. 


CHAP.  XXXII]  C.  M^ENIUS  DICTATOR  3 IT 

the  commonwealth,  without  any  reference  to  party  distinctions.  But  the  war 
with  Tusculum,  Privernum,  and  Velitrae  was  of  another  character ;  and  the  claim? 
of  these  cities,  and  the  treatment  which  should  be  shown  to  them,  must  have  beer 
judged  of  very  variously.  Are  we  mistaken  in  supposing  that  the  moderate  01 
middle  party  supported  the  liberal  policy  which  was  actually  pursued,  while  the 
new  popular  party,  the  party  of  the  populace,  called  aloud  for  severity  and  ven- 
geance ?  We  know  that  L.  Fulvius  Curvus,  who  had  so  lately  led  the  Tusculans 
to  assail  the  city  of  Rome,  was  elected  consul,12  together  with  Q.  Fabius ;  and 
that,  six  or  seven  years  afterwards,  he  was  appointed  master  of  the  horse13  by  L. 
^Emilius  Mamercinus ;  and  both  Fabius  and  ^Emilius  were  eminent  amongst  the 
leaders  of  the  moderate  party.  We  know  also  that  M.  Flavius,  the  tribune,  who 
brought  forward  the  bill  for  the  punishment  of  the  Tusculans,  was  a  man  of 
doubtful  private  character,14  and  that  he  was  said  to  have  owed  his  first  tribune- 
ship  to  a  largess  which  he  had  given  to  the  poorer  citizens,  in  gratitude  for  hav- 
ing been  acquitted  by  them  when  indicted  by  the  aediles  on  a  criminal  charge. 
It  appears  also  that  he  must  have  been  elected  tribune  twice,  at  least,  within 
four  years  ;15  which,  in  a  man  of  such  character,  seems  to  argue  that  he  continued 
to  practise  the  arts  of  a  demagogue.  If  this  be  so,  his  bill  for  the  punishment  of 
the  Tusculans  exactly  resembled,  both  in  himself  and  in  the  personal  and  politi- 
cal character  of  its  author,  the  famous  bill  of  Cleon  for  the  execution  of  the  My- 
tileneans  :  and  we  have  here  another  instance  that  a  low  popular  party  has  as  lit- 
tle claim  as  that  of  the  high  aristocracy  to  the  title  of  high-principled  and  liberal. 
The  six  years  which  followed  the  affair  of  Caudium  are  to  us,  as  far  as  regards 
domestic  affairs,  a  blank ;  but  in  the  year  439  (Niebuhr,  434),  the 

,     ,,  ,,  T  ,    .  J      ,      ,  \  ,     ,.    '  Intrigues    of  the    nris- 

defeat  of  Lautulse  and  its  consequences  led  to  the  second  dictator-  tpcmtieai  party  of  the 

1   •  /•  /~«      •»  r          •  r>        t   •    i        i  •  i  tlme   °f    t"e   revolt   ol 

ship  of  U.  Msemus,  an  event  of  which  the  notices  preserved  to  us  capua.  c. Maemus die- 
are  unusually  full.  Capua  had  revolted,16  and  as  the  consuls,  M. 
Poetelius  and  C.  Sulpicius,  were  fully  engaged  with  the  Samnites,  a  dictator  with 
a  third  army  was  appointed  to  reduce  the  Campanians.  The  battle  of  Cinna,  as 
we  have  seen,  terrified  the  Campanians  into  submission ;  and  the  principal  leaders 
of  the  revolt  perished  by  their  own  hands.  But  the  dictator,  C.  Msmius,17  dur- 
ing his  inquiry  into  the  origin  of  the  revolt  at  Capua,  gained  some  startling  infor- 
mation, which  showed  that  it  had  received  encouragement  from  a  powerful  party 
in  Rome  itself ;  the  spirit18  of  his  commission,  he  argued,  called  upon  him  to  fol- 
low up  this  investigation ;  and  when  he  returned  to  Rome  he  pursued  it  with 
vigor.  No  proof,  it  seems,  could  be  obtained  of  any  direct  act  of  treason  ;  but 
there  existed  what  were  in  Greece  the  well-known  preparations  for  a  revolution, 
a  number  of  organized  societies19  for  the  purpose  of  influencing  the  elections,  and 
procuring  the  appointment  of  particular  candidates.  These  societies,  it  is  implied, 
consisted  partly  of  the  highest  members  of  the  aristocracy,  and  partly  of  the 
lowest  classes  of  citizens,  both  at  present  being  combined  in  one  common  cause. 
The  dictator,  therefore,  encountered  a  formidable  opposition ;  the  high  patrician 
party  recriminated  upon  him  and  upon  his  master  of  the  horse,  M.  Foslius  Flac- 
cinator :  "  Men  of  the  commons,20  such  as  they  were,  needed  undue  means  to 
secure  their  way  to  public  offices,  rather  than  the  patricians,  who  derived  from 

12  Livy,  VIII.  38.  "  Livy,  IX.  26. 

13  Livy,  IX.  21.  la  "  Versa  Komam  interpretando  res,  non  no- 

14  Livy,  VIII.  22.  minatim  qui  Capuse,  sed  in  universum  qui  us- 

15  Compare  Livy,  VIII.  22,  and  37.    Huschke,  quam  coissent  conjurassentve  adversus  rempub- 
in  his  work  on  the  Constitution  of  Ser.  Tullius,  llcam,  quceri  senatum  jussisse." — Livy,  IX.  26. 
p.  730,  refers  to  this  M.  Flavius  the  anecdote  re-  19  "  Coitiones  honorum  adipiscendorum  caus4 
lilted  by  Valerius  Maximus,  VIII.  1,  §  7.     He  factas." — Livy,   IX.  26.     These  words  are  al- 
ingeniously  observes,  that  the  anecdote  must  most  a  translation  of  the  description  given  by 
retbr  to  a  period  when  the  number  of  the  tribes  Thucydides  of  the  aristocratical  clubs  of  Athens, 
was  twenty-nine,  which  exactly  tallies  with  the  rug  £ui>w//o<7/af,  a'lxep  tTvy%avov  xptirepov  lv  ry  x6\£i 
date  of  the  story  as  given  by  Livy.    According  ovam  ini  6iKais  Kal  apxa'J-    VIII.  54. 

to  Valerius  Maximus,  the  cu'rule  sedile  by  whom        20  "  Ncgare  nobilium  id  crimen  esse,  quibua 
Flavius  was  impeached  was  C.  Valerius.  si  nulla  obstetur  fraude,  pateat  via  ad  honorem, 

18  Diodorus,  XIX.  76.  sed  hominum  novorura."— Livy,  IX.  26. 


318  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXU 

their  noble  birth  a  sufficient  and  an  honorable  title  to  the  votes  of  their  country* 
men."  Immediately  the  dictator  and  his  master  of  the  horse  courted  and  called 
for  the  fullest  inquiry  into  their  conduct ;  they  resigned  their  offices,  were  put 
upon  their  trial  before  the  consuls,  and,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the  aristocratical 
party  to  prove  them  guilty,  they  were  most  honorably  acquitted.21  Q.  Publilius 
Philo,  the  most  distinguished  commoner  of  his  time,  was  accused  by  the  same 
party  on  the  same  charge,  and  was  acquitted  no  less  completely.  But  by  thus 
dexterously  assailing  their  assailants,  the  high  nobility  gained  a  considerable  ad- 
vantage ;  it  seemed  as  if  both  parties  were  open  to  accusation,  and  that  an  in- 
quiry into  an  offence  so  universal  must  needs  be  fruitless.  Besides,,  the  most 
serious  danger  had  been  removed  by  the  favorable  turn  of  the  events  of  the  war ; 
and  when  men's  minds  were  no  longer  under  the  influence  of  alarm,  the  inquiry 
would  cease  to  be  supported  by  that  strong  public  feeling  which  alone  could 
enable  it  to  proceed  with  effect.  *  Accordingly,  the  societies  triumphed  ;  and  the 
coalition  between  the  high  aristocracy  and  the  populace,  thus  ineffectually  attacked, 
began  to  manifest  itself  more  freely  and  more  decidedly. 

Accordingly,  two  years  afterwards,  Appius  Claudius  was  elected  censor,  to- 
censorship  of  Appiu.  gether  with  C.  Plautius.  The  censorship,  it  should  be  remem- 
bered, was,  in  point  of  rank,  the  highest  office  in  the  common- 
wealth :  its  power  was  almost  unbounded  ;  its  command  over  the  public  money, 
and  the  opportunities  of  distinction  and  of  influence  which  it  afforded  as  origin- 
ating and  conducting  all  public  works,  made  it  an  especial  object  of  ambition  to 
a  man  like  Appius,  who  was  less  fitted  to  signalize  himself  as  a  general.  Besides, 
he  probably  had  from  the  first  formed  the  design  of  prolonging  his  term  of  office 
for  the  full  period  of  five  years,  in  defiance  of  the  ^Emilian  law ;  and  so  vast  a 
power,  enjoyed  during  so  long  a  period,  might  be  made  to  serve  the  wildest  pur- 
poses of  ambition. 

One  of  his  earliest  acts  as  censor  was  to  revise  the  list  of  the  senators.  It 
mi  revision  of  the  ii»t  was  usual  on  these  occasions  to  add  to  the  list  the  names  of  such 
of  mutton,  citizens  as  seemed  best  to  deserve  that  honor ;  and  the  selection 

would  commonly  be  made  from  those  who,  within  the  last  five  years,  had  been 
elected  for  the  first  time  to  any  curule  magistracy,  and  who,  therefore,  had  not 
been  in  the  senate  at  the  last  census.  But,  in  addition  to  the  deaths  caused  by 
the  Samnite  war  (and  the  master  of  the  horse  could  not  have  been  the  only  sen- 
ator who  fell  in  the  rout  of  Lautulas),  the  year  immediately  preceding  Appius' 
censorship  had  been  marked  by  a  visitation  of  pestilence,  so  that  the  names  which 
he  would  have  to  add  to  the  roll  of  the  senate  would  be  more  than  usually  nu- 
merous. To  the  utter  scandal  of  the  old  plebeians,  no  less  than  of  the  patricians, 
Appius  passed  over  many  names  which  other  censors  would  have  inserted,  and 
filled  up  the  vacancies  with  numbers  of  the  low  popular  party,  many  of  whom 
were  the  sons  of  freedmen,22  and  therefore,  according  to  Roman  law,  the  grand- 
sons of  nobody.  The  persons  thus  chosen  were,  probably,  wealthy  men,  and 
many  of  them  may  have  already  filled  the  offices  of  tribune  or  plebeian  aedile ; 
but  the  time  when  the  senate  had  been  a  purely  patrician  assembly  was  too  re- 
cent to  allow  of  its  being  thrown  open  not  merely  to  commoners,  but  to  men 
whose  grandfathers  had  been  slaves  ;  and  the  attempt  of  Appius  to  fill  the  senate 
with  those  who  would  have  been  no  better  than  his  creatures,  like  some  of  his 
ancestor's  colleagues  in  the  decemvirate,  was  too  violent  a  measure  to  be  endured. 
Accordingly,  the  consuls  of  the  next  year,  C.  Junius  Bubulcus  and  Q.  ./Emilius 
Barbula,  set  his  list  aside  without  hesitation,  and  summoned  those  only  as  sena- 
tors whose  names  had  been  on  the  roll  of  the  last  previous  censors,  L.  Papirius 
Crass  us  and  C.  Msenius. 

Not  discouraged,  however,  by  this  ill  success,  Appius  acted  on  the  same  sys- 

"  "  Publilins  etiam  Philo,  multiplicatis  sum-  tas,  ceterum  invisus  nobilitati,  causam  dixit."— • 
ails  lionoribus  post  res  tot  domi  belloque  ffcs-  Livy,  IX.  26. 

22  Diodorus,  XX.  35,  36.    Livy,  IX.  29,  80. 


CHAP.  XXX 11. j  CALENDAR  OF  CN.  FLAVIUS.  319 

tern  when  he  proceeded  to  revise  the  rolls  of  the  several  tribes.  His  He  admi(8  mwy  free<t 
colleague,  C.  Plautius,  unable  to  bear  the  shame  of  seeing  his  list  •"•«•«•*•»••• 
of  the  senate  utterly  disregarded,  had  resigned  his  office  at  the  end  of  the  year.23 
If  a  censor  died  or  resigned  before  the  completion  of  the  eighteen  months  fixed 
by  the  ^Emilian  law  as  the  term  of  his  authority,  it  was  accounted  unlucky  to 
elect  another  in  his  place ;  and  his  colleague,  on  such  occasions,  usually  resigned 
immediately,  rather  than  incur  the  odium  of  wielding  such  vast  powers  alone. 

ppius,  however,  had  no  such  scruples,  and  continued  to  act  as  sole  censor.  — In- 
his  revision  of  the  tribes  he  admitted  a  great  number24  of  freedmen  and  citizens  of 
ow  condition  to  the  enjoyment  of  a  full  franchise ;  and  he  entered  them  pur- 
posely in  all  the  tribes,  that  the  influence  of  his  party  might  extend  to  all.  It 
will  readily  be  understood  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  members  of  the  more 
remote  tribes  especially,  would  attend  but  seldom  at  the  comitia ;  whilst  the  city 
populace  and  the  tradesmen  and  artisans  were  always  on  the  spot,  and  would  b? 
frequently  the  majority  of  voters  in  their  respective  tribes.  Thus,  the  old  agri- 
cultural commons  saw  themselves  overwhelmed  by  their  new  tribesmen,  and  that 
share  in  the  government  which  they  had  so  hardly  won  was  on  the  point  of  being 
wrested  from  them  by  men  whom,  according  to  the  general  feeling  of  the  ancient 
world,  they  despised  as  little  better  than  slaves. 

Thus  far  the  conduct  of  Appius  was  not  inconsistent  with  a  mere  desire  to  re- 
store the  old  ascendency  of  the  patricians;  for  the  lowest  classes,  He encournpeg Cn. Fia- 
being  as  yet  quite  incapable  of  exercising  dominion,  might  safely  SjJ?JH  iS  JSxSS 
be  used  as  auxiliaries  for  humbling  the  classes  next  above  them;  ^,dfoSMMuSs^ 
just  as  the  feudal  kings  occasionally  courted  the  commons,  and  law> 
were  enabled  through  their  aid  to  weaken  the  power  of  the  nobles,  without  any 
danger  of  seeing  their  own  authority  subjected  to  the  control  of  a  representative 
assembly.  But  if  it  be  true  that  Appius  encouraged  Cn.  Flavius0-3  in  the  acts 
which  gave  such  offence  to  the  aristocracy,  we  cannot  conceive  his  objects  to  have 
been  other  than  personal ;  for  it  was  against  the  old  patrician  influence,  much 
more  than  against  the  new  plebeian  nobility,  that  the  proceedings  of  Flavius  were 
directed.  This  man  was  the  son  of  a  freedman,  a  clerk  or  writer  by  his  occupa- 
tion, and  at  this  time  employed  in  the  business  of  the  censor's  office  under  Ap- 
pius. It  was  by  Appius'  instigation  that  he  published  his  famous  calendar  or 
almanac ;  that  is,  he  stuck  up  whited  boards  round  the  Forum,  on  which  were 
marked  down  the  days  and  parts  of  days  in  every  month  on  which  law  business 
might  lawfully  be  done  ;  a  knowledge  which  the  people  had  hitherto  been  obliged 
to  gain  from  the  pontifices,  or  a  few  of  the  patricians  who  understood  the  pon- 
tifical law ;  and  as  the  days  did  not  recur  regularly,  and  the  principle  which  de- 
termined them  was  carefully  kept  a  secret,  the  people  were  wholly  at  their  in- 
structors' mercy.86  At  the  same  time  Flavius  also  published  an  account'27  of 
the  forms  to  be  observed  in  the  several  ways  of  proceeding  at  law ;  a  work 
which,  in  after  times,  must  have  been  exceedingly  curious  ;  but  which  must  have 
utterly  failed  in  practice,  if  its  object  was  to  enable  a  common  man  to  conduct 
his  own  suit,  without  consulting  some  one  learned  in  the  law,  Accordingly,  it 
was  to  the  publication  of  his  calendar  that  Flavius  owed  his  gn.  at  popularity  ;  he 
was  elected  soon  after  tribune  ;28  he  was  appointed  to  one  or  two  other  impor- 
tant public  offices,  and  six  years  later,  as  we  shall  'See  presently,  he  obtained  the 
rank  of  curule  sedile. 

Thus  making-  it  his  pleasure  to  lessen  all  dignity  and  to  diminish  all  influence 
but  his  own,  offending  in  his  pride  the  old  aristocracy  no  less  than 
the  new,  and  the  middle  classes,  Appius  now,  as  sole  censor,  feel-  H's  ruWl 

3  Livy,  IX.  29.  *  "Publicatis  diebus  fastis,  qnos  populus  a 

Diodorus,  XX.  35,  36.    Livy,  IX.  46.  paucis   principutn    quotidle   pete  bat  "—Pliny, 

"  Appii  Coeci  scriba,  cujus  hortatu  exce-  XXXIII.  6. 

perat  eos  dies  consultando  assidue  sagaci  ingc-  '•"  "Actiones   composuit."     See  Cicero,    da 

mo  prom ulgaveratque."— Pliny,  Hist.   Natur.  Orat.  I.  41.     Epp.  ad  Attic.  Vt.  1. 

xxxju.  G.  Ed.  sniig.  ^  Livy>  IX<  j£ 


320  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXU 

ing  himself  in  possession  of  almost  kingly  power,  resolved  to  distinguish  his  name 
by  public  works  on  a  most  magnificent  scale,  such  as  the  greatest  king  might 
emulate.  Without  any  authority  from  the  senate,29  he  applied  the  large  sums  of 
public  money  which  w^ere  paid  into  his  hands  by  that  multitude  of  persons  who 
farmed  the  state  property  in  all  its  manifold  kinds,  to  the  execution  of  two  great 
works  :  one,  the  construction  of  a  military  road  from  Rome  to  Capua ;  the  other, 
the  bringing  a  constant  supply  of  good  water  into  the  city  from  a  distance  of 
about  eight  miles  from  the  Esquiline  gate,  partly  by  pipes  under  ground,  and 
partly  by  an  aqueduct. 

The  great  road  from  Rome  to  Capua,  which  was  afterwards  continued  to  Brun- 
i-he  Appian  Road  to  disium,  has,  indeed,  immortalized  the  name  of  its  author  ;  nor  will 
Capua-  the  mightiest  works  of  modern  engineers  ever  rival  the  fame  of 

the  Appian  Way.  This  has  been  owing  to  accidental  causes ;  yet  the  road  was 
a  magnificent  undertaking,  and  even  without  noticing  the  excellence  of  its  pave- 
ment, which  was  added  at  a  later  period,  we  may  justly  admire  the  labor  be- 
stowed in'  order  to  keep  its  line  generally  on  a  level,  the  deep  cuttings  through 
hills,  and  the  vast  substructions  of  massy  stones  on  which  it  was  carried  across 
valleys.  The  whole  line  from  Rome  to  Capua  was  about  120  English  miles  ;  the 
road  left  the  city  at  the  Porta  Capena,  the  gate  of  Capua ;  it  passed  in  a  straight 
line  over  the  Campagna  till  it  reached  the  foot  of  the  Alban  hills  at  Bovillae  ;  there 
it  ascended  to  the  higher  grounds,  and,  passing  through  Aricia,  and  leaving  Veli- 
trse  and  the  modern  road  to  Naples  on  the  left,  it  descended  again  into  the  plain 
nearly  in  the  same  straight  line,  and  ran  on  to  the  Pontine  marshes.  At  this 
point,  as  Niebuhr  thinks,  the  road  stopped ;  and  the  communication  through  the 
Pontine  marshes  was  carried  on  by  a  canal  almost  as  far  as  Tarracina.  But  the 
very  excavation  of  the  canal  would,  of  itself,  supply  materials,  in  part,  for  an  em- 
bankment by  the  side  of  it ;  and  it  is  more  likely  that  both  it  and  the  road  were 
carried  through  the  marshes  together.  Afterwards  the  road  ascended  the  mount- 
ains behind  Tarracina,  thus  avoiding  the  ill-omened  pass  of  Lautula3,  and  soon 
after  descended  again  into  the  plain  of  Fundi,  crossed  the  Liris  at  Minturnse,  and 
the  Vulturnus  at  Casilinum,  and  three  miles  further  it  arrived  at  the  termina- 
tion of  its  course,  the  city  of  Capua.so 

The  other  work  of  Appius  was  less  remarkable  in  itself,  than  as  being  the 
The  A  ians  ueduct  earn'es*  °^  those  famous  aqueducts  which  still,  amid  their  ruins, 
are  such  striking  and  characteristic  monuments  of  Roman  great- 
ness. In  fact,  it  can  scarcely  be  called  an  aqueduct,  for  the  water31  was  carried 
under  ground  throughout  the  whole  of  its  course,  with  the  exception  of  sixty 
Roman  paces,  or  about  a  hundred  yards,  in  the  low  ground  by  the  Porta  Ca- 
pena, where  it  was  conveyed  partly  on  arches,  and  partly  on  a  solid  substruction 
of  massy  stones.  Its  termination  was  at  the  salt  works  by  the  river-side,  close 
by  the  Porta  Trigemina,  and  immediately  under  the  northwest  corner  of  the 
Aventine ;  and  it  seems  to  have  been  especially  intended  to  supply  water  to  the 
inhabitants  of  the  low  district  about  the  Circus,  who  had  hitherto  been  obliged 
to  use  the  water  of  the  river,  or  the  rain-water  collected  in  tanks  or  cisterns. 
When  we  remember  that  this  part  of  Rome  was  particularly  inhabited  by  the 
poorest  citizens,  we  may  suspect  that  Appius  wished  to  repay  the  support  which 
he  had  already  received  from  them,  or  to  purchase  its  continuance  for  the  time 
to  come  ;  but  we  shall  feel  unmixed  pleasure  in  observing  that  the  first  Roman 
aqueduct  was  constructed  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor,  and  of  those  who  most 
needed  it. 

"  These  two  works  exhausted,"  says  Diodorus,  "  the  whole  revenue  of  Rome." 

29  Diodorus,  XX.  35,  36.  31  The  whole  account  of  this  aqueduct  is  taken 

80  It  is  well  known  that  the  ancient  Capua  did  from  the  work  of  Frontinus.    lie  was  superin- 

not  stand  on  the  Vulturnus,  but  about  three  tendent  of  the  aqueducts  in  the  reign  of  Nerva. 

miles  to  the  south  of  it,  on  the  site  of  the  pros-  and  his  account  of  them  is  exceedingly  full  and 

*nt   S.  Maria  di  Capua.    The  modern  Capua  accurate. 

torresponds  with  the  ancient  Casilinum. 


CHAP  XXXIL]  APPIUS  RETAINS  HIS  CENSORSHIP. 

But,  considering  the  unavoidable  expenses  of  the  war,  to  which 

...  •  -I       i         i«  11  y  Hovr  money  and  labor- 

the  tnbutum  was  wholly  appropriated,  the  disposable  revenue  from  •»  were  found  for  the« 
the  vectigalia,  or  rents  received  by  the  commonwealth,  must  have 
been  insufficient ;  and  Niebuhr  reasonably  conjectures  that  Appius  must  have 
sold  large  portions  of  the  state's  domain,  in  order  to  raise  the  money  which  he 
required.  The  workmen  employed  consisted,  doubtless  in  great  measure,  of  the 
prisoners  taken  from  the  Samnites,  either  in  battle  or  in  the  repeated  invasions 
of  their  territory ;  the  rest  were  the  public  or  government  slaves,  or  those  fur- 
nished by  the  several  contractors  for  the  work :  for  such  labors  were  held  to  be 
degrading  to  free  citizens,  and  Appius  would  have  acquired  no  popularity  amongst 
the  poorest  classes,  by  offering  to  provide  them  with  employment  in  making  his 
road,  or  digging  his  water-course. 

The  regular  term  of  the  censor's  office,  eighteen  months,  was  far  too  short  for 
the  completion  of  these  works  ;  and  had  they  been  finished  by  an- 
other censor,  the  glory  of  them  would  have  been  lost  to  Appius.  iSSlp  SjSd  tkVio 
Setting,  therefore,  all  law  and  all  opposition  at  defiance,  Appius  per-  g' 
sisted  in  retaining  his  censorship  when  the  eighteen  months  were  expired  ;  and 
although  the  tribune  P.  Sempronius  Sophus,32  one  of  the  most  eminent  com- 
moners of  this  period,  threatened  to  send  him  to  prison  if  he  persisted  in  dis- 
obeying the  law,  and  although  six  of  the  other  tribunes  supported  their  colleague, 
yet  the  remaining  three  promised  Appius  their  protection ;  and  as  their  negative 
was  all-powerful,  Appius  was  secured  from  any  molestation  so  long  as  they  con- 
tinued in  office.  He  found  some  tribunes  equally  devoted  to  him  in  the  next 
year,  for  he  retained  his  censorship  four  years,  and  in  the  fifth  he  endeavored  to 
add  to  it  the  power  and  dignity  of  consul,  and  whilst  he  still  continued  to  be 
censor,  he  declared  himself  a  candidate  for  the  consulship.  Here,  however,  that 
negative  power  of  the  tribunes  which  had  hitherto  been  his  support  was  em- 
ployed against  him :  L.  Furius33  forbade  the  business  of  the  comitia  to  proceed, 
until  Appius  had  resigned  his  censorship.  Then,  however,  he  was  elected  con- 
sul, and  perhaps  in  this  capacity  finished  and  dedicated  the  two  works  of  which 
he  so  greatly  coveted  the  glory. 

The  extreme  moderation  of  the  party  opposed  to  Appius  deserves  in  all  these 
transactions  the  highest  praise.  They  composed  probably  the  wige  moderation  of *« 
majority  in  the  senate,  and  if  they  had  exerted  their  whole  Party°i>p°<*dtohim. 
strength  they  must  have  been  also  the  majority  in  the  comitia.  Yet  they  suf- 
fered Appius  to  defy  the  laws  for  a  period  of  two  years  and  a  half,  and  after- 
wards they  allowed  him  to  be  elected  consul  without  opposition,  nor  when  he 
came  a  private  citizen  did  they  ever  impeach  him  for  the  violence  of  his  con- 
uct.  We  cannot,  in  our  ignorance  of  the  details  of  these  times,  appreciate  fully 
be  wisdom  of  this  conduct ;  but  as  violence  begets  violence,  so  unquestionably 
oes  moderation  in  political  contests  lead  to  moderation  in  return.  The  personal 
ambition  of  Appius  had  been  gratified  even  beyond  the  law  ;  and  this  his  politi- 
cal opponents  had  endured  at  the  time,  nor  did  they  seek  to  punish  it  afterwards. 
Nothing  was  attempted  against  him  which  could  either  irritate  his  own  passions, 
or  invest  him  in  the  eyes  of  the  multitude  with  the  character  of  a  martyr  in  their 
cause.  If  he  had  ever  carried  his  views  still  higher  than  to  a  five  years'  censor- 
ship, if  the  hope  of  regal  dominion  had  ever  floated  before  his  eyes,  the  forbear- 
ance shown  towards  him  deprived  him  not  only  of  every  pretext  for  further  vio- 
lence, but,  appealing  to  the  nobler  part  of  his  nature,  restrained  him  for  very 
shame  from  endeavoring  to  wrest  more,  where  so  much  had  been  already  yielded 
to  him  ;  it  would  not  suffer  him  to  assail  that  constitution  which  had  shown  itself 
towards  him  at  once  so  confident  and  so  placable.  Ten  years  after  his  first  con- 
sulship he  was  elected  consul  again  in  the  midst  of  the  third  Samnite  war, 
and  he  obtained  the  proetorship  in  the  year  following.  He  bore  his  part  not 


83  Livy,  IX.  33.  »  Livy,  IX.  42. 

21 


322  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAp.XXXtt 

without  honor,  amongst  the  greatest  generals  of  his  day,  in  that  most  arduous 
contest  when  the  Gauls  again  fought  against  Rome  with  the  Etruscans  and  the 
Samnites  to  aid  them ;  and  in  his  old  age  he  had  the  glory  of  determining  the 
senate,  by  the  last  effort  of  his  eloquence,  not  to  treat  with  the  ambassador  of 
Pyrrhus. 

The  example  which  Appius  had  set  in  his  public  works  was  followed  by  the 
other  public  works,  succeeding  censors,  M.  Valerius  Maximus  and  C.  Junius  Bubulcus. 
•rue  valerian  way.  They  also  made  some  roads34  through  the  country  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Rome ;  that  is,  they  either  improved  the  line  of  the  existing  local 
roads,  or  widened  them,  and  constructed  them  of  better  materials.  One  of  the 
roads,  thus  in  a  manner  made  anew,  led  from  Rome  to  Tibur ;  and  this  being 
afterwards  continued  through  the  country  of  the  JEquians  by  Carseoli  and  Alba, 
as  far  as  Sulmo  and  Corfinium,  and  thus  having  become  one  of  the  greatest  lines 
of  communication  in  Italy,  was  known  throughout  its  whole  length  by  the  name 
of  the  Valerian  Way,  because  the  first  twenty  miles  of  it  from  Rome  to  Tibur 
were  made  by  the  censor  M.  Valerius. 

In  the  same  year,  447-8  (Nieb.  441),  we  may  place  the  trial  of  A.  Atilius 
Trial  of  A.  Atiiius  Ca-  Calatinus,  on  a  charge  of  having  betrayed  the  garrison  of  Sora  to 
utinus-  the  Samnites.  He  had  married  a  daughter  of  Q.  Fabius,  and  had 

been  left  by  his  father-in-law  in  the  command  of  the  place,  when  he  himself  left 
his  province  of  Samnium  to  return  to  Rome.  Sora  and  Calatia  were  at  this 
period35  both  surprised  by  the  Samnites,  and  the  troops  who  garrisoned  them 
were  sold  for  slaves.  Atilius  either  made  his  escape,  or  was  taken  prisoner  and 
allowed  to  be  ransomed  ;  but  on  his  return  to  Rome  he  was  accused  of  treason, 
a  charge  often  made  against  unsuccessful  officers,  and  listened  to  the  more  readily, 
because,  while  the  soldiers  had  been  led  away  into  slavery,  their  commander  had 
met  with  a  fate  so  different.  Perhaps  in  this  accusation  we  may  trace  the  influ- 
ence possessed  at  this  time  in  the  comitia  by  the  city  populace,  who  were  not 
commonly  enlisted  in  the  legions,  and  who  were  apt  to  judge  the  conduct  of 
military  men  unfairly  and  severely,  in  proportion  to  their  own  total  ignorance  of 
war.  It  might  have  fared  hardly  with  Atilius,  had  his  father-in-law  been  any 
less  distinguished  man  than  Q.  Fabius.  But  Fabius36  came  forward  and  declared 
to  the  people  that  the  charge  was  groundless:  "  Had  it  been  otherwise,"  said 
he,  "  I  should  not  have  allowed  my  daughter  to  remain  the  wife  of  a  traitor."3' 
The  people,  suspicious  because  they  were  ignorant,  but  meaning  honestly,  lis- 
tened at  once  to  the  testimony  of  so  great  a  general  and  so  upright  a  man,  and 
Atilius  was  acquitted.  His  son,  the  grandson  of  Q.  Fabius,  became  one  of  the 
most  distinguished  citizens  in  the  first  Punic  war ;  he  was  twice  consul,  dictator, 
and  censor.38 

Two  years  afterwards  the  influence  of  the  new  popular  party  in  the  comitia 
reached  its  highest  point,  when  Cn.  Flavius,  the  clerk  of  Appius, 

JEdileship  of  Cn.  Fla-  ,       .  &    T          i        i  T         i  e 

VIiu8'ciaeudiIr8rk  of  Ap~  a  man       °  published  the  calendar  and  the  forms  ot 

actions  at  law,  was  elected  curule  sedile.  When  the  first  votes 
were  given  in  his  favor,  the  eedile  who  presided  at  the  comitia  refused  to  receive 
them,  saying  that  a  clerk  was  not  fit  to  hold  a  curule  magistracy.  It  so  happen- 
ed39 that  Flavius  himself  was  attending  on  the  curule  sedile  at  that  very  time  in 
the  way  of  his  occupation  ;  he  had  his  tablets  and  his  style  in  his  hands,  to  record 
the  votes.  As  soon  as  he  heard  the  objection  he  stepped  forwards ;  he  laid 

84  Livy,  IX.  43.     Cassiodorus.  sented  herself  from  him  for  three  nights  in  the 

35  Diodorus,  XX.  80.     Livy,  IX.  43.  year.    See  p.  100. 

30  Valerius  Maximus,  VIII.  I.  §  9.  '    38  His  epitaph  said  of  him,  in  language  re- 

37  By  which  it  appears,  as  Niebahr  well  ob-  sembling  the  epitaphs  of  the  Scipios, 

serves,  that  the  practice  of  marrying  without  "Plurimie  consentiunt  gentes 

conventio  in  manum  was  common  even  amongst  Populi  primarium  fuisse  virum." 

distinguished  families.   Thus  the  daughter  still  .  See  Cicero,  de  Senect.  17. 

remained  in  her  father's  power,  if,  to  bar  her  s9  L.  Piso,  Annal.  III.  quoted  by  GelliuB, 

husband's  right  to  her  by  prescription,  she  ab-  VI.  9. 


CHAP.  XXXIL]          REFORMS  OF  Q.  FABIUS  AND  P.  DECIUS.  393 

down  his  tablets,  and  declared  upon  oath  that  from  that  day  forwards  he  would 
follow  the  business  of  a  clerk  no  more.  The  sedile  then  received  the  votes  that 
were  given  for  him,  and  Cn.  Flavius  was  duly  elected.  His  colleague  was  Q. 
Anicius40  of  Prseneste,  who  had  only  within  the  last  few  years  became  a  Roman 
citizen  ;  while  two  commoners  of  consular  families,  C.  Poetelius  and  Cn.  Domiti- 
us,  were  unsuccessful  candidates.  The  indignation  of  the  patricians  and  of  the 
old  commons  on  this  occasion  was  so  great,  that  the  senators  laid  aside  their 
gold  rings,  and  the  young  patricians,  and  wealthy  commoners  who  formed  tTie 
equestrian  order,  put  off  their  chains  of  honor  (phalerae),  as  if  so  great  a  dishonor 
to  the  commonwealth  required  a  general  mourning.  It  should  be  remembered 
that  the  curule  aedileship'was  at  this  time  an  office  of  high  distinction,  and  that 
every  curule  magistracy  was  supposed  to  convey  something  of  kingly  and  there- 
fore of  sacred  dignity  ;  so  that  it  was  a  profanation  if  it  were  bestowed  on  a 
freed  man's  son,  although  he  might  have  held  the  tribuneship  of  the  commons 
without  offence.  Flavius,  however,  was  a  man  of  spirit,  and  was  not  abashed  by 
these  signs  of  displeasure  ;  nay,  he  even  enjoyed  the  mortification  of  the  nobility  ; 
and  a  story41  was  told  how  on  a  time,  when  his  colleague  Q.  Anicius  was  sick, 
Flavius  went  to  visit  him ;  and  when  he  entered  his  room  he  found  several  noble 
youths  who  were  sitting  there  with  him.  They,  scorning  the  freedman's  son,  re- 
mained in  their  places,  and  would  not  rise  as  they  were  bound  to  do  to  the  curule 
redile.  Upon  which  Flavius  sent  for  his  curule  chair,  and  placed  it  in  the  door- 
way so  that  no  one  could  pass,  and  then  taking  his  seat  in  it,  obliged  them  to  see 
him  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  dignity.  Yet,  although  he  would  not  allow  himself 
to  be  overborne  by  insolence,  he  could  not  bear  to  be  the  occasion  of  divisions 
between  his  countrymen ;  and  he  vowed  to  build  a  temple  to  Concord,42  if  he 
could  succeed  in  effecting  a  reconciliation  between  the  higher  and  lower  classes 
of  the  commonwealth. 

We  must  suppose,  therefore,  that  he  witnessed  without  opposition  the  decree 
of  the  senate  that  two  censors  should  be  immediately  appointed,  Q.  Fabiu 
although  not  a  year  had  elapsed  since  the  last  censors  had  resigned  ciu*cenfl 
their  office.  Still  less  could  he  find  fault  with  the  choice  of  the  comitia,  which 
fell  upon  two  of  the  most  popular  men  in  Rome,  Q.  Fabius  and  P.  Decius. 

This  censorship,  according  to  Niebuhr,  effected  little  less  than  a  remodelling 
of  the  whole  constitution  ;  in  particular,  he  supposes  that  the  per- 
plexing combination  of  tribes  and  centuries,  which  is  known  to  h£"££n  tKStLE 
have  existed  in  the  later  periods  of  the  commonwealth,  was  the  ** 
work  of  Fabius  and  Decius  ;  and  that  the)'-  adjusted,  in  a  manner  satisfactory  to 
all  parties,  the  ever- contending  claims  of  nobility  and  wealth  on  the  one  hand 
and  of  numbers  on  the  other.  I  cannot  assert  this,  even  on  Niebuhr's  authority, 
not  only  from  the  total  want  of  all  direct  evidence,  but  because  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  the  mixture  of  tribes  and  centuries  in  the  later  form  of  the  comitia 
centuriata  was  the  work  of  the  fourth  century  of  Rome  rather  than  of  the  fifth. 
Nor  do  I  quite  believe  the  story43  that  it  was  to  his  eminent  services  in  this  cen* 
sorship  that  Q.  Fabius  owed  his  surname  of  Maximus. 

What  is  actually  recorded  of  the  censors  of  this  year  is  sufficiently  probable  ; 

40  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  XXXIII.  6.  populus,"  that  is,  the  patricians  and  the  old 
riso,  apud  Gell.  VI.  9.  LivylX.  46.  commons,  as  opposed  to  the  "  forensis  fuctio." 
"  Flavins  vovit  aedem  Concordioa,  si  popu-  *3  The  story  is  told  by  Livy,  IX.  46,  and  by 
lo  re'jonciliassct  ordines."  Nicbuhr  under-  several  other  writers.  But'Polybius  asserts 
stands  by  populus  the  old  patricians,  and  by  that  the  surname  of  Maximus  was  given  to  the 
ordines  the  plebs  and  the  freedmcn.  But  surely  dictator  Q.  Fabius  in  the  second  Punic  war,  on 
the  old  sense  of  populus  is  inapplicable  here;  account  of  his  great  services  at  that  period.  III. 
and  we  must  either  understand  "ordines"  of  87.  This  is  undoubtedly  a  mistake,  but  I  ba- 
the senate  and  the  equestrian  order,  which  is  lieve  the  other  story  is  no  less  so ;  and  that  the 
undoubtedly  the  meaning,  if  the  words  are  surname  Maximus  in  the  Fabian  family,  no  less. 
Pliny's  own ;  or  if  he  copied  them  from  an  than  in  the  Valerian  and  Carvilian,  had  refer-* 
older  writer,  "  ordines"  may  signify  the  clerks,  encc  originally  to  personal  size  rather  than  to 
serilxe,  and  the  other  trades  or  inferior  callings,  greatness  of  mind  or  exploits ;  that  it  answered 
and  populus  means  what  Livy  calls  "integer  to  the  surname  of  Philip  le  Long,  or  of  Edward 


Fabius  and  P.  Da- 
enaoia. 


324  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXII 

and  that  it  should  have  been  accomplished  not  only  without  a  con- 
fected  *wMCewis"  *»nd  test,  but  as  far  as  appears  without  exciting  any  thing  but  satisfac- 
tion, is  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  proofs  of  the  political  wis- 
dom and  moderation  of  the  Roman  people.  The  lower  classes  of  the  city,  and 
those  whose  blood  was  not  yet  clear  from  the  taint  of  slavery,  had  gained  a  po- 
litical power  much  more  than  in  proportion  to  their  social  importance  ;  and  there 
is  in  this  something  so  unnatural,  that  it  shocks  even  those  who  may  be  sup- 
posed to  benefit  by  it,  unless  they  have  been  previously  corrupted  by  intolerable 
distress,  no  less  fatal  to  wisdom  and  goodness  than  excessive  enjoyment,  or  have 
been  exasperated  by  previous  insolence  and  oppression.  Had  there  now  been 
such  a  state  of  misery  amongst  the  poorer  classes  as  that  which  followed  the 
Gaulish  invasion,  or  had  the  old  law  of  debtor  and  creditor  existed  still  and  been 
rigorously  exercised,  the  lower  people  would  have  eagerly  retained  the  power 
which  fortune  had  thrown  into  their  hands ;  they  would  have  valued  it  as  en- 
suring them  at  once  protection  and  vengeance.  But  when  all  was  prospering, 
when  the  state  was  victorious  abroad  and  daily  growing  in  wealth  and  magnifi- 
cence at  home ;  when  the  citizens  of  highest  rank  were  also  the  worthiest ;  and 
the  commonwealth  seemed  to  enjoy  a  real  aristocracy,  which  is  as  natural  and 
excellent  as  its  counterfeits  are  hateful ;  above  all,  when  there  was  prevailing  a 
general  spirit  of  moderation,  which  dispelled  all  fears  of  tyranny, — why  should 
men  endure  such  an  unfitness  as  that  the  lower  should  take  the  place  of  the 
higher,  and  that  those  who  were  of  least  account  in  society  should  exercise  po- 
litically the  greatest  power?  So  Flavius,  resigning  all  prospect  of  rising  to 
higher  honors,  allowed  that  he  had  already  risen  too  high  for  one  of  his  class, 
and  that  more  than  one  generation  should  elapse  between  the  slave  and  the  curule 
magistrate.  Fabius  and  Decius  removed  all  Ireedmen,44  all  artisans,  and  all  other 
citizens  of  the  lowest  class,  into  four  tribes  only  out  of  the  one-and-thirty  which 
then  existed ;  so  that  they  could  influence  at  most  but  a  little  more  than  an 
eighth  part  of  the  whole  comitia ;  and  these  four  tribes  were  the  old  tribes  of  the 
city,  as  distinguished  from  those  of  the  country,  the  Palatine,  the  Colline,  the 
Esquiline,  and  the  Suburran.  Then  Flavius,  seeing  the  conditions  of  his  vow  ful- 
filled, built  his  temple  to  Concord,45  a  small  chapel,  of  which  the  walls  were 
plated  with  bronze,  and  which  stood  within  the  precinct  of  the  temple  of  Vulcan, 
on  the  north  side  of  the  comitium.  It  was  built  with  the  money  arising  from  the 
penalties  paid  by  some  wealthy  men  for  having  lent  money  at  a  rate  of  interest 
higher  than  was  allowed  by  law ;  and  Flavius,  by  virtue  of  his  office  of  aedile,  had 
prosecuted  them  before  the  comitia.  When  it  was  completed,  the  pontifex  max- 
imus,  L.  Cornelius  Scipio,46  refused  to  dictate  the  solemn  form  of  dedication, 
which  Flavius,  according  to  custom,  was  to  repeat  after  him ;  but  the  comitia, 
indignant  at  the  spirit  which  dictated  this  refusal,  passed  a  resolution  which 
obliged  the  pontifex  to  retract  it.  Yet,  afterwards,  to  complete  the  picture  of 
moderation  displayed  by  the  people  on  this  occasion,  the  comitia  passed  a  bill 
proposed  to  them  by  the  senate,  enacting  that  for  the  time  to  come  no  man 
should  be  allowed  to  dedicate  a  temple  without  the  sanction  of  the  senate  or  of 
the  majority  of  the  tribunes  of  the  commons.  The  aristocratical  pride  of  the 
pontifex  required  to  be  restrained ;  yet  it  was  not  fit  that  he  should  be  called  to 
perform  the  solemnities  of  the  national  religion  at  the  pleasure  of  an  individual, 
or  that  a  temple  should  be  consecrated  without  the  sanction  of  some  public  au- 
thority. Happy  is  that  people  which  delivers  itself  from  the  evils  of  an  aristo- 

tne  jnrst,  rather  than  to  that  of  Alexander  er  nology  of  Eome;  for  it  declares  that  the  con- 
Charlemagne,  sulship  of  P.  Sempronius  and  P.  Sulpicius,  the 
44  Livy,  IX.  46.  last  year  of  the  second  Samnite  war,  was  be- 
46  Pliny,  Hist.  XXXIII.   6.     In  this  notice  lieved  by  those  who  were  then  living,  and  by 
of  the  founding  of  the  temple  by  Cn.  Flavius,  one  who  had  an  access  to  all  existing  monu- 
Pliny  adds,  "mciditque  in  tabella  aere&  earn  merits,  to  have  been  the  204th  year  from  the 
cedem  cciv.  annis  post  Capitolinam  dedicatam."  beginning  of  the  commonwealth. 
This  is  a  very  important  passage  for  the  chro-  46  Livy,  IX.  46. 


CHAP.  XXXII]  THE  OGULNIAN  BILL.  325 

cratical  or  priestly  dominion,  not  by  running  wild  into  individual  licentiousness, 
but  by  submitting  to  the  wholesome  sovereignty  of  law  ! 

"  The  Carthaginians,"  says  Aristotle,47  "  provide  for  the  stability  of  their  con- 
stitution, by  continually  sending  out  a  portion  of  their  commons  coioni«  founded  at  thi. 
to  their  settlements  in  the  surrounding  country."  This  policy  was  time' 
no  less  familiar  to  the  Romans,  and  as  some  of  the  poorer  citizens  must  have 
been  discontented  with  the  recent  proceedings  of  the  censors,  so  we  find  that 
three  colonies  were  founded  in  the  next  two  years,  and  that  no  fewer  than  four- 
teen thousand  citizens  were  sent  out  as  colonists.48  The  three  places  thus 
colonized  were  Sora,  Alba,  and  Carseoli.  Sora  had  been  taken  and  retaken  re- 
peatedly in  the  late  Samnite  war,  and  its  important  position,  just  at  the  point  where 
the  Liris  issues  out  from  the  mountains  which  confine  its  earlier  course  upon  the 
high  plain  of  Arpinum  and  Fibrenus,  made  it  desirable  to  secure  its  permanent 
possession;  Carseoli  and  Alba  had  been  conquered  in  the  late  war  with  the 
./Equians.  Carseoli  was  in  the  upper  valley  of  the  Anio,  about  thirty-eight 
miles  from  Rome.  Alba  stood  on  an  isolated  hill  at  a  little  distance  from  the 
lake  Fucinus  ;  and  the  strength  of  its  fortifications  was  even  at  this  time  remark- 
able, for  the  walls  which  still  exist  are  built  of  enormous  polygonal  blocks  of  the 
limestone  of  the  Apennines,  and  belong  to  a  period  much  more  ancient  than  the 
fifth  century  of  Rome. 

Places  so  recently  conquered,  and  so  exposed  to  fresh  attacks  wl  enever  a,  war 
should  break  out  again,  must  have  been  colonized  by  men  who  Who  were  §8nt  M  Mt_ 
understood  war,  and  might  be  able  to  maintain  their  own  ground,  tleri* 
as  a  sort  of  frontier  garrison.  The  settlers  sent  thither  could  not,  therefore,  have 
consisted  wholly  of  the  unwarlike  populace  of  the  city,  but  of  the  poorer  citizens 
of  the  old  commons,  who  had  been  accustomed  to  serve  in  the  legions,  and  who 
the  skill  and  courage  of  veteran  soldiers.  It  is  very  probable,  however,  that 

certain  portion  of  the  freedmen  and  of  the  city  populace  may  have  been  mixed 
up  with  them. 

In  appointing  and  supporting  the  censorship  of  Fabius  and  Decius,  the  pa- 
tricians and  the  nobility  of  the  commons  must  have  acted  in  con-  The  pguinian  bui  for 
cert  with  each  other.  But  three  years  afterwards,  there  was  a  SKSwJWJioSl 
feeble  return  of  the  old  quarrel  between  the  two  orders,  when  two  mons- 
of  the  tribunes,49  Q.  and  Cn.  Ogulnius,  proposed  a  bill  for  increasing  the  number 
of  the  pontifices  and  augurs  by  the  addition  of  new  members  to  be  chosen  from 
the  commons.  In  Rome,  as  elsewhere,  the  civil  equality  of  the  two  great  orders 
of  the  state  had  been  established,  whilst  the  old  religious  distinctions  between 
them  still  subsisted ;  a  commoner  might  'be  consul,  dictator,  or  censor,  but  he 
could  not  as  yet  be  pontifex  or  augur.  But  this  exclusion,  although  it  related  to 
religious  offices,  was  maintained  for  political  purposes,  and  could  not,  indeed,  be 
justified  on  religious  grounds.  For,  according  to  the  old  principle,  that  the 
priests  of  the  gods  must  be  of  a  certain  race  or  caste,  carefully  preserved  from 
any  profane  mixture,  the  Roman  patricians  had  long  since  forfeited  the  purity  of 
their  blood  by  their  frequent  intermarriages  with  the  commons.  But  politically, 
their  exclusive  possession  of  the  offices  of  pontifex  and  augur  might  secure  them 
some  advantages.  Twice  within  twenty-five  years  we  have  seen  the  appointment 
of  a  plebeian  dictator  annulled  by  the  augurs,  on  the  ground  of  certain  religious 
objections  of  which  they  were  the  sole  judges.  All  questions  of  augury  de- 
pended on  their  decision  ;  and  this,  in  a  state  where  nothing  either  political  or 
military  was  done  without  consulting  the  auspices,  conferred,  necessarily,  an  im- 
mense power.  The  pontifices,  in  like  manner,  had  the  absolute  control  over 
every  part  of  the  ritual  of  religion,  and  as  connected  with  it,  over  the  calendar. 
What  festivals  were  to  be  observed,  and  at  what  times ;  what  public  sacrifices 

47  Politic.  II.  11.  sand  to  Sora,  and  as  many  to  Carseoli.    Livy, 

**  Six  thousand  were  sent  to  Alba,  four  tkou-    X.  1.  3. 

48  Livy  6,  et  seqq. 


W    L 

™ 


326  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXII 

should  be  performed,  and  with  what  ceremonies ;  and  what  was  an  interference 
on  the  part  of  any  individual  with  sacred  places,  persons,  or  things,  were  all  points 
of  their  jurisdiction,  against  which  it  is  doubtful  whether  even  the  tribunes  would 
have  ventured  to  interpose.  It  seems  but  reasonable,  therefore,  that  a5  the  pa- 
tricians and  commons  were  now  become  one  people,  and  as  both  alike  were  ad- 
mitted to  those  high  and  sacred  dignities  of  consul  and  dictator,  which  involved 
the  practice  of  augury,  and  the  offering  sacrifice  to  the  peculiar  gods  of  Rome, 
in  the  name  of  the  Roman  people,  so  the  knowledge  as  well  as  the  practice  of 
the  national  religious  system  should  be  committed  to  both  equally ;  that  where 
no  religious  objection  really  existed,  political  ambition  might  no  longer  be  able 
to  shelter  itself  beneath  its  semblance. 

Still,  however,  a  party  amongst  the  patricians,  headed,  as  we  are  told,  by  Ap- 
r.  Decim  support,  it,  pius  Claudius,50  vehemently  opposed  the  Ogulnian  bill.  It  was 
«md  it  becomes a  law.  supported  by  P.  Decius  ;  and  no  man  could  have  pleaded  for  it 
with  greater  effect,  when  he  appealed  to  his  father's  memorable  death,  and  re- 
called him  to  the  memory  of  some  of  his  hearers,  as  they  had  seen  him  in  the 
great  battle  with  the  Latins,  with  his  toga  wrapped  around  his  head,  and  his 
feet  on  a  javelin,  devoting  himself  to  the  powers  of  death  in  behalf  of  the  Ro- 
man people.  "  If  my  father,"  said  he,  "  was  no  less  fit  than  his  patrician  col- 
league to  offer  himself  to  the  gods,  as  an  accepted  expiation  for  the  whole  peo- 
ple, how  could  he  be  unfit  to  direct  their  worship  ?"  The  question,  in  fact,  could 
not  be  carried ;  some  of  the  tribunes  were  at  first  engaged  to  interpose  their  neg- 
ative, but  the  general  feeling  obliged  them  to  forbear,  and  the  Ogulnian  bill  be- 
came a  law.  The  pontifices,  who  were  then  four  in  number,  elected  accordingly 
four  commoners  to  complete  their  college  to  eight,  or,  including  their  head,  the 
pontifex  maximus,  to  nine.  And  the  augurs,  who  were  also  four,  elected  five 
commoners  to  raise  their  college  to  the  same  number  of  nine,  on  the  notion  that 
each  of  the  original  tribes  of  Rome,  the  Ramnenses,  the  Titienses,  and  Luceres, 
was  to  be  represented  by  an  equal  number  of  the  public  ministers  of  religion.  It 
seems  that  the  new  appointments  were  fairly  and  wisely  made ;  P.  Decius  him- 
self,51 and  P.  Sempronius  Sophus,  who  had  been  both  consuls  and  censors,  were 
two  of  the  new  pontifices ;  and  amongst  the  augurs,  besides  T.  Publilius,  C. 
Genucius,  and  C.  Marcius,  all  of  them  members  of  the  most  eminent  families  of 
the  commons,  we  find  the  name  of  P.  JElius  Psetus,  a  man  of  no  great  po- 
litical or  military  distinction,  but  who  probably  showed  a  remarkable  fondness 
for  the  study  of  the  pontifical  and  augural  discipline,  inasmuch  as  we  find  an 
unusual  number  of  his  descendants52  filling  the  offices  of  pontifex  and  augur, 
as  if  those  sacred  duties  were  almost  the  hereditary  calling  of  their  race  and 
name. 

In  the  same  year,53  M.  Valerius,  one  of  the  consuls,  re-enacted,  for  the  third 
The  valerian  law  re-  time,  the  famous  law  which  bore  the  name  of  his  family,  and  which 
was,  in  fact,  the  Roman  law  of  trial  by  jury,  as  it  permitted  every 
citizen  to  appeal  from  tk«  sentence  of  a  magistrate  in  capital  cases  to  the  judg- 
ment of  his  country.  It  is  not  certain  whether  the  consul  who  brought  forward 
this  law  was  M.  Valerius  Maximus,  or  M.  Valerius  Corvus :  it  must  have  been 
the  latter,  however,  if  the  common  statement  be  true  that  he  was  six  times  elected 
consul ;  and  we  should  be  glad  to  ascribe  the  measure  to  a  man  so  worthy  of  it. 
The  law  denounced  the  violation  of  its  provisions  as  a  crime,  but  named  no  fixed 
penalty;  leaving  it  open  to  the  accuser  to  demand,  and  to  the  judges  to  award, 
a  milder  or  a  heavier  sentence,  according  to  the  nature  of  the  particular  case,  as 
was  so  generally  the  practice  at  Athens.  But  why  this  law  should  have  been 

80  Livy,  X.  7.  ceeded  by  Q.  Minis  Psetus.    Livy,  XLI.  21. 

81  Livy,  X.  9.  Nor  must  we  forget  that  ^Elius  whom  Ennius 
M  Q.  JElius  Psetus,  who  fell  at  Cannae,  was    honored  with  the  title  of  "egregie  cordatus 

pontifex,  Livy,  XXIII.  21.   P.  ^Elius  Paetus  was    homo." 
appointed  augur  in  the  place  of  Marcellus,        M  Livy,  X.  9. 
Livy,  XXVII.  36 ;  and  on  his  death  he  was  sue- 


CHAP.  XXXII]  THE  VALERIAN  LAW  RE-ENACTED.  32-? 

re-enacted  at  this  particular  time  we  know  not.  No  recent  instances  of  arbitrary 
power  are  mentioned,  nor  do  we  hear  of  any  consul  of  this  period  who  is  charged 
with  a  disposition  to  cruelty.  Perhaps  the  object  of  Valerius  was  simply  to 
satisfy  the  humbler  citizens  that  the  government  was  not  unmindful  of  their  per- 
sonal security,  although  it  had  diminished  their  political  power ;  and  that  whilst 
the  more  distinguished  commoners  were  completing  their  own  equality  with  the 
patricians,  they  did  not  mean  to  allow  the  poorer  members  of  their  order  to  be 
oppressed  with  impunity.  Thus,  the  re-enactment  of  the  Valerian  law,  taken  in 
conjunction  with  the  passing  of  the  Ogulnian,  seems  to  form  an  sera  in  the  con- 
stitutional history  of  Rome  ;  when  the  commons  obtained  a  confirmation  of  their 
great  charter  of  personal  freedom  for  the  mass  of  their  order,  and  for  those  of 
their  members  who  might  rise  to  eminence,  a  perfectly  equal  share  in  all  the 
honors  of  the  commonwealth,  religious  no  less  than  civil. 

In  some  of  the  transactions  recorded  in  this  chapter,  we  seem  almost  to  have 
emerged  into  the  liffht  of  day,  and  to  be  able  to  trace  events  and 

°     ,         „     ,    J     ,  ,,  ,,.  ,,  Thia  period  is  followed 

their  actors  with  much  of  the  clearness  of  real  history.  But  even  i>y  one  very  oucureiy 
in  those  which  are  in  themselves  most  vivid,  we  find  a  darkness 
on  either  side,  concealing  from  our  view  their  causes  and  their  consequences ;  as 
in  dreams,  single  scenes  and  feelings  present  themselves  with  wonderful  distinct- 
ness :  but  what  brought  us  to  them,  or  what  is  to  follow  after  them,  is  left  alto- 
gether a  mystery.  Some  of  the  many  difficult  questions  which  belong  to  this 
period,  I  propose  to  lay  before  the  reader  in  the  appendix  to  this  volume,  as  I  feel 
that  I  can  offer  no  explanation  of  them  so  satisfactory  as  to  claim  the  name  of  his- 
tory. In  this  number  I  would  place  especially  the  famous  question  as  to  the 
later  constitution  of  the  comitia  of  centuries,  a  problem  which  not  even  Niebuhr 
could  fully  solve,  and  which  has  equally  baffled  other  writers  who  have  more  recently 
attempted  it.  But  in  the  following  period  of  about  fourteen  years,  which  elapsed 
between  the  passing  of  the  Ogulnian  law  and  the  dictatorship  of  Q.  Hortensius, 
there  is  scarcely  a  single  fact  in  the  domestic  history  of  Rome  which  can  be  dis- 
cerned clearly,  and  we  are  left  to  ask  what  circumstances  could  have  produced 
so  great  a  change ;  and  how,  after  a  state  of  things  so  peaceable  and  so  pros- 
perous, and  a  settlement  of  the  constitution  apparently  so  final,  we  are  brought 
back  again  so  suddenly  to  the  circumstances  of  a  long  past  period,  to  a  heavy 
burden  of  debt,  to  quarrels  between  the  different  orders  in  the  state  from  this 
cause,  and  to  a  new  secession  of  the  commons  to  the  Janiculum. 

In  the  mean  time  we  must  carry  on  for  a  while  the  foreign  history  of  Rome, 
and  describe  that  short  but  decisive  war,  in  which  the  Romans  triumphed  over 
the  triple  coalition  of  the  Etruscans,  the  Samnites,  and  the  Gauls. 


CHAPTER  mm, 

FOREIGN  HISTORY  FROM  450  TO  464  (443  TO  456,  NIEBUHR)— CONQUEST  OF  TUB 
^QUIANS— THIRD  SAMNITE  WAR— COALITION  OF  THE  ETRUSCANS,  SAMNITES, 
AND  GAULS— GREAT  BATTLE  OF  SENTINUM,  AND  DEATH  OFF.  DECIUS— FINAL 
VICTORY  OF  Q.  FABIUS  OVER  THE  SAMNITES— C.  PONTIUS  IS  LED  IN  TRIUMPH 
AND  PUT  TO  DEATH  IN  COLD  BLOOD. 


"  Ter  totum  fervidus  iri 
Lustrat  Aventini  montem ;  ter  saxea  tentat 
lamina  nequidquam ;  ter  fessus  valle  resedit." 
Vnia.  JEn.  VIII.  230. 

"  Thrice  did  the  indignant  nations  league  their  might, 
Thrice  the  red  darkness  of  the  battle's  night 
Shrouded  the  recreant  terror  of  their  flight." 

MILMAN,  Judicium  Regalo 


THE  peace  with  Samnium  was  immediately  followed  by  a  war  with  the  ^Squi- 
w*r  with  the  jEqui-  ans.  Since  the  Gaulish  invasion,  the  very  name  of  this  people  lias 
vanished  out  of  our  sight,  except  on  one  single  occasion  in  the 
year  immediately  following  the  recovery  of  the  city,  when  Camillas  is  said  to 
have  taken  from  them  the  town  of  Bola.1  As  they  took  no  part  in  the  subse- 
quent attacks  made  by  the  Volscians  upon  Rome,  and  did  not  even  join  then- 
neighbors  of  Prseneste,  when  they,  from  the  allies  of  the  Romans,  became  their 
enemies,  so  we  may  conclude  with  Niebuhr,  that  the  Gaulish  invasion  had  been 
even  more  fatal  to  them  thrvn  to  the  Romans ;  that  they  must  have  been  so 
weakened  by  some  great  disaster  sustained  at  that  period,  as  to  have  fallen  back 
altogether  from  their  advanced  position  on  the  edge  of  the  Campagna  to  their 
older  country  in  the  upper  valleys  of  the  Turano2  and  the  Salto,  and  near  the 
western  shore  of  the  lake  Fucinus.  From  their  towns  on  the  edge  of  the  Cam- 
pagna they  were,  probably,  expelled  by  the  Latins ;  and  acquisitions  of  territory 
from  the  JEquians  may  have  been  among  the  causes  which  raised  Tibur  and  Prae- 
iieste  after  the  Gaulish  invasion  to  greatness  far  above  the  rest  of  their  country- 
men. Meanwhile,  the  ^Equians  were  left  unmolested  in  their  remaining  territory, 
and  for  nearly  eighty  years  from  the  burning  of  Rome  by  the  Gauls  they  seem 
to  have  remained  perfectly  neutral.  But  towards  the  end  of  the  second  Samnite 
war,  when  the  Hernicans,  in  their  jealousy  of  the  growing  power  of  Rome,  took 
up  arms  against  her,  the  ^Equians  also,  probably  from  similar  motives,  were  in- 
duced to  join  in  the  quarrel.  ^Equian  soldiers3  were  found,  it  was  said,  together 
with  Hernicans,  in  that  Samnite  army  which  Q.  Fabius,  when  proconsul  in  the 
year  447,  had  defeated  at  Allifse ;  and  after  the  Hernican  war  in  the  year  follow- 
ing, the  whole  ^Equian  people  joined  the  Samnites.  Thus,  when  the  Samnites, 
in  the  year  450,  were  obliged  to  sue  for  peace,  the  ^Equians  were  left  in  a  posi- 
tion of  no  small  danger.  Rome,  it  appears,  was  willing  to  forgive  them  on  no 
other  terms  than  those  just  imposed  on  the  Hernicans  ;  namely,  that  they  should 
become  citizens  of  Rome  without  the  right  of  voting  in  the  comitia ;  in  other  words, 

1  Livy.VI.  2.  field  of  Scurgola,  the  scene  of  Conradin's  defeat 

*  The  Turano  is  the  stream  which,  rising  at  by  Charles  of  Anjou,  and  when  it  reappears  it 

the  back  of  the  hills  which  form  the  northern  receives  the  name  of  Salto.    It  flows  through 

boundary  of  the  valley  of  the  Anio,  flows  thence  the  pastoral  country  of  the  Cicolano,  and  falls 

in  a  northerly  direction,  and  joins  the  Velino  into  the  Velino  above  Rieti.    See  Bunsen's  ar- 

just  below  Rieti.    The  Salto  rises  very  near  to  tide,  "  Esame  del  sito  del  piu  antichi  stabili- 

tho  lake  Fucino,  and,  in  its  earlier  course,  is  menti  Italici,"  &c.  in  the  Annals  of  the  Archae- 

oalled  the  Imele;  but  it  sinks  into  a  fissure  in  ological  Society  of  Rome,  Vol.  VI.  p.  110. 

the  lin  oc*-one,  a  little  below  the  famous  battle-  a  Livy,  IX.  45. 


CHAP.  XXXIII]  CONQUEST  OF  THE  ^EQUIANS.  329 

that  they  should  submit  to  become  Roman  subjects.  Hopeless  as  their  condi- 
tion was,  their  old  spirit  would  not  yet  allow  them  to  yield,  and  they  resolved  tc 
abide  a  contest  with  the  whole  undivided  power  of  the  Roman  commonwealth. 

Both  consuls,  P.   Sempronius  and  P.  Sulpicius,4  with  two  consular  armies, 
marched  at  once  into  the  ^Equian  territory.  Such  a  force,  amounting 

~J  11111  f  •       '  Ti  Their  country  it  over- 

to  about  40,000  men,  confounded  all  plans  ot  resistance,  bevr  ™^nand  their  *>««• 
^Equians  of  that  generation  had  ever  seen  war ;  their  country  had  not 
been  exposed  to  the  ravages  of  an  enemy  within  the  memory  of  any  man  then  liv  ing. 
Abandoning  all  hope  of  maintaining  the  field  against  the  invaders,  they  took  ref- 
uge in  their  several  towns,  hoping  there  to  baffle  the  first  assault  of  the  enemy, 
and  trusting  that  time  might  bring  some  of  the  neighboring  people  to  their  aid. 
But  their  towns  were  small,  and  were  thus  each  weak  in  the  number  of  their 
defenders :  the  Romans  well  knew  the  effect  of  a  first  impression,  and  in  the 
places  which  they  first  stormed,  they  probably,  according  to  their  usual  practice, 
made  a  bloody  execution,  in  order  to  strike  terror  into  the  rest.  We  have  seen, 
under  the  influence  of  a  general  panic,  some  of  the  strongest  fortresses  and  one 
of  the  most  warlike  nations  of  modern  Europe  taken  and  conquered  in  the  space 
of  two  months ;  so  that  we  cannot  wonder  that  fifty  days  were  sufficient  to  com- 
plete the  ^Equian  war,  and  that  forty-one  towns  were  taken  within  that  period,5 
the  greater  part  of  which  were  destroyed  and  burnt.  The  polygonal  walls  of 
many  of  them  are  still  in  existence,  and  are  to  be  found  scattered  along  the  pas- 
toral upland  valley  of  the  Himella  or  Sal  to,  from  Alba  almost  to  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Reate.  The  Romans,  however,  did  their  work  of  destruction  well ;  for 
although  the  style  of  the  walls  in  these  ruins  denotes  their  high  antiquity,  yet  no 
traces  are  to  be  found  of  the  name,  or  race,  or  condition  of  their  inhabitants  :  the 
actual  remains  will  tell  as  little  of  the  history  of  the  ^Equian  people  as  we  can 
glean  from  the  scanty  reports  of  their  conquerors. 

The  fate  which  the  ^Equians  had  vainly  striven  to  avert  now  fell  upon  the  rem- 
nant of  their  nation,  after  the  greatest  portion  of  the  people  had 

.   ,       -,  .     ,    &   ,  "  ml  "     /  They  •ubmit,  and  re 

perished  or  been  led  away  into  slavery.  I  he  survivors,  alter  see-  eejw  th«  Roman  &« 
ing  the  greatest  portion  of  their  territory  converted  into  Roman 
domain  land,  were  obliged  to  become  Roman  citizens  without  suffrage.  But  five 
years  afterwards,  when  war  with  Etruria  and  with  the  Samnites  was  again  threat- 
ening, the  Romans  admitted  them  to  the  full  franchise,6  and  they  formed  a  con- 
siderable part  of  the  citizens  enrolled  in  the  year  455  in  the  two  tribes  then  cre- 
ated, the  Aniensian  and  Terentine. 

When  the  Samnites  had  made  peace  with  Rome,  they  were  required  to  restore 
Lucania  to  its  independence ;  that  is,  they  were  obliged  to  give 
back  the  hostages  whom  they  had  kept  as  a  pledge  of  the  nation's  dominant  i 
fidelity,  and  to  withdraw  their  garrisons  from  the  Lucanian  towns.  WM-  J8S 
The  Roman  party  in  Lucania,  upon  this,  regained  its  ascendency,  ctaray»a^TiE?*Bpwy 
and  the  foreign  relations  of  the  country  were  so  changed,  that,  tan>t°' 
from  having  been  in  alliance  with  the  Samnites  and  Tarentines  against  Rome,  the 

4  Livy,  IX.  45.  in  the  Cornelian  tribe  (Livy,  XXXVIII.  36) : 

6  Livy,  IX.  45.     Diodorus,  XX.  101.  and  we  cannot  always  conclude  that  a  tribe  con- 

6  "  Majores  nostri,"  says  Cicero,  "  JSquos  in  tained  only  the  people  of  one  particular  district, 

civitatein  acceperunt."    De  Officiis,  1. 11.    That  The  origin  of  the  name  Terentina  is  quite  un- 

they  were  admitted  into  the  tribes  Aniensis  and  known.    We  know  of  no  town  Terentum  which 

Terentina  is  not  expressly  stated  by  any  ancient  could  have  given  it  its  name,  nor  of  any  river 

writer ;  but  the  date  of  the  creation  of  these  Terens.    What  was  the  ancient  name  of  the 

tribes  connects  them  with  the  .(Equians,  and  the  Turano,  which,  as  it  runs  near  to  the  site  of 

tribe  Aniensis  must  have  included  the  upper  Carseoli,  must  have  flowed  through  the  JEquian 

valley  of  the  Anio,  which  was  ^Equian.    The  territory  ?    Bunsen  has  shown  that  it  is  a  mere 

tribe  Terentina  contained  at  a  later  period,  as  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  Tolenns  or  Telo- 

we  know,  the  people  of  the  Volscian  city  of  nitis  was  the  Turano,    (Annali  dell'  Institute, 

Atina  (Cicero  pro  Plancio,  8,  16,  22) ;  and  Nie-  &c.  torn.  VI.  p.  104.)    Could  the  Turano  have 

buhr  thinks  that  they  were  included  in  it,  be-  been  anciently  called  Terens,  or  Terentus,  and 

cause  it  was  in  their  neighborhood.    But  the  could  the  tribe  Terentina  hr.ve  been  named  from 

Arpinatians,  who  lived  nearer  to  the  ^Equian  this  river,  as  the  Anieusis  was  from  the  Anio ! 
country  than  the  people  of  Atina,  were  included 


330  HISTORY  OF  ROMR  [CHAP.  XXXIH 

Lucanians  now  took  part  with  Rome  against  Tarentum.  During  the  Samnitc 
war,  the  Tarentines,  covered  as  they  were  by  the  territory  of  their  allies,  had 
nothing  to  fear  from  the  Roman  armies  ;  and  by  sea,  as  the  Roman  navy  was 
very  inconsiderable,  they  carried  on  the  contest  with  advantage.  But  now  a  con- 
sular army,7  supported  by  their  old  enemies,  the  Lucanians,  might,  at  any  moment. 
appear  under  their  very  walls  ;  and  they  looked  out,  therefore,  for  some  foreign 
aid.  They  sent  to  Greece,  and  to  their  own  mother-  city,  Sparta,  imploring  that 
an  army  might  be  sent  to  help  them,  and  that  Cleonymus  might  be  its  general. 
Cleonymus  was  the  younger  son  of  Cleomenes,8  king  of  Sparta,  and  the  grand- 
son of  Cleombrotus,  who  fell  at  Leuctra.  His  nephew  Areus,  Cleomenes'  grand- 
son by  his  elder  son  Acrotatus,  had  been  now  for  about  six  years  on  the  throne  ; 
and  Cleonymus,  like  Dorieus  of  old,  not  liking  to  remain  in  Sparta  as  a  private 
citizen,  was  eager  for  any  opportunity  of  distinguishing  himself  abroad.  Areus 
was  no  less  ready  to  let  him  go  ;  and  accordingly  he  complied  at  once  with  the 
invitation  of  the  Tarentines,  and  having  levied  at  their  expense  about  5000  Greek 
mercenaries,  he  crossed  over  into  Italy.  There  he  raised  5000  mercenaries  more, 
and  the  native  forces  of  Tarentum  are  reckoned  at  20,000  foot  and  2000  horse.1 
Most  of  the  Italian  Greeks,  together  with  the  Sallentines,  who  had  already  been 
engaged  in  hostilities  with  Rome,  joined  his  standard  ;  and  had  Cleonymus  pos- 
sessed the  ability  of  Pyrrhus,  he  might  have  rallied  around  him  the  Samnites  and 
Etruscans,  and,  after  the  exhaustion  of  a  twenty  years'  war,  the  Romans  would 
have  found  it  no  easy  matter  to  withstand  him. 

As  it  was,  the  display  of  his  force  terrified  the  Lucanians,  and  they  made  ,heir 
Pence  between  R«nse  peace  with  Tarentum.10  It  is  remarkable  that  Diodorus,  who  states 
this  in  express  terms,  and  who  had  just  before  named  the  Romans 
as  being  also  at  war  with  the  Tarentines,  yet  makes  no  mention  of  any  peace 
between  Tarentum  and  Rome.  A  treaty,  however,  must  have  been  concluded, 
for  the  attack  made  by  the  Tarentines  on  a  Roman  fleet,  eleven  years  afterwards, 
is  said11  to  have  been  occasioned  by  a  violation  of  the  conditions  of  the  peace 
between  the  two  nations  ;  and  had  it  not  been  made  at  this  time,  we  cannot  con- 
ceive that  Cleonymus  could  so  immediately  have  engaged  in  other  enterprises. 
It  seems  probable  that  no  other  terms  were  required  on  either  side  than  the  re- 
newal of  a  preceding  treaty  ;  and  this  treaty  was  originally  concluded  at  a  period 
when  the  only  conceivable  intercourse  between  Rome  and  Tarentum  could  have 
been  by  sea.  It  stipulated12  in  the  usual  language  that  no  Roman  ships,  mean- 
ing, probably,  ships  of  war,  were  to  advance  along  the  south  coast  of  Italy  nearer 
to  Tarentum  than  the  headland  of  Lacinium,  which  forms  the  southern  extremity 
of  the  Tarentine  gulf.  There  was,  no  doubt,  a  similar  stipulation,  restraining  the 
Tarentines  from  advancing  with  their  ships  of  war  nearer  to  Rome  than  the  head- 
land of  Circeii. 

Cleonymus,  being  thus  no  longer  needed  by  the  Tarentines,  employed  his 
arms  with  various  success  in  plundering  operations  along  the  eastern  coast  of 
Italy,  till  at  last  he  was  beaten  off  by  the  inhabitants  and  obliged  to  return  to 
Greece.  He  is  not  heard  of  again  till  he  invited  Pyrrhus  to  assist  him  in  his 
attempt  to  seize  the  throne  of  Sparta. 

Two  years  after  the  end  of  ^the  Samnite  war,  the  Marsians,  who  had  then,  as 

short  war  with  the  w^  nav®  seen,  made  peace  with  Rome  like  the  other  allies  of  the 

Samnites,  were  again  engaged  in  hostilities.     The  Roman  account11 


7  Diodorus  says  expressly,  Tapavrivoi  n6\eftov  M    Ajj/iayuyd?    .    .    jraXatwv     rou?    TapavTlvovt 
l\pvrts  Trpoj  AsvKnvoiis  KOI  'Pu>/«a/ovf.     XX.  104.  air/^i^cr/rs    avvOrjK&v,   /ir)   tt^tiv    'Put/ia/ov;    irptiau 

8  Pausanias,  III.  6.     Plutarch,  Agis,  3,  and  AaKivias  aitpas.  —  Appian,  Samnitic.  VII. 
Pyrrhus,  26.    Compare  the  article  on  the  kings  M  Livy,  X.  3.    At  this  point  we  lose  the  con- 
of  Sparta  in  the  Appendix  to  the  second  volume  nected  history  of  Diodorus.    The  last  consul- 
of  Mr.^Fynes  Clinton's  Fasti  Hellenici.  ship  noticed  in  his  twentieth  book  is  that  of  M. 

'  Diodorus,  XX.  104.  Livius  and  M.  JEmilius,  which  was  the  second 

10  Diodorus,  XX.  104.  year  after  the  end  of  the  Samnite  war,  and,  ao 

u  Appian,  Samnitie.  VII.  cording  to  Diodorus,  the  third  year  of  the  hun- 


THE  VESTINIANS  AND  PICENTIAN&  331 

states  that  they  resisted  the  settlement  of  a  Roman  colony  at  Carsecli,  one  of  the 
aEquian  towns  lately  conquered,  and  themselves  maintained  the  place  by  force. 
This  is  scarcely  credible,  for  they  had  made  no  opposition  to  the  colonizing  of 
Alba,  a  more  important  position,  and  one  much  nearer  to  their  own  country. 
However,  the  war,  whatever  was  the  cause,  was  short,  and  ended  in  the  speedy 
submission  of  the  Marsians,  who  were  obliged  to  cede  a  portion  of  their  domain. 
The  same  penalty  had  b»:en  paid  in  the  preceding  year  by  the  Hernicans  of  Fru- 
sino,  for  an  alleged  attempt  to  excite  their  countrymen  to  revolt ;  and  these  ac- 
quisitions of  land  by  the  Romans  are  memorable,  not  so  much  as  increasing  their 
power  against  foreign  enemies,  but  for  their  effect  on  their  own  state  of  society 
at  home.  We  must  remember  that  the  land  thus  gained  was  mostly  held  in 
occupation  by  the  Roman  nobility,  and  often  to  a  much  larger  extent  than  the 
Licinian  law  allowed  ;  and  that  this  great  increase  of  their  wealth,  and  accumu- 
lation of  extensive  domains,  "  Latifundia,"  led  gradually  to  a  system  of  slave 
cultivation,  and  contributed,  more  than  any  other  cause,  to  the  great  diminution 
of  the  free  population  throughout  Italy. 

In  the  same  year  the  Vestinians,14  of  whom  we  have  heard  nothing  since  their 
unfortunate  war  with  Rome  in  429,  are  said  to  have  sought  the  The  Vegtiniflns  and  PI_ 
friendship  of  the  Romans,  and  to  have  concluded  with  them  a  M™^in^Iiancowitl» 
treaty  of  alliance.  Since  the  conquest  of  the  JEquians  the  Ro- 
man frontier  had  become  contiguous  to  theirs ;  so  that  relations  with  Rome, 
either  friendly  or  hostile,  were  become  inevitable.  Through  this  treaty,  Rome 
completely  separated  the  Samnites  from  the  Etruscans ;  as  her  own  territory  or 
that  of  her  allies  reached  now  across  the  whole  width  of  Italy  from  the  mouth 
of  the  Tiber  to  that  of  the  Aternus,  on  the  Adriatic.  Two  or  three  years15  after- 
wards the  Picentians,  whose  country  stretched  along  the  coast  of  the  Adriatic 
northward  of  the  Vestinians,  lapping,  as  it  were,  round  Umbria  on  the  east,  and 
reaching  as  far  as  the  settlements  of  the  Senonian  Gauls  on  the  Metaurus  and  the 
JSsis,  became  also  the  allies  of  Rome.  Their  friendship  was  of  importance ;  for 
not  only  were  the  Etruscars  and  Umbria'- 3  already  v  war  with  Rome,  but  it 
was  known  that  the  Gauls  ;.id  been  solicited  to  take  pun  in  the  contest ;  and  the 
situation  of  Picenum  was  most  favorable  for  caif  -ing  the  war  into  the  Gauls'  own 
country,  if  they  should  attempt  to  stir,  or  for  threatening  the  flank  and  rear  of 
the  Etruscans  and  Umbrians,  if  they  should  move  either  on  Rome  or  towards 
Samnium. 

Meanwhile  the  Etruscan  war,  which  was  so  soon  to  kindle  a  new  war  with  the 
Samnites,  broke  out  partially  in  the  year  453.     Its  origin  is  ascribed  A 
to  the  internal  factions  of  the  Etruscan  city^  of  Arretium  ;16  the  |^ 
powerful  house  of  the  Cilnians,  of  which  Mecaenas  was  a  descend- 
ant, was  at  variance  with  the  people  or  commons  of  Arretium,  and  was  suspected 
also,  by  some  of  the  neighboring  cities,  as  likely  to  endanger  their  independence. 

dred  and  nineteenth  Olympiad.  Although  we  only  by  a  dictatorship.  Thus  the  chronology 
have  numerous  fragments  of  his  later  books,  becomes  more  and  more  confused,  for  these 
yet  these  can  ill  supply  the  place  of  a  regular  dictatorships,  if  real,  could  not  have  lasted  more 
narrative,  which,  with  all  its  faults,  has  cer-  than  six  months,  and  the  next  consuls  would 
tainly  preserved  to  us  some  very  valuable  and  therefore  come  into  office  half  a  year  after  their 
probable  accounts  of  many  events  in  the  Koman  predecessors'  term  was  expired.  In  this  man- 
history.  We  miss  also  his  notices  of  the  several  ner  the  beginning  of  the  consular  year  was  con- 
writers  from  whom  his  work  was  compiled,  and  tinually  varying,  and  these  portions  of  years 
his  occasional  mention  of  obscure  nations  and  being  reckoned  as  whole  years,  the  reckoning 
cities,  of  which  we  have  scarcely  any  other  fell  more  and  more  in  disorder.  How  con- 
knowledge.  Thus,  for  the  third  Samnite  war  stantly  do  the  perplexities  of  the  Koman  Fasti 
Livy  is  almost  our  sole  authority.  remind  one  of  the  truth  of  Thucydides'  remark, 
"  Livy,  X.  3.  that  the  natural  chronology  of  the  seasons  of 
16  Livy,  X.  10.  Another  year  is  inserted  by  the  year  was  the  only  sure  guide ;  the  civil 
the  chrouologers  between  the  consulship  of  M.  chronology,  he  says,  was  a  perpetual  source  oi 
Livius  and  M.  ^Emilius,  and  that  of  M.  Valerius  mistakes  :  oti  yap  a*pi/?t'«  tanv  ois  KOI  apxopivtif 
and  Q.  Appuleius.  Like  two  or  three  other  xal  ^saovai,  KUI  onus  erv^fv  rrp,  tirsyfv^  n. — 
years  in  the  fifth  century  of  Rome,  it  is  said  to  V.  20. 
have  been  a  year  without  consuls,  and  marked  18  Livy,  X.  8. 


332  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXHv, 

The  Cilnians  applied  for  aid  to  Rome,  already  known  as  the  natural  supporter  of 
the  high  aristocratical  party  throughout  Italy,  and  thus,  we  are  told,  a  Roman 
army  was  sent  into  Etruria.  The  details,  as  is  so  often  the  case,  are  utterly  con- 
flicting ;  but  it  is  said  that  the  Cilnians  were  reconciled  to  the  popular  party,  and 
hostilities  ended  for  the  present.  In  the  next  year,  454,  we  find  one  of  the  con- 
suls besieging  the  Umbrian  town  of  Nequinum,17  on  the  Nar,  on  what  provoca- 
tion we  know  not.  The  siege,  however,  was  protracted  till  the  year  following ; 
for  the  inhabitants  well  availed  themselves  of  the  strong  site  of  their  town,  built 
on  a  narrow  ledge  in  the  mountain  side,  with  an  almost  abrupt  ascent  above,  and 
a  descent  no  less  steep  down  into  the  narrow  gorge  of  the  Nar  below.  At  last 
the  town  was  betrayed  to  the  Romans ;  and  they  immediately  sent  a  colony  to 
occupy  the  spot,18  which  from  henceforth  took  the  name  of  Narnia.  It  commands 
the  defile  which  leads  from  the  valley  of  the  Tiber  into  the  plain  of  Interamna  01 
Terni,  one  of  the  richest  tracts  of  central  Italy. 

•Some  accounts19  related  that  the  Samnites  had  supported  the  people  of  Ne- 
t-be samnite.  exert  quinum  in  their  obstinate  resistance,  and  had  sent  troops  to  their 
SiSrL5SSS«  succor.  It  is  manifest  that  the  Samnite  government  was  at  this 
period  making  the  greatest  exertions,  in  the  hope,  probably,  that 
the  Etruscans  would  create  a  diversion  in  their  favor,  by  drawing  off  a  part  of  the 
forces  of  Rome  to  her  northern  frontier.  The  Samnite  plans  were,  moreover, 
luiexpectedly  furthered  by  a  new  inroad  of  the  Gauls ;  new  hordes  had  lately 
arrived  from  beyond  the  Alps,20  and  their  countrymen  in  the  plains  of  the  Po, 
having  no  room  for  them,  were  anxious  to  speed  them  on  their  way  southwards ; 
they  encouraged  them  to  cross  the  Apennines,  and  even  joined  themselves  in  the 
enterprise.  The  Etruscans  had  already,  perhaps,  engaged  their  services  against 
the  Romans ;  so  that  the  Gauls  marched  through  Etruria  still  onwards,  and  with 
an  Etruscan  force  co-operating  with  them,  they  poured  into  the  Roman  dominions.21 
It  is  probable  that  they  followed  their  old  line  by  the  valley  of  the  Clanis  into 
Umbria,  and  that  their  ravages  were  carried  on  rather  in  the  territory  of  the 
allies  of  Rome  than  in  that  of  Rome  itself.  But  the  invaders  won  a  great  spoil 
without  any  opposition,  and  the  Gauls  recrossed  the  Apennines  to  carry  it  home 
in  safety.  They  would  have  been  tempted,  probably,  by  their  success,  to  renew 
their  inroad  in  the  next  year ;  but,  fortunately  for  the  Romans,  they  quarrelled 
with  one  another  about  the  division  of  their  plunder,22  and  the  greatest  part  of 
their  multitude  were  destroyed  by  each  other's  swords.  Whilst  the  Gauls,  how- 
ever, were  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Tiber,  the  whole  force  of  Rome  was  watching 
their  movements ;  and  the  Samnites  seized  the  opportunity  to  march  into  Luca- 
nia.23 The  appearance  of  a  Samnite  army  revived  the  Samnite  party  in  Lucania ; 
the  Roman  party  was  everywhere  overpowered ;  town  after  town  was  recovered 
to  the  Samnite  alliance ;  and  the  partisans  of  Rome  sent  an  embassy  in  all  haste 
to  the  senate,  praying  for  instant  succor.  But  the  Samnite  government  did  not 
stop  here  ;  their  ambassadors  endeavored  to  rouse  all  the  nations  of  Italy  to  arms, 

17  Livy,  X.  9.  21  IK  ufv  T/J?  'Puuatav  fTropymj  ae(l>a\tis  firavijX- 

18  Livy,  X.  10.  Qov.— Polyb.  II.  19. 

19  "  M.  Fulvius  Cn:  F.  Cn.  N.  Psetinus  Cos.        M  Polybius,  II.  19. 

De  Samnitibus  Nequinatibusque.  Ann:  CD  "Livy.  X.  11.  Dionysius,  XVI.  11.  For 
.  .  .  VII.  K.  Oct."— Fasti  Capitol.  these  sudden  revolutions  in  the  condition  of 
"  Polybius,  II.  19.  This  account  is  again  Lucania,  we  may  compare  the  conquest  of  Boeo- 
different  from  that  of  Livy,  who  represents  the  tia  by  Myronides,  and  its  loss  a  few  years  after- 
Gauls  as  quarrelling  with  the  Etruscans  about  wards  through  the  event  of  the  battle  of  Coro- 
tho  terms  of  their  service,  and  thus  as  not  in-  nea;  and  also  the  accession  of  Achaia  to  the 
vading  the  Roman  dominion  at  all.  There  can  Athenian  alliance,  a  little  before  the  thirty  years' 
be  no  doubt  that  Polybius  has  preserved  the  peace,  and  its  loss  again,  through  the  stipula- 
truer  version  of  these  events.  He  fixes  also  this  tions  of  that  treaty.  It  is  manifest  that  the  lip- 
Gaulish  invasion  at  about  eighty-seven  years  man  and  Samnite  parties  in  Lucania,  or,  in 
aftcr^the  Irst  invasion,  when  Rome  was  taken,  other  words,  the  aristocratical  an  1  popular  par- 
that  is,  according  to  his  reckoning,  Olym.  120-1,  ties,  each  as  they  gained  the  ascendency,  took 
or  B.  c.  800.  The  common  reckoning  places  it  to  themselves  the  name  of  the  Lucauian  nation, 
in  299,  a  difference  not  worth  dwelling  upon.  and  spoke  of  the  foreign  supporters  of  the  op- 
posite party  as  the  national  enemies. 


CHAP.  XXXIII]  THIRD  SAMNITE  WAR.  332 

and  to  form  one  great  coalition  against  Rome.  They  solicited  the  Picentians  to 
join  them  ;24  but  there  the  influence  of  the  Roman  party  was  predominant  ;  and 
the  Picentian  government  made  a  merit  of  communicating  instantly  to  the  Ro- 
mans the  attempt  of  the  Samnites  to  shake  their  faith.  Old  jealousies  probably 
influenced  the  Marsians,  Marrucinians,  and  Pelignians  ;  they  had  often  found  the 
Samnites  restless  neighbors,  and  dreaded  the  restoration  of  their  former  power. 
But  the  Sabines25  seem  to  have  listened  to  the  Samnite  overtures  ;  there  the  ties 
of  blood  drew  the  two  people  towards  one  another  ;  and  the  new  Roman  trib£s,_ 
lately  created  in  the  ^Equian  territory,  brought  the  Romans  into  too  close  neigh- 
borhood to  Reate  and  the  valley  of  the  Velinus.  Etruria  was  already  engaged 
in  a  quarrel  of  her  own  with  Rome  ;  so  far  as  the  endless  party  revolutions  in 
the  Etruscan  cities  might  allow  any  dependence  on  the  stability  of  her  counsels. 
The  weakness  of  Umbria  might  yield  to  fear,  if  Etruria  on  one  side  and  the  Sa- 
bines on  the  other,  and  the  Gauls  hanging  on  her  northern  frontier,  should  to- 
gether call  upon  her  to  join  the  confederacy.  Nor  were  the  Samnites  neglectful 
of  the  nations  of  the  south  :  they  had  already,  as  we  have  seen,  recovered  the 
greatest  part  of  Lucania,  and  their  arms,  giving  timely  aid  to  their  party  within  the 
country,  must  at  this  period  have  won  also  the  majority  of  the  Apulian  nation 
to  desert  the  Roman  alliance,  and  to  acknowledge  once  again  the  supremacy  of 
Samnium.26  The  indefatigable  Samnite  government,  after  all  these  efforts,  might 
have  well  remonstrated,  like  the  Homeric  goddess,  with  that  hard  destiny  which 
was  to  render  them  all  fruitless  — 


iov  Sslvat  -n6vov  ifi 
w<ra  l*6yu>  ;  Ka//fr;;i' 
Aaoj/  ayeipavffj),  IIf>ta^(j>  Kaica  To16  re  iraiaiv. 


The  Romans,  as  might  have  been  expected,  readily  listened  to  the  prayer  of 
their  friends  in  Lucania.  An  alliance27  was  concluded  with  the  Beginning  of  the  twrd 
Lucanian  people,  and  hostages,  taken  probably  from  some  of  the  &&muite  war- 
families  of  the  Samnite  party,  were  given  to  the  Romans  as  a  pledge  of  their 
allies'  fidelity.  Ambassadors  were  sent  into  Samnium  to  require  the  Samnites  to 
withdraw  their  troops  from  Lucania,  and  with  a  threat  of  instant  war  if  the  de- 
mand were  not  complied  with.  The  Samnites  ordered  the  ambassadors  to  leave 
Samnium  without  an  audience  ;  and  the  general  council  of  the  Samnite  nation 
resolved  that  each  separate  state  of  their  union  should  make  its  preparations  for 
the  support  of  the  common  cause.  On  the  other  side,  the  Romans  made  a  for- 
mal declaration  of  war  ;  and  thus  the  desperate  struggle  began  again  with  in- 
creased animosity. 

When  we  read  of  the  Samnites,  Etruscans,  and  Gauls,  with  the  Lucanians  and 
Apulians,  some  of  the  Sabines,  and  most  of  the  Umbrian  states,  superior  strength  of  tho 
engaged  in  one  great  confederacy  against  Rome,  we  are  first  in-  Roman  coufederacy- 
clitied  to  wonder  how  the  Romans  could  have  escaped  destruction.  But  when 
we  consider  that  under  the  name  of  Rome  were  included  all  those  nations  which 
were  in  her  alliance,  and  of  whose  forces  she  had  the  supreme  disposal,  we  find 
that  it  was  but  a  weaker  and  far  worse  organized  confederacy  opposed  to  one 
stronger  in  itself,  and  much  more  firmly  united.  From  the  Ciminian  Hills  to  the 
bay  of  Naples,  the  territory  of  the  Romans,  Latins,  and  Campanians  presented  a 
compact  mass  of  states  and  people,  far  superior  in  population,  in  resources, 
and  in  union,  to  the  long  and  ill-organized  line  of  its  enemies  ;  whilst,  in  the  cen- 

24  Livy,  X.  11.  his  consulship,  namely,  in  the  year  458.    See 

25  Amiternum,  a  Sabine  town  in  the  tipper  Orelli,  Inscript.  Latin.  Collectio,  No.  539. 
valley  of  the  Atcrnus,  was  taken  from  the  Sam-  28  Because  in  the  year  457  we  find  an  Apulian 
nites  by  the  Romans  in  461.    Livy,  X.  39.    This  army  in  the  field  in  aid  of  the  Samnites  ;  and 
implies  a  previous  occupation  of  'it  by  the  Sam-  P.  Decius  is  said  to  have  defeated  it  at  Maleven- 
nites,  and  an  alliance  therefore  between  the  two  turn,  when  on  its  march  to  join  the  Samnite 
countries.    And  an  inscription  relating  to  Ap-  army.     Livy,  X.  15. 

pius  Claudius  the  blind  states,  that  he  "  de-        '•"  Livy,  X.  11,  12.    Dionysius,  XVI.  11,  12. 
teated  an  army  of  Sabines  and  Etruscans"  in 


334  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXII 

tre  of  Italy,  and  reaching  to  the  coast  of  the  Adriatic,  the  Marsians,  Pelignians, 
Marrucinians,  Frentanians,  Vestinians,  and  Picentians,  formed  a  separate  mass  of 
Roman  allies,  who,  by  their  position,  might  either  obstruct  the  enemies'  commu- 
nication, or  threaten  their  rear.  In  fact,  it  was  only  the  desperate  resolution  of 
the  Samnite  people,  and  the  great  energy  and  ability  of  their  leaders,  which  could 
afford  any  chance  of  success,  where  the  resources  of  the  contending  parties  were 
so  unequal.  The  Gauls  were,  like  all  barbarians,  uncertain  and  unmanageable  ; 
and  the  repeated  vacillations  of  the  Etruscan  counsels  made  the  alliance  of  Etru- 
ria  as  unsafe  a  support  as  that  of  Egypt  to  the  kings  of  Juda :  to  lean  on  the 
Etruscans  was  indeed  to  lean  on  a  broken  reed. 

No  combined  plan  of  operations  on  the  part  of  the  enemies  of  Rome  can  be 

nnt  campaign  of  the  traced  in  the  first  campaign  of  the  war.     The  Gauls  could  not  be 

prevailed  on  as  yet  to  take  the  field  ;  and  the  Roman  party  in  Lu- 

cania  was  not  entirely  put  down,  so  that  the  Samnites  were  still  employed  in  that 

quarter,  and  could  not  send  an  army  into  Etruria. 

The  Roman  consuls  of  the  year  456,  the  first  year  of  the  renewed  Samnite 
uncertain  and  var -in  wai"f  wcre  ^'  Cornelius  Scipio  and  Cn.  Fulvius  Centumalus.28  L. 
Meoante  of  tit*  earn.  Scipio  was  the  great-grandfather  of  the  conqueror  of  Hannibal ; 
he  is  the  first  Roman  of  whom  a  contemporary  record  has  reached 
our  times ;  the  famous  epitaph29  on  his  tomb,  which  declares  him  to  have  been 
"  a  brave  man  and  a  wise,  whose  form  well  matched  his  nobleness."  Yet  such 
are  the  perplexities  of  the  uncertain  history  of  these  times,  that  no  one  action 
recorded  in  Scipio's  epitaph  is  noticed  by  Livy,  while  no  action  which  Livy 
ascribes  to  him  is  mentioned  in  his  epitaph.  The  accounts  of  his  colleague's  ex- 
ploits are  no  less  varied ;  some  making  him  win  a  great  battle  in  northern  Sam- 
nium,30  and  saying  that  he  afterwards  besieged  and  took  Bovianum  and  Aufidena ; 
while  others  placed  the  seat  of  his  campaign  on  the  Lucanian  frontier,  and  ex- 
lufled31  the  ability  with  which  he  had  conducted  his  operations  against  a  superior 
enemy.  A  third  account  is  followed  by  the  Fasti  Capitolini,  that  Fulvius  tri- 
umphed over  the  Samnites  and  Etruscans ;  which  seems  to  contradict  the  story 
followed  by  Livy,  that  Scipio  invaded  Etruria,  advanced  as  far  as  Volaterrce,  and 
gained  a  hardly  won  victory  under  the  walls  of  that  city.  It  is  only  certain  that 
this  year  was  really  marked  by  no  great  successes  on  the  part  of  the  Romans ; 
on  the  contrary,  they  looked  forward  to  the  next  campaign  with  great  anxiety, 
and  therefore32  they  pressed  Q.  Fabius  to  accept  the  consulship,  notwithstanding 
his  advanced  age,  and  although  he  was  not  legally  eligible,  as  ten  years  had  not 
elapsed  since  he  was  consul  before.  It  was  in  vain  that  he  remonstrated ;  a  dis- 
pensation,33 according  to  a  practice  afterwards  so  frequent,  was  passed  in  his  favor ; 
and  the  people  proceeded  to  elect  him.  He  then  entreated  of  them  that  he 

88  Livy,  X.  11.  »  Livy,  X.  12.t 

20  The  sarcophagus  which  contained  the  bones  81  See  the  stories  inFrontimis,  Stratcgem,  I. 

of  L.  Cornelius  Scipio  was  discovered  in  1780,  6,  §  1,  2,  and  I.  11,  §  2,  already  referred  to  by 

and  is  now  in  the  Vatican  Museum.     The  epi-  Niebuhr.    But  the  authority  of  the  particular 

taph  is  as  follows,  written  in  the  old  Saturnian  anecdotes  contained  in  such  collections  as  that 

verse :  of  Frontinus  is  but  small,  and  it  is  not  in  itself 

t,n        r      T     .      c  .  .    -r,    ,    ,       -,     .      ,  to  be  set  in  comparison  with  that  of  any  raod- 

« Cornelius  Lucius  Scipio  BarbatusGnaivod  td     careful  }  istorian.     In  the  present  in- 

Patre  prognatus  fortis  vir.sapiensque  stance  the  anecdotes  are  curious,  as  showing 

Quoius  forma  virtutei  pansuma  fuit,  how  many  different  versions  of  the  same  event! 

Con*ol  censor  aidilis  quei  fuit  apud  vos,  .    circulation,  as  long  as  no  real  historian 

Taurasia  Cisauna  Sammo  ccpit  .  t  d  t   sift  thcm'  all  and  to  choosc  t]ic  t        t 

Subigit  omnc  Loucana  opsidesque  abdoucit."  or  the  most  probable ;  but  they  do  not  appear 

"Gnaivod"  in  the  first  line  would,  in  modern  to  rne  to  be  entitled  to  any  peculiar  credit. 

Latin,  be  "Cnffio,"  and  "quoins"  in  the  third  ^  Livy,  X.  13. 

line  is  "  cujus."    I  have  copied  the  inscription  33  "Triburii  plcbis  .  .  .  aiebant,  sc  ad  popu- 

from   Bunsen    and    Platner's   "  Bcschreibung  lum  laturos  ut  legibus  solveretur." — Livy,  X. 

RomSj"  Vol.  III.  p.  618.     It  may  be  found  also  13.     Legibus  solvi  is  the  regular  expression 

;n  Orelli's  Collection  of  Inscriptions,  No.  550,  used  when  any  one  has  a  dispensation  granted 

and  an  engraving  of  the  sarcophagus,  exhibiting  him,  to  release  him  from  complying  with  th« 

flso  the  epitaph,  is  given  in  the  Gentleman's  enactments  of  some  particular  law. 
Magazine  for  April,  1787. 


CHAP.  XXXIII]  INVASION  OF  SAMNIUM.  335 

might  recommend  to  them  P.  Decius  as  his  colleague:  Decius  aid  himself,  he 
said,  had  been  censors  together,  and  there  was  no  man  with  whom  he  could  act 
so  well  as  consul.  Accordingly,  Q.  Fabius  and  P.  Decius  were  elected  together : 
L.  Scipio,  the  consul  of  the  preceding  year,  served34  under  Fabius  as  his  lieu- 
tenant, and  a  Fulvius35  and  a  Valerius  are  named  amongst  his  military  tribunes. 

At  this  moment,  when  the  Romans  expected  to  be  assailed  by  the  whole  force 
of  the  enemies'  confederacy,  they  found  it  suddenly  paralyzed,  second  campaign.  r>e- 
Etruria  for  some  reason  or  other  was  not  ready  to  act,36  and  the  samnlun  i£l|Sasr 
Roman  frontier  on  that  side  might  be  safely  left  without  an  army.  and  p' Deciu8> 
Accordingly,  both  consuls  marched  into  Samnium,37  Fabius  by  Sora  and  the 
upper  Liris,  Decius  by  the  country  of  the  Sidicinians  and  the  line  of  the  Vul- 
turnus.  Fabius  was  met  by  the  main  Samnite  army,  which  he  defeated  after  a 
most  obstinate  battle ;  while  Decius  had  encountered  the  Apulians  near  Bene- 
ventum  on  their  march  to  join  their  allies,  and  defeated  them  also.  The  Samnites 
then  acted  on  the  defensive,  and  were  obliged  to  suffer  their  country  to  be  laid 
waste  without  opposition.  Both  of  the  Roman  armies  remained  in  Samnium,  it 
is  said,  for  five  months,38  moving  about  from  one  part  of  it  to  another,  and  carry- 
ing on  their  ravages  so  systematically,  that  Decius  was  recorded  to  have  en- 
camped  his  legions  in  forty-five  several  places,  and  Fabius  in  as  many  as  eighty- 
six.  But  the  Samnites  must  have  driven  their  cattle  to  their  mountain  pastures, 
and  many  of  these  were  so  surrounded  by  forests,  and  so  fenced  round  with 
precipitous  cliffs,  that  a  small  force  could  have  defended  them  with  success 
against  an  army.  The  low  country,39  however,  was  no  doubt  grievously  wasted, 
and  the  Romans  must  have  found  plunder  enough  to  encourage  them  to  continue 
their  invasion.  Towards  the  end  of  the  year  Fabius  returned  to  Rome  to  hold 
the  comitia  ;  after  which  he  resumed  his  command,  and  both  he  and  his  colleague 
were  ordered  to  remain  in  Samnium40  for  six  months  longer,  with  the  title  and 
power  of  proconsul. 

It  was  probably  in  this  winter  that  the  Samnite  influence  in  Lucania  and  Apu- 
lia was  completely  overthrown,  and  both  those  countries  returned 

.1          -r,  »i«  T        i        i       j  i  •    i  i  /»    Lucnnia  and  Apulia  re. 

to  the  Roman  alliance.  In  both  the  anstocratical  party  was  ot  covered  to  the  Roman 
itself  eager  to  re-establish  this  connection  ;  and  the  presence  of  * 
two  Roman  armies,  and  the  inability  of  the  Samnites  to  keep  the  field  against 
them,  destroyed  the  ascendency  of  the  popular  party,41  and  changed  accordingly 
the  foreign  relations  of  the  whole  people.  It  was  now  too,  it  seems,  that 
L.  Scipio,  as  lieutenant  of  the  proconsul,  Q.  Fabius,  had  so  great  a  share  in 
effecting  the  revolution  in  Lucania,  as  to  be  able  to  boast,  in  the  words  of  his 

34  Livy,   X.   14.      "  Fabius   .  .  .   Scipionem  "  Livy,  X.  14. 

legatum  hastatoS  primoe  legionis  subtrahere  ...  *  Livy,  X.  15.   The  circumstantial  statement 

jubet."  of  the  number  of  encampments  in  this  campaign 

85  Livy,  X.  14.     The  reading  in  the  modern  deserves  credit ;    and  the  account  of  Fabius' 

editions  of  Livy  is  "M.  Fulvium  et  M.  Vale-  v'ctory  is  moderate  and  probable, 

rium,"  but  most  of  the  MSS.  read  "  Maximum  89  In  the  former  war  the  consuls  of  the  year 

Fulvium,"  and  Niebuhr  observes  that  Maximus  448  had  ravaged  Samnium  during  five  months, 

was  u  surname  of  the  Fulvian  family,  as  appears  burning  all  the  scattered  houses,  and  destroy- 

from  the  Fasti  Capitolini.     It  is  probable  that  ing  the  fruit-trees.    Diodorus,  XX.  80.    But  no 

the  military  tribunes  here  spoken  of  were  the  enemy  could  have  penetrated  within  the  rocky 

sons  respectively  of  Cn.  Fulvius  and  of  M.  Va-  walls  of  the  Matesc,  and  many  other  spots  must 

lerius,  who  had  been  consuls  in  454  and  456.  .have  been  equally  secure. 

16  "Ab  Sutrio  et  Nepete  et  Faleriis  legati,  40  Livy,  X.  16. 

anctores  concilia  Etrurite  populorum  de  petenda  41  "  Lucanorum  seditiones  a  plcbeiis  et  agen- 

pace  haberi." — Livy,   X.   14.    This  perpetual  tibus  ducibus  ortas  summa  optimatium  volun- 

vacillation  in  the  Etruscan  counsels  arose  no  tate  per  Q.  Fabium  proconsulem,  missum  eo 

doubt  from  the  balanced  state  of  their  domestic  cum  vetere  exercitu,  compresserat." — Livy,  X. 

parties.    If  any  difficulty  arose  in  obtaining  the  18.      Nothing  is  mentioned  of  the   Apulians 

expected  aid  from  the  Gauls,  the  Cilnii  of  Arre-  after  their  defeat  at  Beneventum  ;  but  as  they 

tium,  and  other  friends  of  the  Roman  connec-  do  not  appear  again  as  the  allies  of  the  Samnites, 

tion,  would  urge  the  danger  of  opposing  Eome  it  is  probable  that  they  followed  the  example  of 

single-handed,  and  would  advise  delay;   and  the  Lucanians,  and  returned  in  this  winter  to 

fear  and  weakness,   counterfeiting  prudence,  their  old  connection  with  Rome. 


akness,   counterfeiting  p 

would  easily  be  tempted  to  listen  to  them. 


336  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXIII 

epitaph,  that  he  had  "  subdued  all  Lucania  and  carried  off  hostages."  The  hos- 
tages would  be  demanded  from  the  principal  families  of  the  popular  or  Samnite 
party,  as  a  security  that  they  should  not  again  excite  their  countrymen  to  revolt 
from  Rome. 

Thus  having  recovered  Lucania  and  Apulia,  having  overrun  Samnium  without 
Revival  of  the  w*r  in  resistance  during  several  months,  and  having  succeeded  apparent- 
ly, through  the  influence  of  their  party  in  the  Etruscan  cities,  in 
separating  Etruria  from  the  coalition,  the  Romans  thought  that  their  work  was 
done  ;  the  two  proconsular  armies  marched  home  and  were  disbanded,  and  the 
consuls  of  the  year,  L.  Volumnius  and  App.  Claudius,  after  having  hitherto  re- 
mained quiet  at  Rome,  were  ordered  to  march  with  their  newly  raised  legions4* 
into  Samnium,  as  if  to  receive  the  final  submission  of  their  exhausted  enemy.  But 
scarcely  had  the  consuls  left  the  city,  when  tidings  came  that  the  cities  of  Etru- 
ria were  in  arms.43  that  several  of  the  Umbrian  states  had  joined  them,  that  they 
were  engaging  the  services  of  a  large  force  of  Gaulish  auxiliaries ;  and  that  a 
Samnite  general,  with  a  Samnite  army,  was  in  the  midst  of  this  mass  of  enemies, 
to  cement  their  union,  and  to  breathe  into  their  counsels  a  new  spirit  of  decision 
and  energy. 

There  is  no  finer  scene  in  history  than  the  embassy  of  Demosthenes  to  Thebes, 
March  of  GeiiiusE^na-  when  Philip  had  occupied  Elatea.  Triumphing  alike  over  all  old 
ElruHMoorSre'the  prejudices  and  all  present  fears,  the  great  orator,  almost  in 
war  against  Rome.  ^ie  very  presence  Of  the  Macedonian  army,  and  in  spite  of  the  in- 
fluence of  a  strong  Macedonian  party  in  Thebes  itself,  prevailed  upon  the  Thebans 
to  throw  themselves  into  the  arms  of  Athens,  and  to  share  her  fortune  for  life  or 
for  death  in  her  contest  against  the  common  enemy  of  independent  Greece. 
Most  unlike  to  this  action  of  Demosthenes  in  glory,  yet  not  inferior  to  it  in  vig 
orous  resolution,  was  the  march  of  the  Samnite  general,  Gellius  Egnatius,  into 
Etruria,  in  order  by  his  presence  to  determine  the  wavering  counsels  of  the  Etrus- 
cans to  a  zealous  co-operation  against  Rome.  Seizing  the  moment  when  the 
proconsuls  had  left  Samnium,  and  the  new  consuls  had  not  yet  taken  the  field,  he 
fearlessly  abandoned  his  own  country  to  the  attacks  of  the  enemy,  and  with  a 
select  army,  marched  through  the  land  of  the  Sabines  into  TJmbria,  and  froir 
thence  crossing  the  Tiber,  arrived  in  the  heart  of  Etruria.  His  sudden  appear- 
ance raised  the  spirits  of  the  friends  of  the  Samnite  alliance,  and  struck  terror 
into  the  Cilnii  and  the  party  attached  to  Rome.  The  Etruscans  resolved  to 
renew  the  war,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  many  of  the  Umbrian  states  and  an  army 
of  Gauls  were  expected  to  join  them. 

On  the  first  tidings  of  this  march  of  the  Samnite  general,  the  senate  sent 
Third  campaign.  Both  orders  to  Appius  Claudius  to  follow  him  without  delay.  Appius, 
sZ^shu^cIm-  with  the  first  and  fourth  Roman  legions  and  12,000  allies,  was 
probably  on  his  march  towards  the  northern  parts  of  Samnium, 
by  the  Latin  road  and  the  upper  valley  of  the  Liris,  and  thus  could  be  sent  into 
Etruria  more  readily  than  his  colleague,  who,  we  may  suppose,  had  marched  by 
the  Appian  Road  to  attack  the  southern  frontier  of  Samnium  from  Campania. 
Appius  hastened  into  Etruria,44  and  the  appearance  of  a  Roman  army  at  first 
revived  the  hopes  of  the  partisans  of  Rome :  but  one  consul  was  unequal  to  the 
combined  forces  of  the  enemy,  and  L.  Volumnius  was  obliged  to  evacuate  Sam- 
nium also,  and  hasten  to  join  his  colleague.  No  sooner  was  the  whole  force  of 

"  The'  accounts  which  Livy  followed  repre-  ported  that  Appius  Claudius  and  Volumnius 

sent  the  proconsuls  as  being  still  in  Samnium  both  carried  on  war  in  Samnium  (Livy,  X.  17,  ad 

when  the  new  consuls  took  the  field.  X.  18.  finem) ;  and  it  is  not  likely,  as  Niebuhr  remarks. 

But  Nicbuhr  observes  that  his  narrative  con-  that  four  armies  should  have  been  employed 

tradicts  itself,  for  the  legions  raised  by  the  con-  before  the  war  broke  out  in  Etruria,  find  that 

suls  are  expressly  said  to  have  been  the  1st,  two  of  them  should  then  have  been  disbanded, 

2d,  3d,  and  4th. 'as  usual;   whereas,  had  two  just  when  their  services  were  most  needful, 

consular  armies  been  under  arms  at  that  time,  43  Livy,  X.  18. 

fie  new  legions  must  have  been  the  5th,  6th,  4*  Livy,  X.  18. 
7th,  an<l  8<ii.    Besides,  some  of  the  annals  re- 


CHAP.  XXXIIL]  DISPOSITION  OF  THE  ROMAN  ARMIES.  337 

Rome  thus  employed  in  Etruria,  than  the  Samnites  took  the  field  with  the  forces 
which  had  been  left  to  defend  their  own  county,  and  burst  into  Campania.45 
There  they  laid  waste  not  only  the  lands  of  the  allies  of  Rome,  but  of  all  those 
Roman  citizens  who  had  obtained  settlements  in  the  Falernian  district,  and  com- 
posed the  Falerian  tribe. 

The  march  of  Gellius  Egnatius  had  thus  completely  attained  its  object;  Sam- 
nium  was  wholly  relieved,  and  the  war  was  carried  into  the  actual  Alarm  flt  Rome.  Tha 
territory  of  Rome.  Even  the  mere  suddenness  of  this  change  was  SSTlS'^SywS 
enough  to  increase  its  terrors;  the  Roman  government  ordered  *° deliver CamPanU- 
all  legal  business  to  be  suspended,46  and  troops  to  be  raised  for  the  defence  of 
the  city ;  nor  were  the  levies  confined  to  the  military  age,  or  to  free-born  com- 
mons of  the  country  tribes,  but  citizens  above  five-and-forty,  and  even  freedmen 
of  the  four  city  tribes,  were  enrolled  in  the  legions  raised  to  meet  the  emergency. 
All  these  measures  were  directed  in  the  absence  of  the  consuls  by  P.  Sempronius 
Sophus,  the  praetor.  Meanwhile  L.  Volumnius  had  received  intelligence  of  the 
invasion  of  Campania,  and  was  hastening  back  from  Etruria  to  his  own  province. 
It  is  apparent  from  the  stories  which  have  been  preserved  of  the  meeting  of  the 
two  consuls  in  Etruria,  that  there  was  no  harmony  between  them ;  and  thus  the 
public  service  was  likely  to  suffer  the  less  from  the  division  of  their  forces.  We 
may  believe  also,  that  their  junction  for  a  time  had  revived  the  Roman  interest 
in  the  Etruscan  cities ;  and  we  may  admit,  not  indeed  the  account  given  by  Livy 
of  a  complete  victory  won  over  the  Etruscan  and  Samnite  armies,  but  that  some 
advantages  were  gained47  which  saved  Appius  from  his  perilous  situation,  and 
enabled  his  colleague  to  leave  him  when  a  still  more  pressing  danger  called  him 
into  Campania.  Volumnius  inarched  with  the  utmost  rapidity,  and  on  his  reach- 
ing the  scene  of  action,  he  obliged  the  Samnites  instantly  to  retreat  into  their  own 
country,  and  overtaking  a  party  of  them  on  their  way,  he  defeated  them  with 
considerable  loss,48  and  recovered  a  great  portion  of  the  spoil  which  they  were 
carrying  with  them.  This  gleam  of  success  was  most  welcome  to  the  Romans; 
the  usual  course  of  business  was  resumed,  after  having  been  suspended  for 
eighteen  days,  and  a  thanksgiving  was  ordered  in  the  name  of  the  consul  for  the 
favor  which  the  gods  had  shown  to  the  commonwealth  under  his  auspices. 

Still,  however,  the  aspect  of  affairs  was  most  critical.  In  order  to  protect  the 
Falernian  district  from  the  ravages  of  the  Samnites,  it  was  re- 
solved that  two  Roman  colonies  should  be  planted  there ;  one  at  th^^nlTampnign! 
Minturnse49  at  the  mouth  of  the  Liris,  and  the  other  at  Sinuessa,  cius  again  &*m  c<m- 
on  the  hills  which  divide  the  waters  running  to  the  Liris  from 
those  that  feed  the  Savone.  But  settlements  in  this  quarter  were  considered  so 
insecure,  and  so  exposed  to  perpetual  ravages  from  the  Samnites,  that  few  were 
willing  to  accept  a  grant  of  land  on  such  terms.  As  the  consular  elections  drew 
near,  L.  Volumnius  was  recalled  from  Campania  to  hold  the  comitia ;  and  the 
unanimous  voice  of  the  people  again  called  upon  Q.  Fabius  to  accept  the  office 
of  consul.  He  again  yielded  to  the  general  wish,  but  begged,  as  before,  that 
P.  Decius  might  be  his  colleague ;  and  Decius  was  accordingly  elected  consul 
with  him.50  Appius  Claudius,  who  was  still  with  his  army  in  Etruria,  was  ap- 
pointed praetor,  and  L.  Volumnius  had  his  command  prolonged  for  another  year 
as  proconsul.  L.  Cornelius  Scipio,  who  had  served  under  Fabius  in  his  last  con- 
sulship, Cn.  Fulviu?,  who  had  been  consul  in  the  year  456,  and  had  conducted 
*  e  first  campaign  of  this  war  in  Samnium,  together  with  L.  Postumius  Megel- 


1  Livy,  X.  20.  that  Appius  repulsed  the  enemy  and  saved  hia 

own  army,  but  it  by  no  means  proves  that  he 

7  In  the  midst  of  the  battle,  Appius  vowed  won  a  decided  victory.     We  have  only  to  re- 

to  build  a  temple  to  Bcllona,  if  the  goddess  member  Coruna  and  Albuhera. 

would  grant  him  victory  ;  and  this  temple  was  48  Livy,  X.  20,  21. 

afterwards  built.    See  Orelli,  Inscript.  Latinar.  49  Livy,  X.  21. 

Collect.  No.  539.  This  may  be  taken  as  evidence  M  Livy,  X.  22-26. 
22 


338  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXIII 

his,  were  appointed  also  to  commands  in  this  great  campaign,  with  the  title  of 
proprietors. 

The  anxiety  occasioned  by  the  impending  contest  may  be  measured  by  the 
particular  accounts  of  prodigies  and  their  expiations  which  were 
»Vui£*po?ted  ome£  to  be  found  in  the  annals  of  this  year.  From  the  altar51  of  the 
temple  of  the  Capitoline  Jupiter  there  flowed  for  three  successive 
days,  so  said  the  annals,  first  blood,  then  honey,  and  on  the  third  day  milk.  The 
blood  was  interpreted  as  a  sign  that  the  blood  of  thank-offerings  for  victory 
should  soon  stream  on  the  altar  of  Jupiter,  but  the  favors  of  the  gods  would  not 
be  unmixed  ;  for  honey  was  the  medicine  of  the  sick,  and  foreshowed  a  heavy 
visitation  of  sickness  :  milk  was  the  food  of  those  whose  corn  had  failed  them,  and 
was  the  sign  of  a  coming  famine.  To  avert  the  threatened  anger  of  the  gods, 
and  to  confirm  them  in  their  promised  favor,  solemn  prayers52  were  ordered  to  be 
offered  during  two  whole  days  ;  and  frankincense  and  wine  were  furnished  to 
every  one  at  the  public  expense,  that  the  prayers  might  be  universal  and  un- 
ceasing. 

The  consuls  at  this  time  came  into  office  about  the  beginning  of  the  year  ;  and 
as  the  snow  was  still  thick  on  the  Apennines,  the  Gauls  could 

App.  Claodini  in  Etni-  ,  ,          ,,    ,  ,  ..*.  ,       , 

riu.  winter  march  of  not  yet  take  the  field  to  march  into  lUruna,  and  the  campaign 

Fabiua  to  relieve  lam.  11,1  i    ,-11     ,1  •  T«     x    •  i  •    •  f    A.          • 

would  not  be  opened  till  the  spring.  But  ine  position  of  Appms 
Claudius  in  the  enemy's  country  was  exceedingly  perilous  ;  and  he  himself,  in 
the  opinion  of  Fabius,  was  scarcely  equal  to  the  difficulties  of  his  situation.  Ac- 
cordingly, Fabius  himself,  having  raised53  a  small  force  of  4000  foot  and  600 
horse,  out  of  a  great  multitude  who  were  eager  to  serve  under  so  renowned  a 
general,  set  out  at  once  for  Etruria.  He  found  Appius  Claudius  busily  employed 
in  strengthening  the  fortifications  of  his  camp,  and  the  soldiers  from  thus  acting 
solely  on  the  defensive  were  dispirited,  and  mistrusted  both  themselves  and  their 
general.  Fabius  ordered  them  to  level  their  fortifications  ;  and  having  sent  Ap- 
pius home,  he  took  the  command  of  the  army  in  person,  and  kept  it  continually 
in  movement,  marching  rapidly  from  place  to  place,  and  restoring  to  the  men 
their  accustomed  feeling  of  confidence.  He  then  stationed  one  division54  in  the 
country  of  the  Camertian  Umbrians,  the  allies  of  the  Romans,  to  observe  the 
pass  by  which  the  Gauls  were  likely  to  cross  the  Apennines,  apparently  that 
of  La  Scheggia  on  the  Flaminian  road,  descending  on  Nocera  and  Foligno.  This 
was  placed  under  the  command  of  L.  Scipio  ;  while  Fabius  himself  returned  to 
Rome  to  concert  measures  with  his  colleague  for  the  operations  of  the  approach- 
ing spring. 

Two  consular  armies55  were  destined  to  take  the  field,  consisting  each  of  two 
Roman  legions,  and  an  unusually  lar^e  force  of  Roman  cavalry  ; 

Forc«3  of  the  Romnns  »  .  _  -'  &  .  ...  >'..' 

mdiiieiraiiies  «mpioy-  together  with  500  CampRman  cavalry,  and  a  force  ot  allies  still 
larger  than  that  of  the  Romans  themselves.  Amongst  the  allies 
were  undoubtedly  the  Lucanians66  and  Campanians,  and  in  all  probability  the 
Marxians,  Pelignians,  Marrucinians,  and  Vestinians,  as  well  as  the  contingents  of 
the  colonies  founded  in  the  late  war,  and  those  of  the  still  independent  cities  of 
the  Latins.  All  the  forces  of  the  Picentians  which  could  be  spared  from  the 
defence  of  their  own  country,  as  well  as  those  of  the  Camertians,  were  employed, 
we  may  suppose,  with  the  army  of  L.  Scipio,  watching  the  movements  of  the 
snemy  in  Umbria. 

Whilst  this  large  force,  consisting  at  least  of  between  fifty  and  sixty  thousand 
men,  was  to  take  the  field  in  the  north,  two  more  Roman  leo-ions, 

rheir  armies  of  reserve.         .   .  .  ,  <?      IT  A      •  J       a  •         M 

with  a  proportionate  number  of  allies,  were  to  invade  Sammum" 


*  Zonaras,  VIII.  1.  M  The  Lucanians  arc  mentioned  as 

Livy,  X.  23.  the  regular  allies  of  the  Romans,  and  quartered 

3  Livy,  X.  25.  within  the  consuls'  camp,  in  the  year  iinmo" 

64  Livy,  X.  25.  diately  following:.—  See  Livy,  X.  33. 

"  Livy,  X.  26.  «  Livy,  X.  27* 


CHAP.  XXXIIL]        THE  TWO  ARMIES  MEET  AT  SENTINUM.  339 

under  L.  Volumnius  as  proconsul.  A  third  array,  under  Cn.  Fulvius  as  pro- 
praetor,58 was  to  be  stationed  as  a  reserve  in  the  Faliscan  territory,  at  once  to  de- 
fend the  passage  of  the  Tiber,  and  preserve  the  communications  of  the  main  army 
with  Rome ;  and  also  to  create  a  diversion,  if  opportunity  should  offer,  by  acting 
on  the  offensive  against  Etruria.  And  lastly,  a  fourth  army,  commanded  by  L. 
Postumius  Megellus,69  also  propraetor,  was  to  be  encamped  in  the  Vatican  dis- 
trict, on  the  right  bank  of  the  Tiber,  to  cover  Rome  itself. 

This  account  of  the  dispositions  of  the  Romans  is  clear  and  perfectly  credible ; 
but,  unfortunately,  we  are  left  in  total  ignorance  as  to  the  num- 

•*  •   •  f»  "iTTi  1        T~*  Scipio  8  diviiion  ID 

bers,  movements,  and  position  of  the  enemy.  Why  the  Etruscans  Jjgjjjjy**  Gtttth 
and  Samnites  did  not  crush  Scipio's  army,  even  before  the  arrival 
of  the  Gauls,  we  can  scarcely  understand,  unless  we  suppose  that  party  struggles 
again  paralyzed  the  force  of  the  Etruscans,  and  kept  it  in  inactivity  under  a  show 
of  caution,  till  the  whole  army  of  the  alliance  should  be  assembled.  At  last  the 
Gauls  commenced  their  movement  before  the  consuls  had  left  Rome ;  they  has- 
tened to  force  the  passage  of  the  Apennines,  and  no  sooner  had  they  arrived  on 
the  scene  of  war  than  they  began  to  act  in  earnest.  L.  Scipio's  army60  was  at- 
tacked by  the  Gauls  and  Samnites,  and  completely  defeated ;  one  legion,  it  is 
said,  was  cut  to  pieces ;  the  rest  of  his  division  took  shelter,  probably,  within 
some  of  the  neighboring  towns,  and  the  Gaulish  horsemen  overrunning  the  coun- 
try, fell  in  suddenly  with  the  two  consular  armies,  which  had  now  taken  the 
field,  and  first  acquainted  them  with  the  defeat  of  their  countrymen,  by  exhibit- 
ing the  heads  of  the  slain  Romans  affixed  to  their  long  lances,  or  hanging  round 
the  necks  of  their  horses. 

Exactly  at  this  critical  point  of  the  campaign,  Livy's  narrative  fails  us,  and  all 
that  passed  between  the  destruction  of  the  lemon  and  the  final 

.          -,1  rt          •  •  i     i  i        i  11  The  Etniacans  and  Urn- 

battle  at  Sentmum  is  a  total  blank'  it  is  as  much  loss  to  us  as  a  wan.  leave  their  aiiie*. 

,,      1  i        •  i  •     i  •  f    The   Gauls   mid    Sum- 

country  travelled  over  during  the  niimt ;  we  were  m  one  sort  of  i>ue«  retreat  behind  u* 

,  ,  />      i  •  -i  i  •  •  Apennines. 

scenery  yesterday,  and  we  find  ourselves  in  another  this  morning ; 
each  is  distinct  in  itself,  but  we  know  not  the  connection  between  them.  Ear- 
nestly must  Gellius  Egnatius  have  labored  to  bring  on  a  decisive  battle  in  the 
plains  of  Umbria ;  the  allies  had  begun  the  campaign  with  happy  omens,  their 
whole  force  was  united,  the  ground  was  favorable;  nothing  could  be  gained, 
and  every  thing  would  be  hazarded  by  delay.  But  whether  the  fault  rested 
once  again  with  the  Etruscans,  or  whether  the  Picentians  caused  a  timely  diver- 
sion, by  threatening  to  invade  the  country  of  the  Gauls,  or  whether  the  consuls 
fell  back  upon  Spoletum,  and  were  able  to  avoid  an  action  for  the  moment,  we 
know  not.  But  they  sent  orders  to  the  propraetors,  Cn.  Fulvius  and  L.  Postu- 
mius, to  advance  into  the  heart  of  Etruria,  and  no  sooner  did  the  tidings  of  this 
movement  reach  the  enemy's  army,  than  the  Etruscans  and  Umbrians  insisted  on 
marching  to  the  defence  of  the  Etruscan  territory,  and  the  Gauls  and  Sam- 
nites, indignant  at  their  desertion,  and  refusing  to  follow  them,  had  no  choice 
themselves  but  to  fall  back  behind  the  Apennines,  and  to  resign  their  hopes  of  a 
victorious  march  upon  Rome. 

The  Romans  pursued  them  instantly,  with  two  consular  armies  certainly,  and 
with  the  wreck  of  L.   Scipio's  division ;    perhaps  also  with  the  The   Romans  follow 
two  legions  of  L.  Volumnius,  which  may  have  been  recalled  from  meet*«t  s«ntimSn. 
Samnium.     They  found  the  enemy  in  the  country  of  Sentinum,   an   Umbrian 
town  on  the  north  side  of  the  Apennines,61  just  under  the  central  chain,  in  a 

8  Livy.  X.  27.  from  Ancona  to  Rome  crosses  the  Apennines 

9  Livy,  X.  27.  to  descend  upon  Foligno. 

60  Livy,  X.  26.  Polybius,  II.  19.    "VVe  learn  el  The  ancient  Sentinum  stood  on  or  near  the 

from  Polybius,  that  the  Samnites  were  engaged  site  of  the  modern  town  of  Sassoferrato,  as  i* 

in  this  action  as  well  as  the  Gauls,  and  that  it  known  by  inscriptions  which  have  been  dia- 

was  not  a  surprise,  but  a  regular  battle,  iraperdt-  covered  there.    See  Orclli,  Nos.  8861  and  4949. 

avrr  'Pupa/otf.    It  was  fought  in  the  country  of  But  I  have  no  good  information  as  to  the  de- 

thc  Catnertians,  or  people  of  Camerinum,  per-  tails  of  the  topography, 
haps  near  the  point  where  the  modern  road 


340  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXIIi. 

small  valley  which  runs  down  into  the  larger  valley  of  the  ^Esis  or  Esino,  and 
not  far  on  the  right  hand  of  the  Flaminian  road,  at  the  point  where  it  crosses 
the  watershed  of  the  mountains.  It  was  of  the  utmost  importance  to  the  Ro- 
man generals  to  bring  the  contest  to  an  issue  whilst  they  had  only  the  Gauls  and 
Samnites  to  encounter,  and  in  this  they  easily  succeeded,  for  the  Gauls  had  never 
yet  fought  the  Romans  without  conquering  them,  and  Gellius  Egnatius  knew 
enough  of  the  inconstant  humor  of  barbarians  to  be  aware  that  they  would  soon 
be  tired  of  a  protracted  war,  and  that  if  the  Gauls  too  deserted  him,  his  heroic  march 
from  Samnium  would  have  been  made  in  vain.  So  the  two  armies  met  by  com- 
mon consent  in  fair  field  ;  Q.  Fabius  was  on  the  Roman  right,  opposed  to  Gellius 
Egnatius  and  his  Samnites  ;62  P.  Decius  was  on  the  left  over  against  the  Gauls. 
If  L.  Volumnius  was  present  with  the  legions  from  Samnium,  he  probably,  likb 
On.  Servilius  at  Cannae,  who  had  also  been  consul  in  the  year  before  the  battle, 
had  his  place  in  the  centre.  The  Samnites  could  not  alone  have  contended  with 
Q.  Fabius,  whose  right  wing  was  equal  to  a  regular  consular  army ;  and  the 
Gauls  must  have  been  more  than  enough  to  overpower  P.  Decius.  It  is  proba- 
ble, therefore,  that  the  Gauls  composed  the  greater  part  of  the  enemy's  line  of 
battle,  and  that  only  the  extreme  left  was  held  by  Gellius  Egnatius  and  his  Sam- 
nites. 

While  the  two  armies  fronted  each  other,  and  were  on  the  very  eve  of  battle, 
A  favorable  omen  en.  a  hind,63  said  the  Roman  story,  came  running  down  from  the 
courages  the  Romans.  mountains  between  the  two  opposing  lines,  with  a  wolf  in  chase 
of  her.  She  ran  in  amongst  the  Gaulish  ranks,  and  the  Gauls  transfixed  her  with 
their  long  javelins.  The  wolf  ran  towards  the  Romans,  and  they  instantly  gave 
free  passage  to  the  beast  which  had  given  suck  to  the  founder  of  their  city ;  and 
whose  image  they  had  only  in  the  preceding  year61  set  up  beneath  that  very 
sacred  fig-tree  in  the  comitium,  which  tradition  pointed  out  as  the  scene  of  the 
miracle.  "  See,"  cried  out  one  of  the  soldiers,  "  Diana's  sacred  hind  has  been 
slain  by  the  barbarians,  and  will  bring  down  her  wrath  upon  them ;  while  the 
Roman  wolf,  unhurt  by  sword  or  spear,  gives  us  a  fair  omen  of  victory,  and  bids 
us  think  on  Mars  and  on  Quirinus,  our  divine  founder."  So  the  Roman  soldiers, 
as  encouraged  by  a  sign  from  the  gods,  rushed  cheerfully  to  the  onset. 

This  story,  with  some  other  circumstances  related  of  the  battle  itself,  are 
blended  strangely  with  the  perfectly  historical  substance  of  the 

Battle  of  Sentinum.  .  *?      J          ,,,,  V  ,  i  us       i          T»  i     c 

general  narrative.  When  the  armies  closed,  *  the  Koman  left 
wing  struggled  vigorously  against  the  numbers,  and  strength,  and  courage  of  the 
Gauls.  Twice,  it  is  said,  did  the  Roman  and  Campanian  cavalry  charge  with 
effect  the  Gaulish  horsemen ;  but  in  their  second  charge  they  were  encountered 
by  a  force  wholly  strange  to  them,  the  war  chariots  of  the  enemy,  which  broke 
in  upon  them  at  full  speed,  and  with  the  rattling  of  their  wheels,  and  their 
unwonted  appearance,  so  startled  the  horses  of  the  Romans,  that  they  could  not 
be  brought  to  face  them,  and  horses  and  men  fled  in  confusion.  Uncouth  and 
almost  ridiculous  as  these  chariots  may  seem  to  our  notions,  yet  a  force  which 
terrified  Caesar's  veterans,  and  which  that  great  master  of  war  speaks  of  as  for- 
midable, could  not  have  been  ridiculous  in  reality  ;  and  the  undoubted  effect  of 
the  British  chariots  against  the  legions  of  Caesar,  may  well  convince  us  that  the 
Gaulish  chariots  at  Sentinum  must  have  struck  terror  into  the  soldiers  of  Decius. 
The  Roman  cavalry  were  driven  back  upon  their  infantry ;  the  first  line  of  the 
r.  Deems  devote,  him-  legions  was  broken,  and  the  Gauls,  following  their  advantage, 

pressed  on  with  the  masses  of  their  infantry.  Decius  strove  in 
vain  to  stop  the  flight  of  his  soldiers ;  one  way  alone  was  left  by  which  he  might 
yet  serve  his  country  ;  he  bethought  him  of  his  father  at  the  battle  by  Vesuvius, 
and  calling  to  M.  Livius,  one  of  the  pontifices  who  attended  him  in  the  field,  he 
lesired  him  to  dictate  to  him  the  fit  words  for  self-devotion.  Then,  in  the  same 

63  Livy,  X,  27.  °*  Livy,  X.  23. 

*  Livy,  X.  27.  w  Livy,  X.  27,  28. 


CHAP.  XXXIIL]  DEFEAT  OF  THE  SAMNITES.  341 

dress,  and  with  all  the  same  ceremonies,  he  pronounced  also  the  same  form  of 
words  which  had  been  uttered  by  his  father,  and  devoting  himself  and  the  host 
of  the  enemy  with  him  to  the  grave  and  to  the  powers  of  the  dead,  he  rode  into 
the  midst  of  the  Gaulish  ranks  and  was  slain. 

His  last  act  as  consul  had  been  to  invest  the  pontifex  M.  Livius66  with  the 
command  of  his  legions  as  propraetor,  and  to  order  his  lictors  to  ^  Gaulg  resist  ob. 
follow  the  new  general.  Fabius  also,  learning  the  danger  of  his  stinately- 
colleague,  had  sent  two  of  his  own  lieutenants,  L.  Scipio  and  C.  Marcius,  to-his- 
aid,  with  reinforcements  drawn  from  his  own  reserve ;  and  thus  the  flight  of  the 
Romans  was  stayed,  while  the  manner  of  Decius'  death  encouraged  rather  than 
dismayed  his  soldiers,  as  they  believed  that  it  was  the  price  paid  for  their  victory. 
But  the  Gauls,  though  checked,  were  yet  neither  beaten  nor  disheartened ;  they 
gathered  into  thick  masses,  with  their  huge  shields  covering  almost  their  whole 
bodies,  and  wielding  their  heavy  broadswords,  they  stood  unbroken  and  unas- 
sailed ;  till  the  Romans  picked  up  from  the  field  of  battle  the  javelins  which  had 
been  discharged  earlier  in  the  action,  and  with  these  missiles  endeavored  to  wear 
down  the  mass  of  their  enemies.  The  pila  pierced  through  the  wooden  shields 
of  the  Gauls,  encumbering  them,  even  when  they  inflicted  no  wound ;  but  the 
Gauls  stood  as  firm  as  the  "  Scottish  circle  deep"  under  the  hail  of  the  English 
arrows  at  Flodden ;  and  no  efforts  of  the  left  wing  of  the  Romans  could  secure 
the  victory. 

Meanwhile,  Fabius,67  on  the  right,  after  a  long  and  arduous  contest  with  the 
Samnites,  and  finding  that  his  infantry  could  not  break  them,  at 
last  succeeded  in  charging  their  flank  with  his  cavalry,  and  at  the  sinSt««,  and"  It  h»* 
same  moment  bringing  all  his  reserves  of  infantry  into  action,  he  5^.§com?f"i*Jieto!y 
assailed  their  line  in  front,  and  decided  the  victory.  The  Samnites 
fled  to  their  camp,  and  thus  left  exposed  the  flank  of  the  Gauls,  who  were  still  main- 
taining  their  ground.  Fabius  saw  his  opportunity,  and  detached  the  Campanian 
cavalry,  with  the  principes  of  the  third  legion,  to  attack  the  Gauls  in  the  rear ; 
while  he  himself  closely  pursued  the  Samnites,  and  vowed  aloud  that  if  he  won 
the  day,  he  would  build  a  temple  and  offer  all  the  spoils  of  the  enemy  to  Jupiter 
the  victorious.  The  Samnites  rallied  under  the  ramparts  of  their  camp,  and  still 
disputed  the  victory ;  but  the  Gauls,  assailed  on  all  sides,  were  now  hopelessly 
broken,  and  the  last  hope  of  the  Samnites  vanished,  when  their  commander,  Gel- 
lius  Egnatius,  fell.  Still,  when  the  day  was  utterly  lost,  these  brave  men  would 
neither  surrender  nor  disperse ;  they  left  the  field  in  a  body,  and  immediately 
began  their  retreat  to  their  own  country. 

The  Roman  accounts  of  this  bloody  battle68  state  the  loss  of  their  enemies  at 

|OK,000  killed,  and  8000  prisoners:  their  own  they  make  to  have 
ounted  to  8200  killed ;  but  they  give  no  report  of  the  num-  L 
•  of  wounded.     Of  the  total  loss,  only  1200  are  said  to  have  fallen  in  the  right 
ig,  while  in  the  army  of  Decius  there  were  killed  7000.     The  great  slaugh- 
in  ancient  warfare  always  took  place  when  the  line  of  battle  was  broken ;  and 
!  disparity  of  loss  on  the  two  wings  of  the  Roman  army  is  therefore  such  as 
wutfht  have  been  expected. 

Meanwhile,  Cn.  Fulvius69  had,  according  to  his  instructions,  penetrated  into 
Etruria ;  and  had  not  only  laid  waste  a  large  tract  of  country, 
but  had  defeated  in  the  field  an  army  sent  out  by  the  two  cities  °' 
of  Perusia  and  Clusium  to  check  his  ravages. 


Livy,  X.  29.  Diodorus,  XXI.  Frag,  hoescliel.  p.  490.    Duns 

•  Livy,  X.  29.  supposed  that  the  Etruscans  were  engaged  in 

H  Livy,  X.  29.     Duris  of  Samos,  a  contem-  the  cattle;  and  some  of  the  Roman  writers  gavo 

porury  writer,  but  whose  information  of  these  the  same  account,  and  made  the  allied  ariny  to 

events  could  come  only  from  common  report,  consist  of  a  million  of  men. — See  Niebuhr,  Vol. 

and  who  delighted  to  exaggerate  the  disasters  III.,  note  647. 

of  the  Gauls,  related  that  in  the  Gaulish  and  69  Livy,  X.  30. 
— -ite  army  100,000  men  had  fallen.— See 


342  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXX1U 

It  is  quite  plain  that  the  Etruscans  were  at  this  time  suffering  the  full  evil  ot 
distracted  counsels,  and  that  they  were  neither  unanimous  for  peace  nor  for  war. 
What  was  become  of  the  forces  of  Arretium,  of  Volaterrse,  of  Russellce,  of  Cor- 
tona,  and  of  Vulsinii,  when  Clusium  and  Perusia  were  left  to  resist  the  Roman 
invasion  alone  ? 

The  body  of  Decius10  was  found  under  a  heap  of  slaughtered  Gauls,  and  honor- 
ably buried.  Fabius  celebrated  his  funeral,  and  pronounced  his 
funeral  oration ;  a  fit  tribute  from  one  who  had  been  twice  his  col- 
league in  the  consulship  and  once  in  the  censorship ;  nor  had  any  man  enjoyed 
better  opportunities  of  knowing  his  excellence.  He  had  proved  his  skill  and  cour- 
age in  war,  and  his  wisdom  and  moderation  in  peace  ;  and  he  had  experienced  also 
the  noble  frankness  of  his  nature,  which  never  allowed  any  selfish  jealousy  to 
stand  in  the  way  of  his  private  friendship,  and  much  less  of  his  devotion  to  his 
country's  service. 

Such  was  the  great  battle  of  Sentinum,  the  Austerlitz  of  the  third  Samriite 
The  Gauis  ciumot  be  wai>'  ^u^ as  more  tnan  eighteen  months  elapsed  between  the  bat- 
ind»cod^osSeCrvT agam  tie  of  Austerlitz  and  the  peace  of  Tilsit,  so  neither  was  the  coali- 
tion against  Rome  dissolved  at  once  by  the  victory  of  Sentinum. 
The  Gauls,  indeed,  remained  quiet  after  their  defeat,  for  their  interest  in  the  war 
was  only  that  of  mercenary  soldiers,  and  they  were  not  tempted  to  a  service 
which  seemed  likely  to  bring  with  it  more  loss  than  profit.  But  even  Etruria 
would  not  yet  submit  to  Rome,  and  the  Samnites,  hoping  still  to  keep  the  war  at 
a  distance  from  their  own  country,  wTere  eager  to  renew  the  contest. 

Yet  the  Romans  could  not  but  feel  great  relief  from  their  victory.  The  armies 
trium  °^  ^e  ProPr8etors,  Cn.  Fulvius  and  L.  Postumius,  were  recalled 

to  Rome71  and  disbanded  ;  and  Fabius  marched  into  Etruria  with 
his  consular  army,  and  was  strong  enough  to  obtain  fresh  advantages  over  the 
Perusians,  who  alone  of  all  the  Etruscan  people  ventured,  it  seems,  to  meet  the 
Romans  in  the  field.  He  then  returned  to  Rome,  and  triumphed  on  the  4th  of 
September  over  the  three  principal  powers  of  the  late  coalition,  the  Etruscans, 
the  Gauls,  and  the  Samnites ;  and  the  soldiers  who  followed  his  chariot,  in  the 
rude  verses  which  they  were  accustomed  to  utter  on  such  occasions,  commemo- 
rated the  death  of  Decius  as  fully  equal  in  glory  to  their  own  general's  safe  and 
victorious  return.  It  is  mentioned12  that  each  soldier  received  out  of  the  spoil 
taken  in  the  late  battle,  eighty-two  uses,  and  a  coat,  and  military  cloak;  "rewards," 
says  Livy,  f  adly  feeling  how  whole  districts  of  Italy  had  in  his  days  been  por- 
tioned out  amongst  the  legions  of  Augustus,  "  which  the  soldiers  of  those  times 
did  not  think  despicable." 

The  wreck  of  the  Samnite  army,73  still,  it  is  said,  amounting  to  5000  men,  made 
its  way  unhurt  or  unopposed  through  the  countries  of  the  Picen- 

Th«     Samnite      nrmy       .  J      ,    Tr         ..  i     r  i  11*  i        c\ 

force,  iu  way  back  to  tians  and  Vestinians,  and  from  thence  proceeded  towards  feam- 
nium  through  the  country  of  the  Pelignians,  by  Sulmo  and  the 
Five-mile  plain  to  the  valley  of  the  Sagrus  or  Sangro.  The  Pelignians,  more 
zealous  in  the  quarrel,  because  they  were  nearer  neighbors  to  the  Samnites,  and 
their  lands,  no  doubt,  had  often  suffered  from  Samnite  incursions,  endeavored  to 
cut  off  the  retreating  army.  But  the  Samnites,  with  some  loss,  beat  off  this  new 
enemy,  and  entered  their  own  country  in  safety. 

"  Livy,  X.  29.  triumph?  whereas  Livy  makes  him  march  back 

71  This  appears  from  the  circumstance  that  to  Etruria  after  his  triumph.    But,  as  Niebuhr 

Fabius  marched  into  Etruria  and  engaged  the  says,  his  army  would  be  disbanded  as  a  matter 

Perusians ;  which  shows  that  Cn.  Fulvius  must  of  course  after  his  triumph,  and  the  Fasti  Ca- 

have  already  been  recalled,  and  also  because  pitolini  say  that  he  triumphed  over  the  Etrus- 

App.  Claudius,  the  prsttor,  was  ordered  to  sup-  cans,  as  well  as  the  Samnites  and  Gauls  ;  which 

port  L.  Volumnius  in  Samnium  with  the  re-  he  could  not  have  done  had  he  only  triumphed 

mains  of  the  anny  of  Decius:  had  the  proprse-  for  his  victory  at  Sentinum,  as  no  Etruscans 

tor's  armies  been  still  embodied,  one  of  them  were  engaged  there. 

would  probably  have  been  employed  on  that  "  Livy,  X.  30. 

service.     I  have  followed  Niebuhr  in  placing  "  Livy,  X.  30. 
Fubius'  victories  over  the  Perusians  before  his 


c.  460-  A.  c 


CUAP.  XXXIII.]  INDECISIVE  CAMPAIGN.  343 

It  is  manifest  that  during  this  year  Samnium  enjoyed  a  complete  respite  from 
invasion  ;  and  that  L.  Volumnius,  even  if  we  suppose  that  he  was  operations  m  samm. 
not  called  away  to  the  great  seat  of  war  in  Umbria,  was  not  a  taj}u^£^^"dur' 
match  for  the  Samnite  forces  opposed  to  him. 

His  defeat  of  a  Samnite  army  which  had  taken  refuge  in  the  Matese  is  en- 
titled to  no  credit  whatever  ;  on  the  contrary,  we  find  that  the  Samnites  again 
invaded  the  Roman  territory  in  two  different  directions  ;74  that  one  army  de- 
scended into  the  districts  of  Formire  and  Vescia,  and  another  laid  waste  the  banks 
of  the  Vulturnus  apparently  where  it  first  issues  out  on  the  plain  of  Campania. 
After  the  battle  of  Sentinum,  the  legions  of  Decius  were  recalled  from  Etruria, 
and  put  under  the  command  of  Appius  Claudius,  the  prsetor,  and  he  and  L.  Vo- 
lumnius,  acting  together  with  their  two  armies,  obliged  the  Samnites  to  retreat 
within  their  frontier.  But  as  the  Etruscans  had  not  yet  made  peace  with  Rome, 
the  Samnites  were  not  discouraged,  and  trusted  that  another  year  might  enable 
them  to  retrieve  their  defeat  at  Sentinum. 

The  events  of  the  next  year,  however,  are  involved  in  sue  h  confusion  that  it 
is  impossible  to  disentangle  them.  L.  Postumius  Megellus,  one  A.  u.  c.  460- 
of  the  proprsetors  of  the  year  before,  was  now  consul,  and  M.  Tit  Rmvm^ 
Atilius  Regulus  was  his  colleague.  The  seat  of  war  was  again  trans-  advantiis<*  ">  >'• 
ferred  to  Apulia,75  where  the  Samnites,  well  understanding  the  importance  of  act- 
ing on  the  offensive,  laid  siege  to  Luceria.  Here  there  was  fought  a  bloody  and 
indecisive  battle,  in  which  the  Romans  were  in  such  danger  that  the  consul 
vowed  to  build  a  temple  to  Jove,  the  stayer  of  flight,  if  his  army  were  saved  from 
total  rout.  At  the  end  of  the  campaign  the  Roman  army  wintered  at  Interam- 
na,76  in  the  valley  of  the  Liris,  to  save  that  country  from  the  ravages  of  the  enemy  ; 
and  the  consul  returned  to  Rome  to  hold  the  comitia.  His  colleague  had  been 
recalled  from  Samnium  earlier  in  the  season  to  carry  on  the  war  in  Etruria  ;  and 
this  he  did,  according  to  the  Roman  accounts,  with  such  success,77  that  Vulsinii, 
Perusia,  and  Arretium  sued  for  peace,  and  obtained  a  truce  for  forty  years.  But 
which  consul  it  was  who  fought  at  Luceria,  and  which  had  marched  into  Etruria, 
the  annalists  did  not  know,  and  therefore  guessed  variously.78  Some  accounts 
went  so  far  as  to  say  that  both  consuls  triumphed  ;79  but  most  said  that  only  one 
obtained  that  honor,  and  again  they  did  not  agree  in  determining  which  consul 
it  was.  It  is  probable  that  neither  of  the  consuls  triumphed  ;  nor  does  it  seem 
likely  that  the  Romans  obtained  any  advantages  in  this  year,  except,  perhaps, 
over  the  ever-restless  but  ever-  vacillating  and  divided  Etruscans.  The  Samnites, 
therefore,  resolved  to  try  their  fortune  once  again. 

The  next  year  was  undoubtedly  marked  by  great  successes  on  the  side  of  the 
Romans  ;  but  its  history  is  still  uncertain  in  the  details,  and  much  A.  ^  C-  461.  A.  a 
of  the  geography  of  the  campaign  is  wholly  inexplicable.  The  consuishS'ofT'pap^' 
consuls  were  L.  Papirius  Cursor,  son  of  that  Papirius  who  had  ius  and  St>>  CurvUiu11- 

^  '*  Livy,  X.  31.    He  describes  the  scene  of  the    narrative  of  this  war  seems  to  have  defended 

Samnite  inroad  in  these  words,  "in  .AEserninum    f»Vn»flv  rm  tv>o  -mom™™  nf  tim  T?oV>ion  ftimiiv 

quspque  Vulturno  adjacent  flumini."    The  word 

which,  in  the  modern  editions  of  Livy,  is  printed 

as  "  ^Eserninum"  varies,  however,  in  the  MSS. 

greatly.    ^Esern'.a,  in  Samnium,  seems  out  of 

the  question,  for  i   Tas  only  in  the  beginning    did  not  triumph,  but  that  Postumius  did,  by  his 

.^.^4-Urt    -£,,.*.    T>  ___  I  ~    „    -,—   1.1  __  i.    1.1  __    "O_.._  .     _1  „„!-,.  ,3  ___  1.1  ____  *i_    _        '  _•  J.1-    -       i.    .i-l-  .  ___  i.!  ___     _  A."  i-L  . 


nnite  inroad  in  these  words,  "in  .AEserninum.  chiefly  on  the  memoirs  of  the  Fabian  family, 

jpque  Vulturno  adjacent  flumini."    The  word  and  to  have  become  uncertain  where  they  failed 

which,  in  the  modern  editions  of  Livy,  is  printed  him,  did  not  venture  to  say  which  it  was. — See 

as  "  ^Eserninum"  varies,  however,  in  the  MSS.  Livy,  X.  37. 

greatly.    JSsernia,  in  Samnium,  seems  out  of  79  Fasti  Capitolini. — Livy  says  that  Atiliua 


t: 


l~     VJlAV^OHV/ll,     AVA         A           ^<*O       V1HJ      AH       tJiAV>        L/l/^  Al  J  AA  Al  A££  UAVIAAI/U    MJUIUUUj      UUU     UHt*L»J-    V7i3  L  U  11 1  A  L*O    \-lHA,     M( 

of  the  first  Punic  war  that  the  Komans  planted  own  authority,  without  the  sanction  of  the 

a  colony  there  ;  unless  we  suppose  that  portions  ate.    But  this  story  is  referred  by  Dionysius  to 

of  its  domain  had  already  been  ceded  totheRo-  Postumius'  third  consulship  three  years  after- 

mans  in  the  second  Samnite  war,  which,  how-  wards;  and  Claudius  said  that  Postumius  never 

ever,  considering  how  deep  the  city  lies  in  the  triumphed  at  all.     It  does  not  appear  that  the 

heart  of  Samnium,  seems  improbable.  narrative  of  Fabius  gave  a  triumph  to  either  oi 

75  Livy,  X.  35.  them.— Livy,  X.  37. 

13  Livy,  X.  36.  Orosius'   description  of  the  events  of  this 

7  Livy,  X.  37.  year  is  far  nearer  the  truth,  I  think,  than  the 

78  Livy  says  that  Atilius  fought  at  Luceria,  account  of  Livy.     "  Scquitur  annus  quo  Ko- 

nd*  Postumius  marched  into  Etruria.     Clau-  mani  instaurato  a  Sammtibus  hello  vicii  aunt, 

Ius  Quadrigarius,  as  quoted  by  Livy,  main-  atque  in  castra  fugeruut."     111.22. 
'ued  exactly  the  contrary;  and  Fabius,  whose 


344  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXIII 

been  so  famous  in  the  second  Samnite  war,  and  Sp.  Carvilius  Maximus.  Car- 
vilius  took  the  command80  of  the  army  which  had  wintered  near  Interamna,  on 
the  Liris ;  Papirius  commanded  two  new  legions,  and  both  consuls  were  ordered 
to  invade  Samnium. 

The  Samnites,  on  their  part,  are  said  to  have  raised  an  army  with  unusual 
De«per«te  resolution  of  care»  an^  to  have  bound  their  soldiers  by  the  most  solemn  oaths, 
the  sanmhe..  taken  amidst  the  most  mysterious  and  horrid  ceremonies,  that 

they  would  either  conquer  or  die.  Tlie  men  thus  pledged  were  arrayed  in  a 
peculiar  manner,  with  waving  plumes  on  their  helmets,  and  with  coats  of  white 
linen,  exactly  as  had  been  done  fifteen  years  before,  when  the  old  Papirius,  the 
father  of  the  present  consul,  was  appointed  dictator  to  encounter  them  ;  and  the 
repetition  of  these  same  ceremonies  by  the  Samnites  now  made  the  Romans,  for 
the  omen's  sake,  appoint  another  Papirius  Cursor  to  be  consul ;  as  if  the  Pa- 
pirian  family81  was  chosen  by  the  gods  to  meet  and  to  overcome  the  most  desper- 
ate efforts  of  their  Samnite  enemies. 

It  was  no  doubt  the  failure  of  all  co-operation  in  Etruria,  and  the  knowledge, 
therefore,  that  they  would  have  to  withstand  the  whole  force  of 

They  retain  their  hold    -y-.  I'li-iir^- 

ou^  country  of  the  Rome,  which  led  the  bammtes  to  apply  these  extraordinary  excite- 
ments to  the  courage  of  their  soldiers.  Yet  it  seems  as  if  they 
had  not  abandoned  all  hopes  of  Etruscan  aid,  and  that  they  had  learned  frori 
their  enemies  the  wisdom  of  acting  on  the  offensive ;  for  the  first  operations  of 
the  Roman  armies  were  the  capture  of  Amiternum,82  and  the  ravaging  of  the 
country  of  Atina.  This  seat  of  war  implies  that  the  Samnites  still  obstinately 
retained  their  line  of  communication  with  Etruria  amidst  all  the  invasions  of  their 
own  country,  and  with  this  view  still  held  fast  to  their  alliance  those  Sabine  and 
Volscian  cities  which,  at  the  beginning  of  the  coalition,  had  been  forced  or  per- 
suaded to  espouse  their  cause. 

A  Samnite  army  was  also  sent  into  Campania  to  ravage  the  territory83  of  the 

Romans  and  their  allies  on  the  Liris  and  Vulturnus,  whilst  another 

was  kept  in  Samnium  for  home  defence ;  and  it  was,  perhaps,  to 

the  soldiers  of  this  last  army,  consisting  of  the  oldest  and  youngest  men  capable 

of  bearing  arms,  that  the  excitements  of  enthusiasm  were  applied,  to  make  up 

for  their  inferiority  in  strength  and  in  experience. 

The  Roman  consuls84  having  jointly  laid  waste  the  territory  of  Atina,  proceeded 
Both  the  Roman  con-  to  enter  Samnium.  The  seat  of  war  lay  apparently  in  the  country 
SrSeonSthnenonh  of  the  Pcntrian  Samnites  on  the  north  of  the  Matese  :  Carvilius 
oftheMateae.  j^  sjege  ^0  Cominium  i  Papirius,  after  having  taken  Duronia, 

marched  against  Aquilonia,  where  the  Samnite  army  was  stationed ;  all  these 
three  places  are  quite  unknown  to  us,  and  we  can  only  conclude  that  they  lay  on 
the  north  side  of  the  Matese,  because  two  of  them  are  described  as  being  near  to 
Bovianum,  the  site  of  which  is  known.  The  Samnites,  attacked  at  once  by  two 
consular  armies,  were  compelled  to  divide  their  forces ;  and  eight  thousand  men 
were  detached  from  the  army  before  Aquilonia  to  relieve  Cominium.  A  deserter 
acquainted  Papirius  with  this  movement,  and  he  instantly  sent  off  a  messenger 
to  warn  his  colleague,  while  he  himself  attacked  the  enemy  at  the  moment  when 
he  knew  their  force  to  be  thus  untimely  weakened.  The  auspices  had  been 
reported  to  be  most  favorable  ;  "  the  fowls  ate  so  eagerly,"  so  said  their  keeper 
to  the  consul,  "  that  some  of  the  corn  dropped  from  their  mouths  on  the  ground."81 
This  was  the  best  possible  omen  ;  but  just  as  the  consul  was  on  the  point  of 
giving  the  signal  for  action,  his  nephew,  Sp.  Papirius,  came  to  tell  him  that  the 

80  Livy,  X.  39.  pascuntur  (aves)  necesse  est  aliquid  ex  ore  ca 

81  Livy,  X.  88,  39.  dere  et  terram  pavire,  terripavium  prirno,  post 
n  Livy,  X.  39.  tcrripudium  dictum  est :  hoc  quidem  jam  tri- 
M  Zouaras,  VIII.  1.  pudium  dicitur.     Quum  igitur  otl'a  cecidit  ex 
84  Livy,  X.  39.  ore  pulli,  turn  auspicanti  tripudium  solistimlim 
*  "Puilarius  auspicium  mentiri  ausus  tripu-  nuntiant." — Cicero,  de  Divinat.  II.  34. 

ilium  solistimum." — Livy,  X.  40.    "  Quiu  quuni 


CHAP.  XXXIIL]  VICTORIES  OF  THE  ROMANS. 

keeper  had  made  a  false  report.  "  Some  of  his  comrades  have  declared  the  truth," 
said  the  young  man  :  "  and  far  from  eating  eagerly,  the  fowls  would  not  touch 
their  food  at  all."  "Thou  hast  done  thy  duty,  nephew,  in  telling  me  this,"  re- 
plied his  uncle,  "  but  let  the  keeper  see  to  it  if  he  has  belied  the  gods.  His  re- 
port to  me  is,  that  the  omens  are  most  favorable,  and  therefore  I  forthwith  give 
the  signal  for  battle.  But  do  you  see,"  he  added  to  some  centurions  who  stood 
by,  "  that  this  keeper  and  his  comrades  be  set  in  the  front  ranks  of  the  legions." 
Ere  the  battle-cry  was  raised  on  either  side,  a  chance  javelin  struck  the  guilty 
keeper,  and  he  fell  dead.  His  fate  was  instantly  reported  to  the  consul.  "The 
gods,"  he  exclaimed,  "  are  amongst  us  ;  their  vengeance  has  fallen  on  the  guilty." 
While  he  spoke,  a  crow  was  heard  just  in  front  of  him  to  utter  a  full  and  loud 
cry.  "  Never  did  the  gods  more  manifestly  declare  their  presence  and  favor," 
exclaimed  the  consul,  and  forthwith  the  signal  was  given,  and  the  Roman  battle- 
cry  arose  loud  and  joyful. 

The  Samnites  met  their  enemies  bravely  ;86  but  the  awful  rites  under  which 
they  had  been  pledged  gave  them  a  gloomy  rather  than  a  cheer-  victory  galned  by  L 
ful  courage  ;  they  were  more  in  the  mood  to  die  than  to  conquer.  Pftpiriui- 
On  the  Roman  side,  the  consul's  blunt  humor,  which  he  had  inherited  from  his 
father,  spread  confidence  all  around  him.  In  the  heat  of  the  battle,  when  other 
generals  would  have  earnestly  vowed  to  build  a  temple  to  the  god  whose  aid  they 
sought,  if  he  would  grant  them  victory,  Papirius  called  aloud  to  Jupiter  the  vic- 
torious, "  Ah,  Jupiter,87  if  the  enemy  are  beaten,  I  vow  to  offer  to  thee  a  cup  of 
honeyed  wine  before  I  taste  myself  a  drop  of  wine  plain."  Such  irreverent  jests 
do  not  necessarily  imply  a  scoffing  spirit  ;  they  mark  superstition  or  fanaticism 
quite  as  much  as  unbelief;  nor  would  the  consul's  language  shock  those  who 
heard  it,  but  rather  assure  them  that  he  spoke  in  the  full  confidence  of  being  heard 
with  favor  by  the  gods,  as  a  man  in  hours  of  festivity  would  smile  at  the  famil- 
iarity of  an  indulged  servant.  Besides,  Papirius  performed  well  the  part  of  a 
general  ;  he  is  said  to  have  practised  the  trick  which  was  so  successful  at  Ban- 
nockburn  ;88  the  camp  servants  were  mounted  on  the  baggage  mules,  and  ap- 
peared in  the  midst  of  the  action  on  the  flank  and  rear  of  the  Samnites  ;  the  news 
ran  through  both  armies,  that  Sp.  Carvilius  was  come  up  to  aid  his  colleague, 
and  a  general  charge  of  the  Roman  cavalry  and  infantry  at  this  moment  broke 
the  Samnite  lines,  and  turned  them  to  flight.  The  mass  of  the  routed  army  fled 
either  to  their  camp,  or  within  the  walls  of  Aquilonia  ;  but  the  cavalry,  contain- 
ing all  the  chiefs  and  the  nobility  of  the  nation,  got  clear  from  the  press  of  the 
fugitives,  and  escaped  to  Bovianum. 

The  "Romans89  followed  up  their  victory,  and  stormed  the  Samnite  camp,  and 
scaled  the  walls  of  Aquilonia,  which  was  abandoned  by  the  enemy  Successeg  of  Sp.  car. 
during  the  night.  Carvilius  meanwhile  had  taken  Cominium,  viUus- 
while  the  detachment  sent  to  relieve  it  had  been  recalled  to  the  main  army  when 
Papirius  began  his  attack,  and  thus  had  wasted  the  day  in  marching  backwards 
and  forwards,  without  being  present  at  either  scene  of  action.  These  soldiers, 
however,  having  halted  during  the  night  in  the  neighborhood  of  Aquilonia,  pur- 
sued their  march  the  next  day,  and  with  a  very  trifling  loss  effected  their  retreat 
to  Bovianum,  which  was  now  the  common  rallying  point. 

Both  Aquilonia90  and  Cominium  were  given  up  to  be  plundered  by  the  con- 
querors, and  were  then  set  on  fire.     It  was  late  in  the  season,  (a 
circumstance  which  shows  how  imperfect  are  our  accounts  of  these  awMunSfM*^?  !h" 
wars,)  but  the  consuls  having  now  no  enemy  in  the  field,  wished 


88  Li  vy,  X.  41  .  the  older  Latin,  was  merely  "  wine."  See  Plicy. 

"  Voverat  Jovi  Victri, 


the  older  Latin,  was  merely  "  wine." 

vi  Victpri,  si  legiones  hostium  Hist.  Natur.  XIV.  13,  §  90,  Ed.  Sillig. 
fudisset,  pocillum  mulsi  priusquam  temetum  w  Livy,  X.  40,  41. 
biberet  sese  facturum."  Livy,  X.  42.  Mul-  *'J  Livy,  X.  41-43. 
sum  was  "  honeyed  wine,"  a  favorite  beverage  so  Livy,  X.  44,  45. 
of  the  Komans  in  the  early  times  ;  temetum,  in 


346  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXIII 

to  follow  up  their  blow,  and  to  attack  the  several  Samnite  cities ;  a  service  most 
welcome  to  the  soldiers,  as  it  offered  to  them  the  prospect  of  plunder.  Bovianum, 
however,  was  too  strong  to  be  attacked  as  yet ;  so  the  consuls  moved  on  furthei 
into  the  heart  of  the  country,  and  fixed  the  seat  of  war  on  the  eastern  side  of  the 
Matese.  Here  Papirius  laid  siege  to  Saepinum,  a  place  not  far  from  the  sources 
of  the  Taraarus,  near  the  modern  road  from  Benevento  to  Campobasso,  the  capi- 
tal of  Molise.  Carvilius  attacked  a  town,  called  variously  in  the  MSS.  of  Livy, 
Vella,  Velia,  or  Volana,  but  the  position  of  which  is  altogether  unknown. 

The  tidings  of  these  successes91  were  received  at  Rome  with  the  greatest  joy  , 
sp.c«rviiii,s  is  railed  and  thanksgivings  were  offered  for  four  days;  the  longest  period 
and  sent  into  Etruna.  Of  pUD]ic  rejoicings  for  victory  which  has  been  hitherto  mentioned 
in  the  Roman  annals.  Just  at  this  time,  as  we  are  told,  there  came  complaints 
from  the  Roman  allies  on  the  Etruscan  frontier,  that  is,  we  must  suppose  from 
the  people  of  Sutrium,  that  the  Etruscans  were  again  in  arms,  and  that  the  Fa- 
liscans,  hitherto  the  allies  of  Rome,  had  now  taken  part  with  the  enemy.  It  is 
vain  to  attempt  to  explain  all  these  movements  in  Etruria  ;  or  to  decide  whether 
the  Etruscans  were  tempted  to  renew  the  contest  by  the  employment  of  both 
consuls  in  Samnium,  or  whether  the  Romans  were  encouraged  by  their  victories 
there  to  take  vengeance  for  past  offences  on  the  Etruscans.  At  any  rate,  the 
consuls  were  ordered  to  determine  by  lot  which  of  them  should  march  into  Etru- 
na ;  and  the  lot  fell  upon  Carvilius.  His  soldiers  were  glad  to  go,  it  is  said,  be- 
cause the  cold  of  Samnium  was  becoming  intolerable  ;  but  they  had  other  reasons 
besides  the  cold,  for  wishing  to  change  their  seat  of  war ;  for  whatever  might  be 
the  plunder  of  the  Samnite  towns,  it  was  not  always  to  be  easily  won  ;  and 
though  Carvilius  had  taken  three  of  them,  yet  it  had  been  at  the  cost  of  two 
actions  in  the  field,  in  which  his  own  loss  had  exceeded  that  of  the  enemy.  Pa- 
pirius, on  his  side,  was  detained  for  a  long  time  before  Ssepinum ;  the  Samnites 
made  repeated  sallies,  and  would  not  allow  him  even  to  form  the  siege  of  the 
place ;  and  their  resistance  was  so  protracted,  that  when  at  last  they  were 
overpowered,  and  the  town  was  taken,  the  winter  was  so  far  advanced,  that  any 
further  operations  were  impracticable,  and  Papirius  having,  as  we  may  suppose, 
burnt  Saepinum,  evacuated  Samnium. 

The  operations  of  Sp.  Carvilius  in  Etruria92  were  short  and  successful ;  Troil- 
Trmmpiin  of  both  con-  ium  au^  some  small  mountain  fortresses  were  taken,  and  the  Fa- 
liscans  purchased  a  truce  for  a  year  by  the  payment  of  100,000 
ases,  and  a  year's  pay  to  the  soldiers  of  the  Roman  army.  Both  consuls  enjoyed 
a  splendid  triumph  ;93  and  a  very  large  treasure  of  copper  and  of  silver  was 
brought  home  by  Papirius,  and  paid  by  him  into  the  treasury,  his  victorious 
soldiers  receiving  nothing.  Carvilius  brought  home  also  a  large  treasure  ;  but  he 
divided  a  part  of  it  amongst  his  troops,  and  their  pay  had  already  been  provided 
to  them  out  of  the  contribution  paid  by  the  Faliscans ;  so  that  the  ungracious 
conduct  of  Papirius  was  doubly  odious, — for  his  soldiers  received  nothing  from 
the  plunder,  and  the  war  tax,  or  tributum,  was  made  to  furnish  them  with  their 
pay;  and  thus  his  victories  brought  to  the  poorer  citizens  no  relief  from  the 
burdens  of  war.  The  captured  arms94  were  so  numerous,  that  the  allies  and 
colonies  of  Rome  received  a  large  share  to  ornament  their  own  cities ;  and  Sp. 
Carvilius95  made  out  of  those  which  fell  to  his  portion  a  colossal  statue  of  Jupiter, 
of  such  magnitude,  that  when  it  was  set  up  on  the  Capitoline  Hill  at  Rome,  it 
could  be  seen  from  the  temple  of  the  Latin  Jupiter  on  the  summit  of  the  mount- 
ain of  Alba  ;  a  distance  in  a  straight  line  of  not  less  than  twelve  English  miles. 

81  Livy,  X.  45.  amounted  to  1330  Ibs. ;  the  copper  money  which 

M  Livy,  X.  46.  had  been  obtained  by  the  ransom  or  sale  of  the 

93  Carvilius  triumphed  on  the  13th  of  Jantt-  prisoners,  amounted  to  2,033,000  ases  of  full 

ary,  and  Papirius  on  the  13th  of  February,  weight,  that  is,  to  so  many  pounds'  weight  ol 

Fasti  Capitolini.    The  weight  of  silver  taken  copper. 

from  the  temples  and  houses  of  the  several  "  Livy,  X.  46. 

ftities  of  Samnium  which  had  been  captured  96  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  XXXIV.  §  43,  Ed.  SUlig. 


. 


.  XXXIIL]  Q.  FABIUS  GURGES.  347 

After  such  an  issue  of  this  campaign,  we  read  with  astonishment  that  Papirius 
led  back  his  army  to  winter  in  the  neighborhood  of  Vescia,96  be- 

J  •     /•  iii*  •  i*     i         d  rontiufl  Again  com- 

cause  that  country  was  still  infested  by  the  incursions  of  the  feam-  ^<i»  ^*  sammte «. 
nites.  And  in  the  next  year  we  find,  after  a  long  interval,  C. 
Pontius  of  Telesia  once  more  at  the  head  of  the  Samnite  armies  ;  we  find  him  car- 
rying on  war  in  Campania,  and  again  victorious.  Austria  lost  five  armies  in  the 
campaign  of  1796,  before  she  would  consent  to  treat  for  peace;  and  when  the 
French  were  besieging  Cadiz,  and  had  won  almost  all  the  fortresses  of  the  king- 
dom, Spain  still  continued  to  resist,  and  the  Guerillas  often  inflicted  defeat  upon 
their  triumphant  enemy.  But  the  Samnite  victory  obtained  over  Fabius  Gurges 
in  Campania  in  the  year  immediately  following  the  triumphs  of  Papirius  and  Car- 
vilius,  is  more  extraordinary  than  the  fortitude  either  of  Austria  or  Spain ;  and 
so  far  as  the  circumstances  are  known  to  us,  it  can  only  be  paralleled  by  the  tri- 
umphant career  of  the  Vendeans  in  Bretagne,  when,  after  repeated  defeats  in 
their  own  country,  they  effected  their  desperate  expedition  beyond  the  Loire. 

We  may  ask  why  the  Roman  government,  little  apt  to  hold  its  hands  till  the 
work  was  fully  done,  and  having  nothing  to  fear  on  the  side  of  A  u  c  A  c 
Etruria,  contented  itself  with  sending  a  single  consular  army  into  »j.  ^ 
the  field  in  the  year  following  the  great  victories  of  Papirius  and  |^ujio 
Carvilius,  instead  of  employing  its  whole  force,  and  thus  again 
overrunning  the  enemy's  country.  The  reason,  probably,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
severe  visitation  of  pestilence  which  at  this  time  fell  upon  Rome  ;97  and  this  may 
further  explain  why  the  legions  of  Papirius  wintered  in  Campania ;  for  as  such 
disorders  are  generally  more  or  less  local,  an  army  might  be  in  perfect  health  on 
the  hills  by  Vescia,  while,  had  it  remained  in  or  near  Rome,  it  would  have  been 
losing  men  daily.  However,  the  new  consul,  Q.  Fabius  Gurges,98  son  of  the 
great  Fabius,  took  the  command  of  the  army  in  Campania,  and  proceeded  to- 
wards the  frontiers  of  Samnium.  C.  Pontius  Herennius,  of  whom  nothing  is 
known  since  the  affair  of  the  pass  of  Caudium,  again  commanded  the  Samnite 
army ;  whether  it  was  that  he  was  now  called  upon  in  the  extreme  danger  of 
his  country,  as  the  only  man  capable  of  saving  it,  or  whether  the  southern  Sam- 
nites,  or  Caudinians,  had  in  fact  taken  no  part  in  the  war  for  many  years,  and 
only  now,  when  the  Pentrians  were  nearly  exhausted,  came  forward  to  uphold 
their  cause. 

The  ravages  which  the  pestilence  was  at  this  time  making  in  Rome  encouraged 
the  enemy ;"  and  C.  Pontius  boldly  invaded  Campania.     Q.  Fa- 

,.  ,*'.  .  -  •  i     i  i       •         i        i  ifjiT  i     Seventh  campaign.  Tna 

bius,  torgettmg  how  formidable  is  the  last  struggle  ot  the  hunted  Romans  are  defeated  by 
lion,  thought  that  to  meet  the  Samnites  was  to  conquer  them  ; 
and  when  he  fell  in  with  some  of  their  look-out  parties,  and  they  retired  before 
him,  he  believed  the  whole  Samnite  army  to  be  retreating,  and  leaving  his  bag- 

98  Livy,  X.  46.  paving  of  part  of  the  Appian  road,  and  of  the 

7  Livy,  X.  47.    Zonaras,  VIII.  1.  building  ot  several  temples.     But  we  might 

M  Livy,  X.  47.     In  the  last  chapter  of  his  cheerfully  resign,  not  the  second  decade  only, 

tenth  book,  Livy  names  the  consuls  who  were  but  the  first,  third,  and  fourth,  in  short,  every 

elected  for  the  year  462,  Q.  Fabius  Gurges,  and  line  of  Livy's  history  which  we  at  present  pos- 

D.  Junius  Brutus.     And  here  the  first  decade  sess,  if  we  could  so  purchase  the  recovery  of 

of  Livy's  history  ends,  and  as  the  second  de-  the  eighth  and  ninth  decades,  which  contained 

cade  is  lost,  we  shall  now  be  without  his  assist-  the  history^  of  the  Italian  war,  and  of  the  civil 

ance  for  the  remainder  of  this  volume.     We  war  of  Marius  and  Sylla  which  followed  it.  For 

should  be  glad  to  possess  the  eleventh  book,  this  period,  of  which  wo  know,  as  it  is,  so  little, 

which  contained  the  account  of  the  secession  to  Livy's  history  would  have  been  invaluable.   He 

the  Janiculum  and  of  the  Hortensian  laws :  yet,  would  have  been  writing  of  times  and  events 

on  the  whole,  a  careful  study  of  the  ninth  and  sufficiently  near  to  his  own  to  have  been  per- 

tenth  books  will  dispose  us  to  be  more  patient  fectly  understood  by  him ;  his  sources  of  infor- 

of  the  loss  of  those  which  followed  them.   How  mation  would  have  been  more  numerous  and 

little  does  the  tenth  book-tell  us  of  the  internal  less  doubtful,  and  then  his  fair  and  upright 

state  of  Rome,  how  uncertain  are  its  accounts  mind,  and  the  beauty  of  his  narrative,  would 

of  the  several  wars !    Its  most  valuable  infor-  have  given  us  a  picture  at  once  faithful,  lively, 

mation  cpnsi&ts  in  the  miscellaneous  notices  and  noble, 

with  which  Livy  generally  concludes  his  ac-  M  Zonaras,  VIII.  2. 
count  of  every  year;  such  as  his  notice  of  the 


348  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXIIL 

gage  behind  him,  he  pushed  on  as  to  a  certain  victory.  His  men  were  already 
tired  and  disordered  by  the  haste  of  their  march,  when  they  found  the  Samnite 
army  in  perfect  order  ready  to  receive  them.  They  were  presently  defeated ; 
3000  men  were  killed  on  the  place,100  many  were  wounded,  and  night  alone  saved 
the  army  from  destruction.  But  they  could  not  retreat  to  their  baggage,101  and 
passed  a  miserable  night  in  the  open  country,  without  any  means  of  relieving 
their  wounded,  whose  sufferings  filled  the  whole  army  with  horror  and  dismay. 
Day  dawned,  and  the  Romans  expected  to  be  attacked  by  the  conquerors :  but 
Pontius,  it  is  said,  heard  that  the  old  Fabius  was  close  at  hand,  coming  up  with 
a  second  army  to  support  his  son,  and  therefore  he  allowed  the  beaten  Romans 
to  retreat  unmolested.  This  is  improbable,102  but  the  truth  is  lost  beyond  re- 
covery, and  it  is  vain  to  attempt  to  restore  the  details  of  this  most  important 
campaign. 

The  defeat  of  Fabius  excited  great  indignation  at  Rome ;  and  the  political  ad- 
•rhe  old  Q  Fabmo  versaries  °^  m's  father,  such  as  Appius  Claudius  and  L.  Papirius, 
serv^und^hissonTa  the  latter  of  whom  was  now  praetor,  would  not  fail  to  exaggerate 
his  misconduct.  It  was  moved  in  the  senate  that  he  should  be  re- 
called from  the  army,  in  other  words,  that  his  imperium  or  consular  power  should 
be  taken  from  him ;  a  measure  without  example  in  Roman  history,  except  in  the 
case  of  L.  Cinna.  The  simple  course  would  have  been  to  order  the  consul  to 
name  a  dictator ;  and  he  would  in  that  case  have  named  his  father,  who,  by  uni- 
versal consent,  was  the  man  best  fitted  to  meet  the  need.  But  the  more  violent 
course  was  preferred  by  the  party  opposed  to  Fabius,  and  would  have  been 
carried,  had  not  the  old  Fabius103  moved  the  senate  by  offering  to  go  himself  to 
the  army,  not  in  the  majesty  of  the  dictator's  office,  as  most  befitted  his  age  and 
glory,  but  merely  as  lieutenant  to  his  son.  This  could  not  be  refused,  and  the 
old  man  followed  his  son  to  the  field,  leading  with  him,  we  may  be  sure,  sufficient 
reinforcements  ;  for  every  Roman  loved  the  old  Q.  Fabius,  and  felt  confident  that 
in  marching  under  his  command  he  was  marching  to  victory. 

A  second  battle  followed ;  where  fought,  or  how  brought  about,  we  know  not. 
c.  Pontbs  is  defeated  The  old  Fabius  was  the  Talbot  of  the  fifth  century  of  Rome  ;  and 
and  taken  primer.  jjjg  personai  prowess,  even  in  age,  was  no  less  celebrated  than  his 
skill  as  a  general.  When  the  consul  was  surrounded  by  the  enemy  in  the  heat 
of  the  battle,104  his  aged  father  led  the  charge  to  his  rescue ;  and  the  Romans, 
animated  by  such  an  example,  could  not  be  resisted,  and  won  a  complete  victory. 
C.  Pontius  was  taken  prisoner,  and  4000  Samnites  shared  his  fate,  while  20,000 
were  slain  on  the  field. 


**  Eutropius,  II.  Suidas,  in  Qdfttos  Ma|tA">s-  Rome  before  his  father,  and  was  anxious  to 

We  should  like  to  know  from  whom  Suidas  fight  the  Samnites,  before  he  joined  him,  that 

borrowed  this  article;  but  who,  except  Nie-  the  glory  of  the  action  might  be  his  own.  Livy, 

buhr,  has  a  sufficient  power  of  divination  to  (Epitom.  XL)  Eutropius,  and  the  writer  from 

discover  it?  whom  Suidas  copied  his  article,  "Fabius  Maxi- 

I  owe  my  knowledge  of  the  passage  in  Suidas  mus,"  say  that  the  old  man  was  only  made  his 
to  Freinsheim's  supplement  of  the  eleventh  son's  lieutenant  after  his  defeat,  and  upon  his 
book  of  Livy ;  and  as  he  has  consulted  almost  own  request,  in  order  to  save  him  from  being 
every  passage  in  the  ancient  writers  which  re-  deprived  of  his  command.  But  if  this  be  true, 
lates  to  these  times,  I  have  in  other  instances  and  it  seems  the  more  probable  account,  how 
been  indebted  to  him  in  like  manner.  But  it  could  Pontius  expect  the  arrival  of  the  old  Fa- 
is  right  to  state,  that  I  have  always  consulted  bius  on  the  instant  after  his  son's  defeat? 
the  passages  to  which  he  refers,  and  have  my-  Perhaps  the  consul  fought  with  only  a  part  of 
self  verified  them:  and  of  this  the  reader  may  his  army,  and  his  lieutenant  brought  up  tho 
be  assured,  that  no  quotation  has  been  made  in  other  part  to  his  rescue  from  the  camp  which 
these  notes  which  I  have  not  myself  verified ;  he  had  left  PO  rashly ;  and  something  of  this 
if  it  has  ever  happened  that  I  have  not  had  the  sort  is  probable,  for  if  Q.  Fabius  had  been  de- 
book  within  my  reach,  the  circumstance  has  feated  by  the  enemy  in  a  fair  battle  without  any 
been  and  will  be  especially  noticed.  fault  of  his  own,  the  senate,  according  to  its 

101  Zonaras,  VIII.  2.  usual  practice,  would  not  have  treated  his  de- 

102  Zonaras,  who  copies  Dion  Cassius,  repre-  feat  so  severely. 

sents  the  old  Fabius  as  having  been  appointed  3  Livy,  Epit.  XL  DionCass.  Fragm.  Peircsc, 

lieutenant  to  his  son  at  the  Teginning  of  the  XXXVI. 

campaign ;    and  he  says  that  the   consul  left  104  Orosius,  III.  22. 


CHAP.  XXX1IL]  DEFEAT  OF  0.  PONTIUS.  34<j 

What  resources  of  hope  or  of  despair  could  still  be  left  to  the  Sammies  after 
a  disaster  so  irreparable  ?  Yet  they  resisted  for  another  year,  A>  u.  c>  463.  A_  c> 
during  which  the  war  was  carried  on  by  two  consular  armies105  in  S^SS 
the  heart  of  their  country:  many  of  their  towns  were  taken;  and  *T«*»« 
amongst  the  rest,  Venusia,  a  place  on  the  frontiers  of  Lucania  and  Apulia,  and 
important  both  from  its  strength  and  its  position.  So  completely,  indeed,  was 
the  power  of  Samnium  broken,  that  now,  for  the  first  time,  the  Romans  resolved 
to  establish  a  colony  in  its  territory.  Venusia  was  the  spot  chosen  for  this  pur- 
se ;  but  it  marks  the  sense  still  entertained  of  the  Samnite  spirit  of  resistance, 
at  no  fewer  than  20,000  colonists  were  sent  out  to  occupy  and  maintain  the 
w  settlement. 

After  his  victory,  Q.  Fabius,  the  consul,  was  continued  in  his  command  for 
some  time  as  proconsul.  It  was  not,  therefore,  till  the  summer  of 
the  year  463  that  he  returned  to  Rome,  and  triumphed.  While  he  our^E 
was  borne  along  in  his  chariot,  according  to  custom,  his  old  father  o^JSTISi  p^***! 
rode  on  horseback  behind  him  as  one  of  his  lieutenants,106  delight- 
ing himself  with  the  honors  of  his  son.  But  at  the  moment  when  the  consul 
and  his  father  having  arrived  at  the  end  of  the  Sacred  Way  turned  to  the  left  to 
ascend  the  hill  of  the  Capitol,  C.  Pontius,  the  Samnite  general,  who,  with  the 
other  prisoners  of  rank,  had  thus  far  followed  the  procession,  was  led  aside  to  the 
right  hand  to  the  prison107  beneath  the  Capitoline  Hill,  and  there  was  thrust  down 
into  the  underground  dungeon  of  the  prison,  and  beheaded.  One  year  had 
passed  since  his  last  battle  ;  nearly  thirty  since  he  had  spared  the  lives  and  lib- 
erty of  two  Roman  armies,  and,  unprovoked  by  the  treachery  of  his  enemies,  had 
afterwards  set  at  liberty  the  generals  who  were  given  up  into  his  power  as  a  pre- 
tended expiation  of  their  country's  perfidy.  Such  a  murder,  committed  or  sanc- 
tioned by  such  a  man  as  Q.  Fabius,  is  peculiarly  a  national  crime,  and  proves 
but  too  clearly  that  in  their  dealings  with  foreigners  the  Romans  had  neither 
magnanimity,  nor  humanity,  nor  justice. 

In  the  year  464,  P.  Cornelius  Rufinus  and  M'.  Curius  Dentatus  were  chosen 
consuls.     Both  entered   Samnium  with  their  armies,108  but  it  was 
rather  to  entitle  themselves  to  the  honor  of  a  triumph,  than  to  290.  'Ninth  campaign! 

i  1  ...  -r-,  n     ,1          a  The  Samniteslay  dowi 

overbear  any  real  opposition.     Every  resource  of  the  Sammtes  their  arms  and  aubmi 
was  exhausted,  and  they  again  submitted.     They  were  again  re- 
ceived as  dependent  allies  of  Rome ;  what  territory  was  taken  from  them  besides 
that  of  Venusia,  we  are  not  told,  or  what  other  sacrifices  were  required  of  them. 
Such  was  the  end  of  the  third  Samnite  war. 

105  By  L.  Postumius,  the  consul,  \yith  his  10T  So  the  well-kno-wn  passage  in  Cicero,  Ver- 

own  array,  and  by  Q.  Fabius,  the  consul  of  the  res,  Act.  II.  v.  30,  where  he  describes  and  even 

former  year,  as  proconsul.— Dionysi us,  XVI.  approves  of  this  atrocious  practice.  "Suppiicia 

16.  quoe  debentur  hostibus  victis." 

m  Plutarch  in  Fab.  Maxim,  c.  24.  m  Eutropius,  II. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV, 

fNTEENAL  HISTORY,  FKOM  THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OGULNIAN  LAW  TO  THE 
LANDING  OF  PYKEHUS  IN  ITALY— SECESSION  TO  THE  JANICULUM— DICTA- 
TOKSHIP  OF  Q.  HOKTENSIUS— HOETENSIAN  AND  M^ENIAN  LAWS.  —  FEOM 
A.  U.  C.  454  TO  474. 


Clearly  a  difficult  point  for  government,  that  of  dealing  with  these  masses ; — if  indeed  it 

and  all  other  points  mere  accidental 
AKLYLE,  Hist,  of  French  Eevolution, 


V^lt-tii  1J       «4      VllJ-li^C41U      ^/UlllU      J.U1        gV  V  ClillJUJIlL,      tllUU      VI       UCCU. 

be  not  rather  the  sole  point  and  problem  of  government,  and  all  other  points  mere_accidental 
crotchets,  superficialities,  and  beatings  of  the  wind." — C 


Vol.  I.  p.  48. 


THERE  is  often  in  well-contrived  works  of  fiction  a  point  in  the  middle  of  the 
story,  at  which  all  its  circumstances  seem  tending  towards  a  happy 

Changes  for  the  worse  ,    '     \  i    •      •  11  -,  11  i  i  • 

jn  the  internal  state  of  catastrophe ;  and  it  is  only  because  the  reader  knows  that  there  is 
much  of  the  story  yet  to  come,  and  that  something  therefore  must 
occur  to  spoil  the  fair  prospect,  that  he  doubts  the  stability  of  the  hero's  or 
heroine's  good  fortune.  So  promising  was  the  domestic  state  of  Rome  in  the 
year  454,  when  the  censorship  of  Fabius  and  Decius  on  the  one  hand,  followed 
by  the  Ogulnian  and  Valerian  laws  on  the  other,  seemed  to  announce  that  society 
had  arrived  at  its  perfect  settlement ;  in  which  every  member  of  it  had  found  his 
proper  place,  and  the  artificial  institutions  of  man  seemed  to  correspond  faith- 
fully to  the  model,  existing  in  truth,  though  not  in  fact,  which  our  reason  declares 
to  be  the  will  of  God. 

But  it  should  ever  be  borne  in  mind,  that  history  looks  generally  at  the  politi- 
cal state  of  a  nation ;  its  social  state,  which  is  infinitely  more  im- 


Thece  changes  were  so- 
cial       ' 

ioal. 


anges  were  so-  ,    .  .  .    ,     ..         ,  i          /•      11    -i  i 

al  rather  than  poiit-  portant,  and  m  which  lie  the  seeds  or  all  the  greatest  revolutions, 


is  too  commonly  neglected  or  unknown.  What  is  called  the  con 
stitution  of  Rome,  as  far  as  regards  the  relations  of  patricians  and  plebeians  to 
each  other,  was,  in  fact,  perfected  by  the  Ogulnian  law,  and  remained  for  cen- 
turies without  undergoing  any  material  change.  By  that  law  the  commons  were 
placed  in  all  respects  on  a  level  with  the  patricians  ;  and  the  contests  between 
these  two  orders  were  brought  to  an  end  forever.  The  comitia,  too,  had  assumed 
that  form,  whatever  it  was,  which  they  retained  to  the  end  of  the  commonwealth  ; 
the  powers  of  the  magistrate  as  affecting  the  liberty  of  the  citizen  underwent 
but  little  subsequent  alteration.  But  however  stationary  political  institutions  may 
remain,  the  social  state  of  a  nation  is  forever  changing  ;  peace  affects  this  no  less 
than  war,  and  many  times  even  more  :  nay,  seasons  of  profound  political  quiet 
may  be  working  far  more  extensive  alteration  than  periods  of  faction,  or  even  of 
civil  war.  And  so  it  was  with  the  years  which  followed  the  passing  of  the  Ogul- 
nian law.  Politically  they  are  almost  a  blank;  they  present  no  new  law, 
nothing  that  deserves  the  name  of  a  contest  between  orders  in  common- 
wealth, scarcely  between  indivdiuals  ;  the  public  attention  seems  to  have  been 
lixed  exclusively  on  the  events  of  the  war  with  Etruria  and  Samnium.  Yet  we 
know  that  they  must  have  wrought  great  social  changes  ;  for  so  violent  a  meas- 
ure as  a  secession  could  never  have  been  so  much  as  contemplated,  had  it  not 
been  preceded  by  long  and  general  distress,  producing  social  irritation  first,  and 
then  political. 

In  the  seven  years  which  followed  immediately  after  the  passing  of  the  Ogul- 

nian law,  we  find  mention  made  of  a  season  of  great  scarcity1  (A. 
lcruy  ™d  u.  c.  454),  and  of  two  years8  of  pestilence  (459  and  461).     We 

also  read  of  prosecutions  bv  the  sediles  in  three  several  years  for 

1  JLavy,  A.  11.  11.  2  Livy,  X.  31,  47. 


Occasioned  part 
leasuiiR  of  scar  ' 
Wrtilcnco. 


CHAP.  XXXIV.]  ENCROACHMENTS  OF  THE  RICH.  351 

violations  of  the  Licinian  law3  (456,  458,  461);  and  also  of  prosecutions  by  the 
same  magistrates  for  a  breach  of  the  law  which  forbade  the  taking  of  interest 
upon  a  debt4  (358).  Now,  although  there  may  be  some  caprice  in  Livy's  notice 
or  omission  of  such  particulars,  yet  it  is  at  least  remarkable  that  he  has  re- 
corded so  many  of  them  at  this  period  ;  while  in  the  twenty-three  years  previous 
to  the  Ogulnian  law,  a  term  which  includes  the  whole  of  the  second  Samnite  war,  we 
have  no  mention  of  any  one  of  them,  with  the  exception  of  an  uncertain  report  of  a 
pestilence  in  the  year  441. 5  And  the  argument  is  the  stronger,  because  we~dor 
find  notices  before  the  second  Samnite  war  of  prosecutions  both  for  the  breach 
of  the  Licinian  law,  and  for  taking  illegal  interest6  (398  and  411);  so  that  we 
may  fairly  conclude  that  the  second  Samnite  war  itself  was  a  period  compara- 
tively exempt,  at  any  rate,  from  offences  of  this  nature,  as  also  from  the  visitations 
of  pestilence  and  famine.  The  causes  of  these  last  evils  belong,  indeed,  to  a  law 
of  God's  providence  which  is  to  us  unknown ;  but  the  occurrence  of  particular 
crimes  at  particular  periods  may  in  general  be  explained,  if  we  are  fully  acquainted 
with  the  history  of  the  time ;  and  even  in  the  fifth  century  of  Rome,  meagre  as 
our  knowledge  of  it  is,  we  may  in  some  measure  account  for  the  facts  presented 
to  us. 

The  close  of  the  second  Samnite  war  in  450,  the  conquest  of  the  ^Equians  in 
the  same  year,  that  of  the  Hernican  state  of  Frusino  in  the  year 
following,  and  of  the  Marsians  in  452,  must  have  added  greatly  ^^f11^"^^0 
to  the  domain  land  of  the  Romans.  It  was  but  a  small  proportion 
of  this  which  was  assigned  to  the  14,000  colonists  of  Alba,  Carseoli,  and  Sora ; 
the  remainder  would  be  either  let  to  the  old  inhabitants  on  payment  of  a  rent  or 
vectigal  to  Rome,  or  would  be  occupied  or  beneficially  enjoyed  by  individual 
citizens  of  Rome  or  of  her  allies.  Now,  as  slaves  were  not  yet  numerous,  there 
would  be  a  difficulty  in  procuring  laborers  to  cultivate  tracts  of  lands  lying 
mostly  at  a  distance  from  Rome,  and,  in  many  instances,  liable  to  the  incursions 
of  an  enemy  in  time  of  war.  It  would  be  more  convenient,  therefore,  to  the 
occupiers  to  throw  their  land  into  pasture  wherever  it  was  practicable  ;  and  large 
tracts  of  domain  would  be  fit  for  nothing  but  pasture,  such  as  the  higher  valleys, 
and  the  sides  and  summits  of  the  mountains  ;  and  these  would  not  be  occupied 
by  any  one  particular  person,  but  would  be  common  land,  on  which  any  one 
would  have  a  right  to  turn  out  a  certain  number  of  sheep  and  oxen,  limited  by 
the  Licinian  law.  Now,  the  acts  of  violence  which  were  practised,  even  under 
the  emperors,  by  powerful  men  against  the  property  of  their  weaker  neighbors, 
and  the  allusion  to  forcible  ejectment,  as  to  a  thing  of  no  unusual  occurrence,  in 
the  language  of  the  prsetor's  interdict,  may  warrant  our  believing  that  the  cattle 
of  a  small  proprietor,  when  turned  ou  on  the  mountain  pastures  at  a  distance 
from  Rome,  would  be  liable  to  continual  injuries,  and  that  the  common  land 
would  be  exclusively  enjoyed  by  wealthy  men,  who  would  little  scruple  to  ex- 
ceed the  legal  number  of  sheep  and  oxen  which  they  were  permitted  to  feed. 
These  were  the  pecuarii  whom  Livy  twice  notices  as  impeached  by  the  aediles 
and  heavily  fined ;  but  the  temptation  to  violate  the  law  was  perpetually  recur- 
ring ;  and  the  chances  of  a  prosecution  must  have  been  very  uncertain ;  nor  was 
it  always  impossible  for  a  powerful  man7  of  fair  military  reputation  to  escape 
from  his  prosecutors,  by  getting  the  consul  to  name  him  as  one  of  his  lieu- 
tenants. 

Thus,  on  the  one  hand,  the  years  which  immediately  followed  the  second  Sam- 
nite war,  furnished  the  rich  with  many  opportunities  of  becoming  partiy by  tho continued 
richer.     On  the  other  hand,  there  were  many  causes  at  work  which  warfc 
made  the  poor  yet  poorer.     A  season  of  extreme  scarcity,  such  as  that  of  the 
year  455,  must  have  obliged  many  of  the  small  tradesmen  and  artificers  of  the 

•  Livy,  X.  13,  23,  47.  Livy,  VII.  16,  28. 

4  Livy,  X.  23.  T  As  m  the  case  of  L.  Postumius,  which  will 

•  Livy,  IX.  28.  be  noticed  hereafter.— See  Livy,  X.  46. 


352  HISTORY  OF  HOME.  [CHAP.  XXXIV 

city  to  incur  debts.  Two  or  three  years  of  pestilence  following  closely  upon  one 
another,  as  in  459,  461,  and  462,  must  have  created  great  distress  not  only 
amongst  the  town  population,  but  also  amongst  the  agricultural  commons  :  where 
the  father  was  carried  off  by  the  disorder,  his  wife  and  family,  who  were  solely 
dependent  on  his  labor,  would  be  at  once  reduced  to  poverty,  or  again  would  be 
forced  to  relieve  their  immediate  necessity  by  borrowing.  If  the  pestilence  was 
local,  and  raged  most  in  Rome  and  its  immediate  neighborhood,  yet  the  more 
distant  tribes  suffered  from  evils  of  another  sort.  The  tribes  on  the  Etruscan 
frontier  suffered  perhaps  something  in  455  from  an  inroad  of  the  Gauls,  which 
no  doubt  aggravated  the  scarcity  of  that  year ;  the  Falerian  tribe  in  Campania 
was  repeatedly,  as  we  have  seen,  exposed  to  the  invasions  of  the  Sammies.  The 
extraordinary  military  exertions  of  the  Romans  in  the  third  Samnite  war  must 
have  rendered  necessary  a  heavy  amount  of  taxation.  In  the  great  campaign  of 
459,  six  legions  were  raised,  besides  two  armies  of  reserve  ;  and  in  the  preceding 
year  there  had  been  a  levy8  of  the  whole  population  of  the  city,  which  had  been 
kept  under  arms  for  nearly  three  weeks,  whilst  the  two  consular  armies  were  at 
the  same  time  employed  in  the  field.  Nor  were  the  services  of  the  soldier  re- 
quired only  for  a  few  weeks  in  the  summer  or  autumn;  the  legions  were  more 
than  once9  kept  abroad  during  the  whole  winter  ;  which  in  itself  must  have  been 
a  great  hardship  to  the  small  landed  proprietor,  whose  land  could  ill  spare  his 
presence  and  his  labor.  Besides,  even  in  the  unfair  accounts  which  remain  to  us 
of  the  events  of  the  war,  it  is  confessed  that  the  Roman  loss  in  battle  was  often 
very  severe  ;  and  although  their  writers  do  not  acknowledge  it,  the  Romans  must 
have  lost  also  many  prisoners,  whose  ransom,  if  they  were  not  left  in  hopeless 
captivity,  was  an  additional  burden  upon  their  families.  And  when,  after  all 
this,  the  most  valuable  part  of  the  spoil  won  in  a  successful  campaign  was  wholly 
put  into  the  treasury,  as  was  done  by  L.  Papirius  in  46 1,10  and  the  soldier  re- 
ceived nothing  but  what  he  might  have  gained  for  himself  in  sacking  one  or  more 
of  the  Samnite  cities,  the  mass  of  the  population  would  feel,  that  while  the  bur- 
dens of  war  were  mostly  borne  by  them,  they  had  scarcely  any  share  of  its  occa- 
sional advantage. 

Thus  it  is  conceivable  that,  within  three  or  four  years  after  the  end  of  the 
obscurity  of  the  history  third  Samnite  war,  a  large  portion  of  the  Roman  people  should 
and'op^tuis  oflhe*  have  been  again  involved  in  debt,  and  thus  should  have  been  irri- 
popuiar cause.  tated  against  their  richer  countrymen,  and  ready  to  catch  fire  on 

the  smallest  provocation.  But  the  deepest  obscurity  involves  this  part  of  the 
Roman  history :  for  Livy's  tenth  book  ends  with  the  consulship  of  L.  Papirius 
and  Sp.  Carvilius,  and  from  that  time  to  the  war  with  Pyrrhus,  we  have  no  other 
record  of  events  than  the  meagre  epitomes  of  Zonaras,  Orosius,  and  Eutropius, 
and  a  few  fragments  and  incidental  notices  from  other  writers.  Even  the  Fasti 
Capitolini  are  wanting  for  this  period  ;  so  that  the  very  lists  of  consuls  can  only 
be  made  out  from  recent  authorities.11  Thus,  we  neither  know  the  immediate 
causes,  nor  the  leaders,  nor  the  principal  opponents,  nor  even  the  exact  date  of 
the  great  popular  movement  which  was  finally  appeased  by  Q.  Hortensius  as 
dictator.  We  may  conjecture  that  Appius  Claudius,  so  far  as  his  infirmities  might 

8  Livy,  X.  21.     "Senatus — delectum  omnis  edition  of  Eusebius ;  from  the  anonymous  Fasti, 
generis  horninum  haberi  jussit,  nee  ingenui  mo-  first  published  by  Cardinal  Noris  from  a  manu- 
do  aut  juuiores  sacramento  adacti,  sed  seniorum  script  in  the  imperial  library  at  Vienna,  and  re- 
ctiam  cohortes  factce,  libertinique  centuriati."  printed  by  Grsevius  in  his  great  collection  of 

9  App.  Claudius'  army  was  kept  in  Etruria  Koman  antiquities,  Vol.  XI.  p.  355,  and,  lastly, 
during  the  winter  of  458. — Livy,  X.  25.     The  from  the  Fasti,  which  go  by  the  name  of  the 
army  of  M.  Atilius  wintered  near  Interamna,  on  Fasti  of  Idatius,  published  also  by  Graevius  in 
the  Liris,  in  460,  and  that  of  L.  Papirius  was  the  same  volume,  p.  247.    The  two  last  Fasti 
kept  out  in  the  country  of  Vescia  through  the  give  only  the  cognomina  of  the  consuls,  and  this 
wioter  of  461. — Livy,  X.  39,  46.  is  too  often  the  case  with  the  Sicilian  Fasti  also  ; 

3  Livy,  X.  4f>.  they  are  also  often  corrupt,  but  such  as  they 

11  From  Cassiodorus,  from  what  are  called  are,  they  are  almost  our  sole  authority  for  thi 
the  Fasti  Siculi,  published  by  Scaliger  in  his  consuls  of  this  dark  period. 


at 

i 


CHAP.  XXXIV.]  M'.  G'URIUS  DENTATUS.  353 

permit  him,  was  most  zealous  in  his  opposition  to  the  demands  of  the  people ; 
and  that  L.  Papirius  Cursor  took  the  same  side.  On  the  other  hand,  the  claims 
of  the  popular  party  were  supported,  as  is  most  probable,  by  one  of  the  most 
eminent  Romans  of  this  period,  M'.  Curius  Dentatus. 

This  is  a  name  familiar  to  every  ear,  and  associated  with  our  highest  ideas  of 
ancient  Roman  virtue.  Yet  there  is  not  a  single  great  man  within 
the  historical  period  of  Rome  of  whose  life  less  is  known  to  us.  ^ 
Like  the  Fulvii,  and  like  Ti.  Coruncanius,  and  C.  Fabricius,  he 
was  not  of  Roman  extraction  ;  he  came  from  one  of  the  Latin  towns  which  had 
received  the  full  Roman  franchise,12  and  he  was  a  man  of  no  inherited  fortune. 
His  merit  as  a  soldier  must  have  first  brought  him  into  notice ;  and  the  plain 
resoluteness  of  his  character,  not  unlike  that  of  Marius,  and  perhaps  combined, 
as  in  his  case,  with  a  marked  abhorrence  of  the  wealthy  aristocracy,  caused  him 
to  be  elected  tribune  of  the  commons.  In  his  tribuneship13  he  resisted  the  most 
eloquent  and  overbearing  of  the  patricians,  Appius  Claudius,  who,  when  holding 
the  comitia  as  interrex,  refused  to  allow  the  election  of  a  plebeian  consul.  Cu- 
rius compelled  the  curise  to  ratify  the  choice  of  the  centuries  beforehand,  on 
whomsoever  it  might  fall ;  and  thus  the  candidate,  when  elected  by  the  comitia, 
needed  no  further  confirmation  of  his  title  ;  he  was  at  once  consul.  Such  is  the 
anecdote  as  related  by  Cicero ;  but  we  cannot  with  certainty  fix  the  date  of  it.14 
It  must,  however,  have  occurred  before  the  year  464,  when  Curius  was  consul, 
and,  as  we  have  seen,  put  an  end  to  the  Samnite  war. 

His  consulship  was  rendered  further  memorable  by  the  beginning  and  end  of 
another  war,15  that  with  the  Sabines.  Some  aid  given  by  them  to  HU  conquest  of  th«s»- 
their  kinsmen,  the  Samnites,  afforded  the  Romans  a  pretext  for  binei- 
Stacking  them,  after  the  peace  between  the  two  nations  had  lasted  since  the  year 
~ter  the  expulsion  of  the  decemvirs ;  that  is,  during  a  period  of  a  century  and  a 
alf.  The  Sabines  dwelt  in  the  heart  of  Italy,  in  the  valley  of  the  Velinus,  on 
the  south  of  the  central  Apennines,  and  along  the  upper  part  of  the  course  of 
the  Aternus,  which  runs  into  the  Adriatic.  It  was  an  extensive  and  populous 
country,  for  it  came  down  to  the  left  bank  of  the  Tiber  at  Cures,  only  nineteen 
miles  from  Rome,  and  it  stretched  beyond  the  Apennines  as  far  as  the  confines 
of  the  Vestinians  and  Picentians.  It  was  rich  in  oil16  and  wine,  and  the  acorns 
of  its  forests  fattened  innumerable  herds  of  swine.  But  the  long  peace  which 
had  increased  its  wealth,  had  also  made  its  people  unwarlike ;  they  fell  almost 
without  a  struggle  ;  and  their  conquest,  according  to  the  old  historian,  Fabius 
Pictor,1T  first  made  the  Romans  acquainted  with  riches.  For  his  double  victory 
over  the  Samnites  and  Sabines,  Curius  triumphed  twice  in  the  same  year ;  and 
he  declared  of  himself  in  the  assembly  of  the  people,  on  his  return  to  Rome  :  "  I 

18  This  appears  from  the  speech  of  Cicero,  pro  w  Livy,  Epitom.  XI.    Auctor,  do  Viris  Illustr. 

-"a,  7,  §  23 ;  but  we  have  no  information,  I  be-  in  M'.  Cur.  I)entat. 

,  as  to  the  particular  town  from  which  he  K  Strabo,  V.  3,  §  1,  p.  228. 

-.  "  Strabo,  V.  3,  §  1,  p.  228.     This  contrasts 

;  Cicero,  Brutus,  14,  §  55.  strangely  with  our  notions  of  Sabine  simplicity 

14  We  find  from  Livy,  X.  11,  that  Appius  and  frugality:  "  hanc  vitam  veteres  olim  to- 

^lauctms  was  interrex  in  the  year  455,  at  the  nuere  Sabini,"  &c.    But,  possibly,  Strabo  did 

breaking  out  of  the  third  Samnite  war.    But,  not  give  Fabius'  meaning  correctly ;  and  the 

-  Nicbuhr  observes,  Appius  Claudius  was  in-  old  historian  may  have  spoken  not  of  the  Sa- 

x  three  several  times,  as  appears  from  the  bines  only,  but  of  them  and  the  Samnites  to- 


g 

actio 


cription  recording  the  principal  dignities  and  gether,  calling  them  both,  perhaps,  by  the  com- 
.-.ions  of  his  life,  Orelli,  No.  529,  so  that  we  mon  name  of  "  Sabellians,"  a  term"by  which 
cannot  tell  in  which  of  his  three  interregna  the  the  Samnites  are  called  in  Livy,  X.  19.  Fabius 
circumstance  noticed  by  Cicero  took  place,  meant,  probably,  to  speak  of  the  period  of  Cu- 
When  he  was  a  candidate  for  his  second  con-  rius'  consulship,  when  he  conquered  both  the 
Bulshin  in  457,  he  earnestly  endeavored  to  get  Samnites  and  Sabines,  and  made  the  speech 
Q.  Fabius  elected  with  himself,  in  order  to  ex-  reported  in  the  text.  But  that  speech  is  espe- 
clude  a  plebeian,  Livy,  X.  15;  but  this  must  not  cially  referred  by  the  author  of  the  work  "do 
be  confounded  with  Cicero's  story;  it  only  Viris  lllustribus"  to  the  Samnite  conquests  of 
shows  the  habitual  temper  of  the  man,  and  that  Curius,  and  not  to  his  successes  against  the  Sa- 
ne nevrr  lost  sight  of  his  object,  of  restoring  bines. 
*N$  old  ascendency  of  the  patricians. 
23 


354  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXIV 

have  conquered  such  an  extent  of  country  that  it  must  have  been  left  a  wilder- 
ness, had  the  men  whom  I  have  made  our  subjects  been  fewer :  I  have  subjected 
such  a  multitude  of  men,  that  they  must  have  starved  if  the  territory  conquered 
with  them  had  been  smaller."  The  Sabines  were  obliged18  to  become  subjects 
of  Rome  ;  that  is,  to  receive  the  citizenship  without  the  right  of  voting. 

For  his  double  victory  over  the  Samnites  and  Sabines,  Curius,  it  is  recorded," 
He  brings  forward  «n  triumphed  twice  in  the  course  of  the  year  of  his  consulship.  But 
a  far  harder  contest,  and  one  in  which  no  triumphs  could  be 
gained,  awaited  him  at  Rome.  He  saw  on  the  one  hand  the  extreme  distress  of 
the  poorer  citizens,  whom  war  and  pestilence  together  had  overwhelmed  with 
misery ;  on  the  other  hand,  he  had  conquered  large  tracts  of  lands,  which,  if 
granted  out  under  an  agrarian  law,  might  go  far  towards  the  relief  of  their  suf- 
ferings ;  and,  further,  the  grasping  and  insolent  spirit  of  some  of  the  nobility  dis- 
gusted him  with  the  system  of  the  occupation  of  the  domain  lands  by  individuals. 
It  was  only  in  the  preceding  year  that  L.  Postumius  had  employed  a  Roman 
army  as  his  slaves,"0  and  had  made  his  soldiers  clear  a  wide  extent  of  public  land 
won  from  the  enemy,  which  he  had  been  allowed  to  occupy  for  himself.  The 
actual  colleague  of  Curius  in  the  consulship  was  P.  Cornelius  Rufinus,21  a  man 
already  notorious  for  his  rapacity  and  corruption,  and  who,  doubtless,  was  turn- 
ing his  Samnite  conquests  to  his  own  account,  and  appropriating  to  himself,  at 
this  very  moment,  the  spoil  won  by  the  valor  of  his  soldiers.  So  Curius  thought 
that  justice  and  the  public  good  required  that  the  conquests  of  the  nation  should 
he  made  available  for  the  relief  of  the  national  distress  ;  and  he  proposed  an 
agrarian  law  which  should  allot  to  every  citizen  a  portion  of  seven  jugera.22 

He  arrayed  at  once  against  him,  not  the  patricians  only,  but  many  families,  no 
who  were  his  principal  doubt,  of  the  new  nobility,  who,  having  attained  to  wealth  and 
honors,  felt  entirely  as  the  older  members  of  the  aristocracy.  The 
ancestors  of  Lucullus,  and  of  the  Metelli,  and  of  the  orator  Hortensius,  'already, 
we  may  believe,  had  joined  that  party  which  their  descendants  so  constantly  up- 
held. They  made  common  cause  with  Appius  Claudius,  the  uncompromising 
enemy  of  their  whole  order,  who  despised  the  richest  of  the  Licinii  as  heartily 
as  the  poorest  citizen  of  one  of  the  city  tribes.  L.  Scipio  was  likely  to  entertain 
the  same  spirit  of  resistance  to  the  agrarian  law  of  Curius,  which  Scipio  Masica, 
nearly  two  hundred  years  afterwards,  displayed  so  fiercely  against  the  measures 
of  Ti.  Gracchus ;  and  L.  Papirius  Cursor,  with  all  his  father's  inflexible  temper 
and  unyielding  courage,  would  be  slow  to  comply  with  the  demands  of  a  ple- 
beian multitude.  The  old  Q.  Fabius  was  respected  and  loved  by  all  orders  of 
his  countrymen,  and  he  had  been  opposed  to  the  party  of  the  high  aristocracy ; 
but  perhaps  his  civil  courage  was  not  equal  to  his  courage  in  the  field ;  he  had 

u  Paterculus,  1. 14.     "Sabinis  sine  suffragio  from  destruction,  which  is  the  meaning  of  Fa- 
data  civitas."  bricius'  words ;  and  therefore  Niebtihr  thinks 
M  Livy,  Epitom.  XI.  that  the  story  may  refer  to  the  time  of  Rufinus' 

30  A  more  detailed  account  of  the  mad  con-  dictatorship  just  after  the  defeat  of  Ljevinus  by 
duct  of  Postumius  in  his  consulship  is  given  in  Pyrrhus. 

a  subsequent  part  of  this  chapter.      His  trial  m  "  Quaterna  dena  igri  jugera  viritim  populo 

and  fine  took  place,  probably,  in  the  very  year  divisit."      Auctor  do   Viris    Illustrious.  —  M'. 

when  Curius  and  P.  Cornelius  Rufinus  were  Curius.    But  these  fourteen  jugera  must  be  un- 

consuls.  derstood  of  two  separate  agrarian  laws,  the  one 

31  Dion   Cassius  seems  to  have  placed  the  passed  or  proposed  in  the  first  consulship  of 
well-known  story  of  Fabricius  voting  for  Rufi-  Curius,  the  other  in  his  second  consulship,  af- 
nus  at  the  consular  comitia,  because  "he  would  ter  the  final  defeat  of  Pyrrhus.     It  is  not  ex- 
rather  be  robbed  than  sold  as  a  slave,"  in  the  pressly  stated  that  this  first  allotment  was  ve- 
first  consulship  of  Rufinus,  that  is,  in  the  year  hemently  opposed  ;  but  the  fragment  from  Ap- 
464.  See  the  mutilated  fragment  in  Mai's  Scrip-  pian,  preserved  by  Suidas,  and  quoted  below, 
tor.  Voter.  Collect.  Dion.  XLI.,  which,  when  proves  that  Curius  was  in  a  state  of  violent  op- 
compared  with  the  entire  story  as  given  by  position  to  the  senate,  and  this  is  likely  to  have 
Cicero,  de  Oratore,  II.  66,  clearly  relates  to  the  been  on  account  of  his  agrarian  laAV.     It  may  be, 
same  circumstance.    Yet  it  is  difficult  to  under-  however,  that  he  also  brought  forward  some  ol 
gtand  how,  in  either  of  Rufinus'  consulships,  those  measures  which  were  after  wards  conceded 
the  republic  was  in  such  perilous  circumstances  by  the  aristocracy,  and  which  were  contained 
that  great  military  skill  was  needed  to  save  her  in  the  Hortensian  laws. 


CHAP.  XXXIV.]  THE  AGRARIAN  LAW  IS  PASSED.  355 

shown  on  a  former  occasion23  that  he  might  be  moved  by  the  reproaches  of  hig 
order,  and  if  he  took  no  part  against  Curius,  yet  we  cannot  believe  that  he  sup- 
ported him. 

I  have  tried  to  recall  the  individual  actors  in  these  troubles,  in  order  to  give  to 
them  something  more  of  reality  than  can  belong  to  a  mere  account 

,  J          ,  ..  °,       ,  iti         Tumult*     nnrt    violent 

of  actions  apart  from  the  men  who  performed  them.  And  the  itflt«r/£  £££••  ™« 
contest,  no  doubt,  was  violent ;  as  it  is  said  that  Curius  was  fol-  B| 
lowed  by  a  band  of  eight  hundred  picked  young  men,84  the  soldiers,  we  may 
suppose,  who  had  so  lately  conquered  under  his  auspices,  and  who  were  ready 
to  decide  the  quarrel,  if  needful,  by  the  sword.  They  saved  Curius  from  the 
fate  of  Ti.  Gracchus,  but  it  does  not  appear  that  they  committed  any  acts  of  out- 
rage themselves.  But  an  impenetrable  veil  conceals  from  our  view  the  particu- 
lars of  all  these  disturbances ;  the  law  of  Curius  was  finally  passed,  but  we  know 
not  at  what  time,  nor  whether  it  was  obtained  by  any  other  than  peaceful  and  legal 
means. 

Between  the  consulship  of  Curius  and  Cornelius  Rufinus,  and  that  of  P.  Dola- 
bella  and  Cn.  Domitius,  when  the  Gaulish  war  broke  out,  there  IAWS  proposed  for  other 
intervened  a  period  of  seven  years,  all  the  records  of  which  have  Sfofthi^u  *5£ 
so  utterly  perished  that  not  a  single  event  can  be  fixed  with  cer-  Janiculum- 
tainty  in  any  one  particular  year.  But  with  all  the  chronology  of  these  years 
we  have  lost  also  the  history ;  we  cannot  ascertain  the  real  character  of  the 
events  which  followed,  nor  the  relations  of  parties  to  each  other,  nor  the  conduct 
of  particular  persons.25  Some  of  the  tribunes26  proposed  a  law  for  the  abolition 
of  all  debts  ;  whether  before  or  after  the  passing  of  Curius'  agrarian  law  we  know 
not.  Nor  can  we  tell  whether  Curius  held  on  with  the  popular  party  till  the  end 
of  the  contest ;  or  whether,  as  often  happens  with  the  leaders  of  the  beginnings 
of  civil  dissensions,  he  thought  that  the  popular  cause  was  advancing  too  far,  and 
either  left  it,  or  even  joined  the  party  of  its  opponents.  We  only  know  that  the 
demands  of  the  people27  rose  with  the  continuance  of  the  struggle ;  that  political 
questions  were  added  to  those  of  debtor  and  creditor ;  that  points  which,  if 
yielded  in  time,  would  have  satisfied  all  the  wishes  of  the  popular  party,  were 
contested  inch  by  inch,  till,  when  gained,  they  were  only  regarded  as  a  step  to 
something  further ;  and  that  at  last  the  mass  of  the  people  left  Rome,  and  estab- 
lished themselves  on  the  Janiculum.28  Even  then,  if  Zonaras  may  be  trusted,  the 


m  When  he  only  refused  to  violate  the  Li-  fers  the  speech  to  Curius'  second  consulship, 
cinian  law,  and  to  return  two  patrician  consuls,  and  makes  it  accompany  his  refusal  of  an  un- 
oecause  he  himself  would  have  been  one  of  them,  usually  large  portion  of  land  which  the  sen- 
Otherwise  he  is  represented  as  saying  that  he  ate  proposed  to  allot  to  himself— IV.  3,  §  5. 
would  have  complied  with  the  wishes  of  the  Frontinus  also  makes  it  accompany  his  refusal 
patricians,  and  have  broken  the  law. — Livy,  X.  of  an  otfer  made  to  himself;  but  he  places  it  in 
15.  his  first  consulship,  after  the  Sabine  war.  Stra- 

24  Acvrdrff  Kara  t,tj\ov  apsrrjf  tiircro  vtwv  \oydSuv  tegemat.  IV.  3,  §  12.     It  might  also  have  been 
ir\rj6us  dKTaKoaluv,  iirt  irdvru  TU  epya  troipoi.  KUI  spoken  against  the  occupiers  of  large  tracts  of 
tfapus  rjv  rrj  P<iv\fj  irapa  r«j  fKK\rjffiuf,  domain  land,  who  would  not  be  contented  with. 

This  is  a  quotation  made  from  Appian  by  Sui-  an  allotment  of  seven  jttgera  as  property,  but 

das,  and  is  to  be  found  in  Suidas'  lexicon,  in  ^Xoj,  wished  to  occupy  whole  districts.    So  impossi- 

or  in  Schweighauser's  Appian,  Samnitic.  Ex-  ble  is  it  to  see  our  way  in  the  history  of  a  pe- 

tract.  V.  riod  where  the  accounts  are  not  only  so  mea- 

25  For  example,  a  speech  of  Curius  has  been  gre,  but  also  at  variance  with  one  another, 
recorded,  in  which  he  said,  "  that  the  man  must  28  Srjftdpx^v  n v&v  xpcwv  atroKottiiv  tiariyrjaapivuv. 
be  a  mischievous  citizen  who  was  not  contented  — Zonuras,  VIII.  2.     The  words  tiariyovufvui 
with  seven  jugera  of  land." — Pliny,  Hist.  Na-  T&V  tHipdpxuv  are  legible  in  a  mutilated  fragment 
tur.  XVIII.  §  IS.    Ed.  Sillig.    But 'the  applica-  of  Dion  Cassius  relating  to  these  times,  which 
lion  of  this  speech  is  most  uncertain.     Accord-  Mai  has  printed  in  such  a  state  as  to  be  in  many 
ing  to  Plutarch,  it  was  spoken  to  reprove  some  parts  absolutely  unintelligible. — Fragm.  XLI1. 
violent  supporters  of  the  popular  party,  who  a7  This  appears  from  the  legible  part  of  the 
thought  that  Curius'  agrarian  law  did  not  go  fragment  of  Dion  Cassius  just  noticed :  re^evr^v 
fur  enough,  and  that  the  whole  of  the  state's  TE?  ovv  oW  f0£A<5i/rwi>  T&V   Swar&v  roAAw  rAt/a 
domains  ought  to  be  allotted  to  separate  pro-  r<3«/  «r«r'  df>x"(  tXiriaOivTwv  otyicrtv  aQctvai,  avvr)\- 
prietors,  without  allowing  any  portion  to  be  \dyrjoav. 

occupied  in  great  masses  as  at  present. — Apo-  **  Livy,  Epitom.  XI. 
thegm.  p.  194.  E.    But  Valerius  Maximus  trans- 


356  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.XXXFV 

aristocracy  would  not  yield,  and  it  was  only  the  alarm  of  a  foreign  enemy,29  per- 
haps some  gathering  of  the  forces  of  Etruria,  which  at  this  time  was  meditating 
on  a  real  and  decisive  trial  of  strength  with  Rome,  which  induced  the  senate  to 
put  an  end  at  any  price  to  the  existing  dissensions. 

Accordingly,  Q.  Hortensius30  was  appointed  dictator.  He  was  a  man  of  an  old 
Thev  ar»  brought  back  plebeian  family,  for  we  find  an  Hortensius  amongst  the  tribunes  of 
fLe;?h°erteHfrt9en±  the  year  33 2  ;31  but,  individually,  he  is  unknown  to  us,  and  we 

cannot  tell  what  recommended  him  to  the  choice  of  the  consuls  on 
this  occasion.  He  assembled  the  people,  including  under  that  name  the  whole 
nation,  those  who  had  stayed  in  Rome  no  less  than  those  who  had  withdrawn  to 
the  Janiculum,  in  a  place  called  "  the  Oak  Grove,"32  probably  without  the  walls 
of  the  city;  and  in  that  sacred  grove  were  passed,  and  ratified  probably  by 
solemn  oaths,  the  famous  Hortensian  laws. 

These  contained,  in  the  first  place,  an  abolition,33  or,  at  least,  a  great  reduction 

of  debts ;  2d,  an  agrarian  law  on  an  extensive  scale,  allotting  seven 

Their  provision*.  .  /•      •»          -i  •        -i         i  ••  11 

jugera  of  the  domain  land  to  every  citizen ;  and  3d,  one  or  more 
laws  affecting  the  constitution  ;  of  which  the  most  important  was  that  which  de- 
prived the  senate  of  its  veto,  and  declared  the  people  assembled34  in  their  tribes 
to  be  a  supreme  legislative  power.  Accidental  mention  has  been  preserved  to 
us  of  another  law,  or  possibly  of  a  particular  clause  in  the  former  law,  by  which 
the  nundinae35  or  weekly  market  days  which  had  hitherto  been  days  of  business 
for  the  commons  only,  and  sacred  or  holy  days  for  the  patricians,  were  now  made 
days  of  business  for  the  whole  nation  alike.  Was  the  object  of  this  merely  to 
abolish  a  marked  distinction  between  the  two  orders ;  or  was  it  to  enable  the 
patricians  to  take  part  in  the  meeting  of  the  tribes  in  the  Forum,  which  were 
held  on  the  nundinse,  and  had  they  hitherto  belonged  only  to  the  tribes  in  that 
other,  but  to  us  undiscoverable  form,  in  which  they  voted  at  the  comitia  of  cen- 
turies on  the  field  of  Mars  ? 

Thus  the  sovereign  legislative  power  of  the  assembly  of  the  tribes  in  the  Forum 
The  legislative  power  of  was  fully  established ;  and  consequently,  when  C.  Flaminius 
the  tribes  ettabUed.  brought  forward  another  agrarian  bill,  about  fifty  years  afterwards, 
for  a  division  of  the  recently  conquered  country  of  the  Senones,  the  senate,  how- 

29  Zonaras,  VIII.  2.  M  The  statement  in  the  text  follows  Niebuhr, 

80  Livy,  Epitom.  XI.    Pliny,  Ilistor.  Natur.    who,  as  is  well  known,  supposed  that  the  Hor- 
XVI.  §  37.    Ed.  Sillig.  tensian  laws  differed  from  the  Publilian,  inas- 

81  Livy,  IV.  42.  much  as  the  Publilian  abolished  the  veto  of  the 
"  Q.  Hortensius,  dictator,  cum  plebs  seces-    curia;,  and  the  Hortensian  did  away  the  veto  ol 

sisset  in  Janiculum,  legern  in  esculeto  tulit,  ut  the  senate.     The  tribes  in  the  Forum  and  the 

quod  ea  jussisset  omnes  Quirites  teneret." —  senate  were  thus  placed  on  a  footing  of  equality ; 

Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  XVI.  §  37.    Ed.  Sillig.  neither  had  a  veto  on  the  enactments  of  the 

83  This  13  not  stated  in  direct  terms  in  the  other ;  and  the  tribunes  had  a  veto  upon  both 

scanty  notices  of  these  events,  which  alone  have  alike.    Both  also  were  considered  as  equal  to 

been  preserved  to  us.    But  as  the  abolition  of  laws  ;  for  "  senatus  consultum  legis  vicem  ob- 

debts  was  the  main  thing  required  by  the  peo-  tinet"  (Gaius,  Institut.  I.  §  4) ;  and  by  the  Hor- 

ple,  and  as  the  fragment  of  Dion  Cassius,  above  tensianlaw,  "  plebiseitalegibusexaemiatasunt." 

referred  to,  speaks  of  the  people  having  their  (Gaius,  Instit.   I.  §  3.)     It  may  be  doubted 

first  demands  granted,  and  then  going  on  to  in-  whether  the  limits  of  these  two  powers  were 

sist  upon  others,  and  as  we  have  seen  an  abo-  ever  very  definitely  settled ;  although  one  point 

Ution  of  debts  carried  once  before  in  the  dis-  is  mentioned  as  lying  exclusively  in  the  power 

turbances  of  413,  it  does  not  seem  too  much  to  of  the  tribes,  namely,  the  right  of  admitting  any 

conclude  that  a  similar  measure  was  carried  on  strangers  to  the  franchise  of  Eoman  citizens.— 

on  the  present  occasion  also.     With  regard  to  Livy,  XXXVIII.  36. 

the  agrarian  law,  it  may  have  been  passed  two  ^  Macrobius,  Saturnal.  I._16.     The  reason  as- 

or  three  years  earlier ;  but  from  the  statement  signed  by  Macrobius  for  this  enactment  of  the 

already  quoted  (Auctor  de  Viris  Illustribus,  in  Hortensian  law  may  also  be  admitted ;  that  it 

M'.  Curio),  "  that  Curius  granted  fourteen  juge-  was  made  to  suit  the  convenience  of  the  citizens 

ra  to  each  citizen,"  it  is  clear  that  an  agrarian  law  from  the  country,  who,  coming  up  to  Rome  on 

proposed  by  him  must  have  been  carried  at  some  the  market  days,  wished  to  be  able  to  settle 

time  or  other  in  the  period  between  his  consul-  their  legal  business  at  the  same  time ;  but  this 

ship  and  the  dictatorship  of  Hortensius.  It  may  could  not  be  done,  at  least  in  the  pra3tor's  court, 

thus  be  numbered  amongst  the  Hortensian  laws,  as  there,  according  to  the  patrician  usage,  the 

as  belonging  to  the  measures  which  the  people  market  days  were  holydays,  and  consequently 

at  this  period  forced  the  aristocracy  to  concede  the  court  did  not  sit. 
to  them. 


; 


CHAP.  XXXIV.]  THE  M^ENIAN  LAW.  357 

ever  strongly  averse  to  it,  could  not  prevent  it  from  becoming  a  law.  The  only 
check,  therefore,  which  now  remained  on  the  absolute  legislative  power  of  the 
tribes,  consisted  in  the  veto  of  their  own  tribunes ;  and  to  secure  the  negative  of 
a  tribune  became  accordingly  the  ordinary  resource  of  the  aristocracy  in  the  con- 
tests of  the  seventh  century. 

Another  important  law  is  supposed  to  have  been  passed  at  the  same  period 
with  the  law  of  Hortensius,  though  our  knowledge  of  all  particu-  The  M8Bnlan  ,aw 
lars  respecting  it  is  still  more  scanty.  A  law  bearing  the  name  of 
Maenian,36  and  proposed,  therefore,  either  by  the  good  dictator  C.  Maenius  him- 
self, or,  as  is  more  probable,  by  one  of  his  family,  took  away  the  veto  which  the 
curioe  had  hitherto  enjoyed  in  the  election  of  curule  magistrates.  They  were 
now  to  sanction  beforehand  the  choice  of  the  centuries,  on  whomsoever  it  might 
happen  to  fall.  And  thus  their  share  in  the  elections  being  reduced  to  an  empty 
form,  they  soon  ceased  to  be  assembled  at  all ;  and  in  later  times  of  the  com- 
monwealth they  were  represented  merely  by  thirty  lictors,  who  were  accustomed 
for  form's  sake  to  confirm  the  suffrages  of  the  centuries,  and  to  confer  the  im- 
perium  on  the  magistrates  whom  the  centuries  had  elected. 

But  although  supreme  legislative  power  was  now  bestowed  on  the  assembly 
of  the  tribes,  and  although  the  elections  were  freed  from  all  direct 
le^al  control  on  the  part  of  the  aristocracy,  yet  we  know  full  well  mSZ  tk«  OOUHMIM 

,        T>  ,-,      ,  •  t         I  i  i  of  Rome  a  democracy. 

that  the  Roman  constitution  was  very  far  from  becoming  hence- 
forward a  democracy.  To  us,  indeed,  who  are  accustomed  to  enact  more  than 
five  hundred  new  laws  every  year,  and  who  see  the  minutest  concerns  of  common 
life  regulated  by  act  of  parliament,  the  possession  of  an  independent  legislative 
power  by  a  popular  assembly  must  seem  equivalent  to  absolute  sovereignty.  But 
our  own  early  history  may  teach  us  not  to  apply  our  present  notions  to  other 
times  and  other  countries.  The  legislative  power,  even  in  the  days  of  the  Tu- 
dors  and  Stuarts,  was  of  small  importance  when  compared  with  the  executive  and 
judicial.  Now,  the  Hortensian  law  enabled  the  Roman  people  to  carry  any  point 
on  which  they  considered  their  welfare  to  depend ;  it  removed  all  impediments, 
which  after  all  do  but  irritate  rather  than  hinder,  out  of  the  way  of  the  strongly 
declared  expression  of  the  public  will.  But  the  public  will  was  in  the  ordinary 
state  of  things  quiescent,  and  allowed  itself  to  be  represented  by  the  senate  and 
the  magistrates.  It  resigned  to  these  even  the  power  of  taxation,  and  except  in 
some  rare  or  comparatively  trifling  cases,  the  whole  judical  power  also :  those 
judges  who  were  appointed  by  the  praetor  to  try  questions  of  fact,  in  all  the  most 
important  civil  and  criminal  cases,  were  taken  exclusively  from  the  order  of  sen- 
ators. All  the  ordinary  administration  was  conducted  by  the  senate ;  and  its 
decrees  on  all  particular  points,  like  the  ^ijqjjrffAcwa  of  the  Athenian  popular  assem- 
*  ly,  had  undoubtedly  the  force  of  laws. 

According  to  Theophilus,37  this  was  a  concession  made  by  the  people  to  the 

*  What  we  know  of  the  Msenian  law  comes  ceased  to  be  exclusively  a  patrician  assembly, 

ihiefly  from  a  passage  of  Cicero  (Brutus,  c.  This  view  would  coincide  with  Niebuhr's  dis- 

4,   §  55),  in  which  he  says   of  M'.  Curius,  tinction  between  the  Publilian  and  Hortensian 

that  he   "patres  ante  auctores  fieri  coegerit,  laws.   When  the  former  were  passed,  the  curise 

quod  fuit  permagnnm,  nondum  lege  Maenia  were  still  an  efficient  body,  and  the  term  "  pa- 

latd."    Livy  must  allude  also  to  this  law,  when  tres"  therefore  applied  to  them  much  more  than 

he  says,   "  hpdie— priusquam^  populus  suffra-  to  the  senate.     But  in  the  fifty  years  that  fol- 

gium  ineat,  in  incertum  comitiorum  eventum  lowed,  the  curia?  had  dwindled,  away  so  much 

patres  auctores  fiunt."     1.17.    It  must  be  ob-  that  the  senate  was  become  the  principal  assem- 

served  that  th$  power  taken  away  by  the  Ma3-  bly  of  the  patres ;  and  therefore  the  Hortensian 

nian  law  from  the  "patres"  was  taken  away  law  extended  to  the  senate  what  had  before, 

from  the  senate  no  less  than  from  the  curia? ;  been  enacted  by  the  Publilian  law  with  respect 

for  the  senate  in  its  original  form  was  only  a  Be-  to  the  curia?. 

lect  assembly  of  the  patres,  whose  great  assem-  n  See  Hugo,  Geschichte  des  Rom.  Rcchts,  p. 

bly  was  the  comitia  curiata.    And  gradually  the  339.    (9th  Edit.)    The  passage  in  Theophilus  ia 

senate  drew  to  itself  both  the  name  and  the  one  which  I  have  not  verified,  as  I  have  not  had 

power  of  the  greater  patrician  assembly,  so  that  an  opportunity  of  consulting  the  book.     But 

what  is  said  of  the  patres  or  patricians  is  com-  Hugo  professes  to  quote  it  fully,  and  I  have  no 

monly  to  be  understood  of  the  senate,  and  not  of  doubt  of  his  correctness, 
the  curioe,  even  although  the  senate  had  long 


358  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXIV 

Their  effect,  wen  int.  aristocracy,  and  embodied  in  the  laws  of  Hortensius,  that  the  de- 
ing  and  beneficial.  Crees  of  the  senate  should  be  binding  on  the  people,  as  the  decrees 
or  resolutions  of  the  tribes  were  to  be  binding  on  the  senate.  At  any  rate,  it  is 
certain  that  the  senate  retained  high  and  independent  powers  of  its  own,  which 
were  no  less  sovereign  than  those  possessed  by  the  assembly  of  the  tribes  ;  and 
in  practice  each  of  these  two  bodies  kept  up  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  a 
healthy  and  vigorous  life  in  itself,  without  interfering  with  the  functions  of  the 
other.  Mutual  good  sense  and  good  feeling,  and  the  continual  moderating  influ- 
ence of  the  college  of  tribunes,  whose  peculiar  position  as  having  a  veto  on  the 
proceedings  both  of  the  senate  and  people  disposed  them  to  regulate  the  action 
of  each,  prevented  any  serious  collision,  and  gave  to  the  Roman  constitution  that 
mixed  character,  partly  aristocratic  and  partly  popular,  which  Polybius  recog- 
nized and  so  greatly  admired.  And  thus  the  event  seems  to  have  given  the 
highest  sanction  to  the  wisdom  of  the  Hortensian  laws :  nor  can  we  regard  them 
as  mischievous  or  revolutionary,  when  we  find  that  from  the  time  of  their  enact- 
ment the  internal  dissensions  of  the  Romans  were  at  an  end  for  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years,  and  that  during  this  period  the  several  parts  of  the  constitution  were 
all  active ;  it  was  a  calm  not  produced  by  the  extinction  of  either  of  the  con- 
tending forces,  but  by  their  perfect  union. 

It  may  be  conjectured  that  the  sickness  which  had  visited  Rome  during  three 
Pro.poctofanewcoaii-  or  four  successive  years  at  the  close  of  the  Samnite  war  returned, 
tionagouut  Rome.  partially  at  least,  in  the  concluding  year  of  these  domestic  troubles, 
for  Q.  Hortensius  died  before  the  expiration  of  his  dictatorship  :  an  event  hitherto 
unexampled  in  the  Roman  annals,  and  regarded  as  of  evil  omen ;  so  that  Augus- 
tine38 makes  it  a  reproach  to  the  impotence  of  the  god  ./Esculapius,  that  although 
he  had  been  so  lately  brought  from  Greece  with  the  utmost  solemnity,  and  had 
been  received  at  Rome  with  due  honors,  that  his  presence  might  stay  the  pesti- 
lence, he  yet  suffered  the  very  dictator  of  the  Roman  people  to  fall  its  victim. 
Nearly  about  the  same  time  also,  if  we  can  judge  from  the  place  and  apparent 
drift  of  one  of  the  fragments  of  Dionysius,39  Rome  suffered  from  an  earthquake. 
And  scarcely  were  the  Hortensian  laws  passed,  when  the  prospect  of  foreign  war 
on  a  most  extensive  scale  presented  itself.  Tarentum,  it  is  said,  was  busily  or- 
ganizing a  new  coalition,  in  which  the  Lucanians,  Samnites,  and  Bruttians  in  the 
south  were  to  unite  with  the  Etruscans,  Umbrians,  and  Gauls  in  the  north,  and 
were  again  to  try  their  combined  strength  against  Rome. 

In  the  mean  time,  before  we  trace  the  events  of  this  great  contest,  we 
MiKeihmeou.  notice^  of  may  bring  together  some  few  scattered  notices  of  domestic  af- 
fairs relating  to  the  state  of  Rome  in  the  middle  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury. 

A  new  magistracy  had  its  origin40  somewhere  between  the  years  461  and  466  ; 

institution  of  the  tn-  that  of  the  triumviri  capitales,  or  commissioners  of  police.     These 

officers  were  elected  by  the  people,  the  comitia  being  held  by  the 

praetor.     Their  business  was  to  enforce  the  payment  of  fines  due  to  the  state  ;41 

•  De  Civitate  Dei,  III.  17.    Augustine's  no-  41  Festus,  in  "  Sacramentum."    The  appoint- 

tice  of  the  secession  to  the  Janiculum  is  proba-  ment  of  the  "triumviri  capitales"  was  proposed, 

bly  taken  from  Livy,  and  may  be  given  here,  as  according  to  Festus,  by  L.  Papirius,  whom  he 

it  contains  one  or  two  particulars  not  mentioned  calls  "  tribune  of  the  commons."     One  cannot 

in  any  other  existing  record.     "Post  graves  et  but  suspect  with  Niebuhr,  that  the  person  meant 

longas  Romse  seditiones  ad  ultimum  plebs  in  was  L.  Papirius  Cursor,  who  was  prcetor  in  the 

.Janiculum  hostile  diremptione  secesserat :  cujus  year  462  (Livy,  X.  47) ;  and  then  the  appoint- 

mali  tarn  dira  calamitas  erat,  ut  eius  rei  caus4  ment  would  coincide  with  the  year  when  the 

quod  in  extremis  periculis  fieri  solebat,  dictator  plague  was  at  its  height,  and  when  the  deputa- 

crearetur  Hortensius :    qui  plebe  revocatA  in  tion  was  sent  to  Epidaurus  to  invite  JEsculaniusj 

eodem  magistrate  expiravit,  quod  nulli  dicta-  to  Kome.    Varro,  de  L.  L.  V.  81.    Ed.  Mullcr. 

tori  ante  contigerat."  Pomponius,  de  Origine  Juris,  Digest  I.     Tit. 

»  Ch.   39.  Fragm.      Dionys.  apud  Maium.  II.  §  39.    Livy,  XXV.  1.  XXXII.  26..    Valerius 

Scriptor.  Veter.    'Vatcian,  Collect.  Vol.  II.  p.  Maximus,  V.  4.  §  7. 

501.  Etymologicon  Magn.  in  tvtcica.    See  Herman, 

«•  Livy  Epitome,  XI.  Pol.  Antiq.  of  Greece,  §  137. 


CHAP.  XXXIV.]  STORY  OF  L.  POSTUMIUS  MEGELLUS.  359 

to  try  by  summary  process  all  offenders  against  the  public  peace  who  might  be 
taken  in  the  fact ;  to  have  the  care  of  the  state  prison,  and  to  carry  into  effect 
the  sentence  of  the  law  upon  criminals.  They  resembled  exactly  in  all  these  points 
the  well-known  magistracy  of  the  eleven  at  Athens. 

The  creation  of  this  office  seems  to  mark  an  increase  of  ordinary  crimes  against 
person  and  property  ;  and  such  an  increase  was  the  natural  conse-  The  prob»w«  ocuuioB 
quenco  of  the  distress  which  prevailed  about  this  time,  and  partic-  °fiUln»titution- 
ularly  of  the  severe  visitations  of  pestilence  which  occurred  at  this  period.  It-is 
well  known  that  such  seasons  are  marked  by  the  greatest  outbreaks  of  all  sorts 
of  crime ;  and  that  never  is  a  strong  police  more  needed  than  when  the  prospect 
of  impending  death  makes  men  reckless,  and  eager  only  to  indulge  their  passions 
while  they  may. 

The  census  of  the  year  461  gave  a  return  of  262,322  Roman  citizens  f  that  of 
the  year  4G6,  notwithstanding  the  havoc  caused  in  the  interval  by  Returnt  of  the  cenIM 
the  double  scourge  of  pestilence  and  war,  exhibited  an  increase  of  8t  thii  po"°A- 
10,00043  upon  the  preceding  return.  This  was  owing  to  the  conquest  of  the  Sa- 
bines,  and  their  consequent  admission  to  the  Roman  franchise  in  the  year  464  : 
for  the  census  included,  as  is  well  known,  not  only  those  ci&iens  wbc  were  en- 
rolled in  the  tribes,  but  those  also  who  enjoyed  the  private  rights  of  citizenship 
without  as  yet  partaking  in  the  right  of  suffrage. 

Amongst  other  traits  of  resemblance  between  the  Spartan  and  the  Roman 
aristocracies,  we  may  notice  the  extreme  moderation  shown  by  story  of  L  postumiu« 
each  of  them  towards  the  faults  of  their  distinguished  citizens.  It  Mesellu»- 
was  not  till  after  repeated  proofs  of  his  treasonable  designs  that  the  Spartan  gov- 
ernment would  take  any  serious  steps  against  Pausanias ;  and  the  forbearance  of 
the  Romans  towards  Appius  Claudius  was  no  less  remarkable.  Another  memo- 
rable example  of  the  same  spirit  occurred  in  the  case  of  L.  Postumius  Megellus. 
He  belonged  to  a  family  whose  pride  and  hatred  of  the  commons  had  been  noto- 
rious in  the  political  contests  of  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century  ;44  and  as 
Niebuhr  has  truly  observed,  the  peculiar  character  of  a  Roman  family  was  pre- 
served from  generation  to  generation,  and  it  was  rarely  found  that  any  of  its 
members  departed  from  it.  He  had  been  consul  in  449,  and  again  in  460,  and 
had  acquired  in  each  of  his  commands  the  reputation  of  a  brave  and  skilful  sol- 
dier. But  his  conduct  as  a  citizen  was  far  less  meritorious  ;  and  it  was  probably 
for  some  overbearing  or  oppressive  behavior  in  his  second  consulship  that  he 
was  threatened  with  impeachment  by  one  of  the  tribunes  as  soon  as  he  went  out 
of  office.  In  the  crisis  of  the  Samnite  war,  however,  military  merit  atoned  for  all 
other  defects ;  the  consul  Sp.  Carvilius  named  him  one  of  his  lieutenants,45  and  the 
trial  was  delayed  till  the  campaign  should  be  over ;  but  when  it  had  ended  tri- 
phantly,  the  popularity  and  brilliant  victories  of  Sp.  Carvilius  pleaded  strongly 

favor  of  his  lieutenant,  and  the  trial  never  was  brought  forward.  Two  years 
afterwards,  in  463,  Postumius  was  again  chosen  consul,  when  the  great  victory 
Stained  in  the  preceding  year  by  Q.  Fabius  made  it  probable  that  the  war  might 

3n  be  brought  to  a  triumphant  issue. 

His  proud  and  bad  nature  was  more  irritated  by  having  been  threatened  at 
first  with  impeachment,  than  softened  by  the  favor  shown  to  him 
afterwards ;  so  that  his  conduct  in  his  third  consulship  was  that  Sk^^TS  hu^tiiia 
of  a  mischievous  madman.     His  first  act46  was  to  insist  on  having 
Samnium  assigned  to  him  as  his  province,  without  referring  the  decision  as  usual 
to  lot ;  and  though  his  colleague,  C.  Junius  Bubulcus,  remonstrated  against  this 
arrogance,  yet  the  nobility  and  powerful  interest  of  Postumius  prevailed,  and  C. 
Junius  forbore  to  dispute  what  he  perceived  he  could  not  resist  with  success. 

Then  followed,  as  usual,  the  levying  of  the  legions  for  the  service  of  the  year; 


ina 

r, 


«"  Livy,  X.  47.  •  Livy,  X.  46. 

«•  Livy,  Epitom.  XI.  4fl  Dionysius,  XVI.  15. 

44  See  Chap.  XIII.  of  his  history,  note  48. 


360  HISTORY  OF  HOME.  [CHAP.  XXXT7 

but  thb  Samnites  were  so  humbled  that  nothing  more  was  to  be 
ow^S'  °*l*ari"e  **•  feared  fr°m  them,  and  Q.  Fabius  Gurges  still  commanded  an  arm) 

in  Samnium  as  proconsul.  It  was  not  necessary,  therefore,  for  the 
consul  to  begin  active  operations  immediately ;  but  he,  notwithstanding,  took  the 
field  with  his  army,  and  advanced  towards  the  enemy's  frontier.  In  the  course 
of  the  late  campaigns,  he  had  become  the  occupier  of  a  large  tract  of  the  terri- 
tory conquered  from  the  Samnites ;  but  much  of  it  was  uncleared  land,  and  as 
slaves  art  Rome  were  yet  but  few,  laborers  were  not  easily  to  be  procured  in  these 
remote  possessions  in  sufficient  numbers.  Postumius  did  not  scruple  to  employ 
his  soldiers  as  though  they  had  been  his  slaves :  he  set  two  thousand47  men  to 
work  in  felling  his  woods,  and  in  this  manner  he  engaged  for  a  considerable  time 
a  large  portion  of  a  Roman  army. 

When,  at  last,  he  was  ready  to  commence  active  operations  against  the  ene- 
Hia  behavior  toward^  my>  his  pride  displayed  itself  in  a  new  form.  Q.  Fabius  Gurges 
Q.  Fabiu.  Gurgc..  was  gtj]]^  as  we  jjave  seen>  commanding  an  army  in  Samnium  as 

proconsul ;  and  he  was  now  laying  siege  to  Cominium,  which,  though  taken  and 
burnt  by  the  Romans  two  years  before,  appears  to  have  been  again  occupied  by 
the  Samnites  as  a  fortress ;  for  the  massy  walls  of  their  towns  could  not  easily 
be  destroyed,  and  these  exist  in  many  instances  to  this  day,  encircling  nothing 
but  desolation  within  them.  The  consul  wrote  to  Fabius,48  ordering  him  to  with- 
draw from  Samnium :  Fabius  pleaded  the  authority  of  the  senate,  by  which  he 
had  been  continued  in  his  command ;  and  the  senate  itself  sent  a  deputation  to 
Postumius,  requiring  him  not  to  oppose  their  decree.  But  he  replied  to  the 
deputies,  that  so  long  as  he  was  consul  it  was  for  him  to  command  the  senate, 
not  for  the  senate  to  dictate  to  him ;  and  he  marched  directly  towards  Cominium, 
t*>  compel  Fabius  to  obedience  by  actual  force.  Fabius  did  not  attempt  to  resist 
him  ;  and  the  consul,  having  taken  the  command  of  both  armies,  immediately 
sent  Fabius  home. 

In  actual  war  Postumius  again  proved  himself  an  able  soldier :  he  took  Co- 
Hotrium  in  in  •  iteof  mmium>49  an(^  several  other  places,  and  he  conquered  the  important 
the7"ohipbition"rf  the  post  of  Venusia,  and,  well  appreciating  the  advantages  of  its  situa- 
tion, he  recommended  that  it  should  be  made  a  Roman  colony. 
The  senate  followed  his  advice,  but  would  not  appoint  him  one  of  the  commis- 
sioners50 for  assigning  the  lands  to  the  colonists,  and  superintending  the  founda- 
tion of  the  new  settlement.  He  in  his  turn  distributed  all  the  plunder  of  the 
campaign  amongst  his  soldiers,  that  he  might  not  enrich  the  treasury ;  and  he 
inarched  home  and  gave  his  soldiers  leave  of  absence  from  their  standards,  with- 
out waiting  for  the  arrival  of  his  successor.  Finally,  when  the  senate  refused 
to  allow  him  to  triumph,51  he,  having  secured  the  protection  of  three  of  the  trib- 
unes, celebrated  his  triumph  in  defiance  of  the  prohibition  of  the  other  seven, 
and  in  contempt  of  the  senate's  refusal. 

For  such  a  course  of  outrageous  conduct,  he  was  prosecuted  as  soon  as  he 
He  u  tried  and  heavily  went  out  of  office,  by  two  of  the  tribunes,  and  was  condemned  by 
fined-  all  the  three-and-thirty  tribes  unanimously.  But  his  accusers  did 

not  prosecute  him  capitally,  they  only  sued  him  for  a  fine ;  and  although  the 
fine  was  the  heaviest  to  which  any  Roman  had  been  hitherto  sentenced,  for  it 
amounted  to  500,000  ases,52  yet  it  was  but  small  in  comparison  of  the  penalties  im- 
posed with  far  less  provocation  by  the  governments  of  Greece.  It  amounted,  in 
Greek  money,  to  no  more  than  fifty  thousand  drachmae,  whereas  Agis,  the  king 
of  Sparta,  had  been  condemned,  even  by  the  Spartans,  to  pay  a  fine  of  one  hun- 
dred thousand43  for  a  mere  want  of  judgment  in  his  military  operations.  Postu- 

47  Dionysius,  XVI.  15.  Livy,  Epitome.             of  Postumius'  second  consulship,  X.  37.    But 

48  Dionysius,  XVI.  16.  it  agrees  on  every  account  better  with  his  third 
48  Dionysius,  XVI.  17.  consulship,  of  which  it  is  related  by  Dionysius, 
M  Dionysius,  XVI.  17.  *a  Dioixysins,  XVI.  18. 

M  Dionys.  XVI.  18.    Livy  relates  this  story        M  Thueydides,  V.  63. 


CHAP.  XXXIV.]  JESCULAPIUS  INVITED  TO  ROME.  36i 

mius,  in  addition  to  his  own  large  possessions,  would  probably  have  many  wealthy 
clients,  who  were  bound  to  pay  their  patron's  fine.  His  family,  at  any  rate,  was 
not  ruined  or  disgraced  by  his  sentence,  for  his  son  was  elected  consul  a  few  years 
afterwards,  in  the  third  year  of  the  first  Punic  war. 

Of  the  miscellaneous  particulars  recorded  of  this  period  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable is  the  embassy  sent  to  Greece  in  the  year  462,  to  invite  Embaggy  ^  to  Ep. 
the  god  ^Esculapius  to  Rome,  in  order  that  he  might  put  a  stop  to  d*,.™  tomato  the  god 

O  •  /.  -I  A        rm        \          t     ^Esculapius  to  Rome. 

the  plague  which  had  then  been  raging  for  three  years.  The  head 
of  the  embassy  was  Q.  Ogulnius,51  the  proposer  of  the  law  by  which  the  com- 
mons had  been  admitted  to  the  sacred  offices  of  pontifex  and  augur,  and  who 
more  recently,  as  curule  sedile,  had  caused  the  famous  group  of  the  she-wolf 
suckling  Romulus  and  Remus  to  be  placed  by  the  sacred  fig-tree  in  the  comitium. 
The  deputation  arrived  at  Epidaurus,  the  peculiar  seat  of  ./Esculapius,  and  en- 
treated permission  to  invite  the  god  to  Rome,  and  that  they  might  be  instructed 
how  to  offer  him  acceptable  worship.  This  was  no  unusual  request ;  for  many 
cities  had,  in  like  manner,  received  his  worship  from  Epidaurus  ;  Sicyon,55  Athens, 
Pergamus,  and  Gyrene.  Accordingly,  one  of  the  snakes  which  were  sacred  to 
the  god  crawled  from  his  temple  to  the  city  of  Epidaurus,  and  from  thence  made 
its  way  to  the  sea-shore,  and  climbed  up  into  the  trireme  of  the  Roman  ambassa- 
dors, which  was  as  usual  drawn  up  on  the  beach.  It  was  under  the  form  of  a 
snake  that  ./Esculapius  was  said  to  have  gone  to  Sicyon,56  when  his  worship  was 
introduced  there  ;  and  the  Romans,  instructed  by  the  Epidaurians,  considered  that 
he  was  now  going  to  visit  Rome  in  the  same  form,  and  they  immediately  sailed 
away  with  the  sacred  snake  to  Italy.  But  when  they  stopped  at  Antium,  on 
their  way  home,  the  snake,  so  said  the  story,57  left  the  ship,  and  crawled  out  into 
the  precinct  of  the  temple  of  ^Esculapius,  for  the  god  it  seems  was  worshipped 
at  Antium  also,  and  coiled  himself  round  a  tall  palm-tree,  where  he  remained  for 
three  days.  The  Romans  anxiously  waited  for  his  return  to  the  ship  ;  and  at 
last  he  went  back,  and  did  not  move  again  till  the  ship  entered  the  Tiber.  Then 
when  she  came  to  Rome,  he  again  crawled  forth,  but  instead  of  landing  with  the 
ambassadors,  he  swam  to  the  island  in  the  middle  of  the  Tiber,  and  there  went 
on  shore  and  remained  quiet.  A  temple  was  built,  therefore,  to  the  god  in  the 
spot  which  he  had  himself  chosen ;  and  the  island  to  this  day  preserves  the 
memory  of  the  story,  for  the  travertine,  which  was  brought  there  to  form  the 
foundation  of  the  temple  of  the  god,  has  been  cut  into  a  rude  resemblance  of  a 
trireme,  because  it  was  on  ship-board  that  JEsculapius  had  first  visited  the  Ro- 
mans, and  received  their  worship. 

There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  Romans  did  bring  back  with  them  a 
snake  from  Epidaurus,  for  there  was  a  breed  of  snakes  there,  said  The  story  not  impog. 
to  be  peculiar  to  that  country,58  and  perfectly  harmless,  which  were  *lble' 
accounted  sacred  to  ./Esculapius.  And  so  complete  is  the  ascendency  which 
man's  art  has  obtained  over  the  brute  creation,  that  it  is  very  possible  that  they 
may  have  been  trained  to  perform  various  feats  at  the  bidding  of  their  keepers ; 
and  if  one  of  these,  as  is  likely,  went  with  the  sacred  snake  to  Rome,  wonders 
may  have  really  been  exhibited  to  the  Roman  people,  which  they  would  have 
certainly  supposed  to  be  supernatural. 

This,  if  we  except  the  doubtful  story  of  the  embassy  to  Athens  immediately 
before  the  decemvirate,  and  one  or  two  deputations  to  consult  the  MutllRl  knowieige  ot 
oracle  of  Delphi,  is  the  earliest  instance  recorded  by  the  Roman  thi^rmheebypthT^edekl 
annalists  of  any  direct  communication  between  their  country  and  »°dRoman8- 
Greece  since  the  beginning  of  the  commonwealth.  Greek  writers,  as  we  have 
seen,  mentioned  an  embassy  sent  to  Alexander  at  Babylon,  and  a  remonstrance 


"  Valerius  Maximus,  I.  8.   Auctor  "  de  Viris        "  As  given  by  Valerius  Maximus,  T.  8,  by  the 
Illustribus,"  in  "  ^Esculap.  Kom.  advect."  author  "  de  Vins  Illustribus,"       "  >---  »ii  by 


**  Pausanias,  II.  10,  26.  Ovid,  Metamorphos.  XV.  621 

•*  Fausanias,  II.  10.  *  Pausanias,  II.  28. 


362  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXX  V 

made  by  Demetrius  Poliorcetes  against  the  piracies  of  the  Antiatians,  at  a  tima 
when  they  were  subject  to  the  Romans.  We  may  be  sure,  at  any  rate,  that  in 
the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  the  two  people  were  no  strangers  to  each  other ; 
and  whether  it  be  true  or  not  that  Demetrius  acknowledged  the  Romans  to  be 
the  kinsmen  of  the  Greeks,  yet  when  the  Epidaurians  gave  them  their  god  JSscu- 
lapius,  they  would  feel  that  they  were  not  giving  him  to  a  people  utterly  barba- 
rian, but  to  one  which  had  for  centuries  paid  divine  honors  to  Greek  heroes, 
which  worshipped  Hercules,  and  the  twin  gods  Castor  and  Pollux ;  and  which, 
within  the  memory  of  the  existing  generation,  had  erected  statues  in  the  comi- 
tium  to  the  wisest  and  bravest  of  the  men  of  Greece,59  Pythagoras  and  Alcibiades. 
Nor  can  we  doubt  that  Q.  Ogulnius  was  sufficiently  acquainted  with  the  Greek 
language  to  address  the  Epidaurians,  as  L.  Postumius  a  few  years  later  addressed 
the  Tarentines,  without  the  help  of  an  interpreter. 

We  are  now  arrived,  however,  at  the  period  when  the  histories  of  Greece  and 
Rome  unavoidably  intermix  with  one  another ;  when  the  greatest 

It  become*  here  neces-          .  ,  <        f      ,         ~          ,  .  .     ' °     _ 

wry  to  d«»cribe  the  prince  and  general  ot  the  Greek  nation  crossed  over  into  Italy, 

»t«t«  of  the  eaat  and  the     A       ,     ,  °,          .  t       e    At         i  v    •  ft          TT 

internal  condition  of  and  became  the  head  ot  the  last  coalition  of  the  Italian  states 
against  Rome.  We  must  here  then  pause,  and  before  we  enter 
upon  the  new  Samnite  and  Tarentine  war,  in  which  Pyrrhus  so  soon  interfered, 
and  before  we  notice  those  renewed  hostilities  with  the  Gauls,  which  owed  their 
origin,  in  part  at  least,  to  the  intrigues  of  the  Tarentines,  we  must  once  more 
cross  the  sea,  after  an  interval  of  more  than  a  hundred  years,  and  observe  what 
was  now  the  state  of  Greece  and  of  the  eastern  world  ;  what  new  powers  had  suc- 
ceeded to  Athens,  Sparta,  Thebes,  and  the  great  king  who  had  inherited  the 
fragments  of  the  empire  of  Alexander,  and  what  was  the  condition  of  the  various 
states  of  the  Grecian  name  in  Greece  itself  and  in  Sicily.  We  must  endeavor, 
too,  to  obtain  some  more  lively  notion  of  Rome  and  the  Roman  people  at  this 
same  period,  than  could  be  gained  from  the  imperfect  record  of  political  and 
military  events ;  to  conceive  what  that  city  was  which  Cineas  likened  to  a  tem- 
ple ;  what  was  the  real  character  of  that  people  whose  senate  he  described  as  an 
assembly  of  kings. 


CHAPTER  XXXV, 

STATE   OF   THE   EAST— KINGDOMS    OF   ALEXANDER'S   SUCCESSORS— SICILY- 
GKEECE— KINGDOM  OF  EPIRUS,  AND  EARLY  FORTUNES  OF  PlfRRHUS. 


44  When  he  was  strong  the  great  horn  was  broken ;  and  for  it  came  up  four  notable  onea 
towards  the  four  winds  of  heaven." — DANIEL  VIII.  8. 


THE  hundred  and  twenty-fourth  Olympiad  witnessed,  says  Polybius,1  the  first 
revival  of  the  Achaean  league,  and  the  deaths  of  Ptolemy,  the  son 


»  wnJ'rklbTe^nSd  in  of  Lagus,  of  Lysimachus,  of  Seleucus  Nicator,  and  of  Ptolemy 

Ceraunus.     The  same  period  was  also  marked  by  the  Italian  ex- 

pedition of  Pyrrhus,  and  immediately  afterwards  followed  the  great  inroad  of 

M  Pliny,  Histor.  Natural.  XXXIV.  §  26.  Ed.  bly  consulted  after  their  disaster  at  the  pass  of 

Sillier.    These  statues  were  setup  "bello  Sam-  Ctiudium,  as  they  did  afterwards  after  the  de- 

niti,"  probably  in  the  second  war;  and  were  feat  at  Cannae.    Livy,  XXII.  57. 

erected  in  consequence  of  the  command  of  the  l  Polybius,  II.  41.     Some  explanation  may 

Delplur  n  craclc,  whick  the  Romans  had  proba-  perhaps  be  required  of  the  length  of  this  chap- 


CHAP.  XXXV.]         ALEXANDER'S  SUCCESSORS.— SELEUCUS.  363 

the  Gauls  into  Greece  and  Asia,  their  celebrated  attack  upon  Delphi,  and  then 
establishment  in  the  heart  of  Asia  Minor,  in  the  country  which  afterwards  was 
called  from  them  Galatia.  This  coincidence  of  remarkable  events  is  enough  of 
itself  to  attract  attention ;  and  the  names  which  I  have  just  mentioned  contain, 
in  a  manner,  the  germ  of  the  whole  history  of  the  eastern  world  ;  all  its  interests 
and  all  its  most  striking  points  may  be  fully  comprehended,  when  these  names 
have  been  rendered  significant,  and  we  have  formed  a  distinct  notion  of  the  per- 
sons and  people  which  they  designate. 

Forty  years2  had  elapsed  since  the  death  of  Alexander,  when  Seleucus  Nica 
tor,  the  last  survivor  of  his  generals,  was  assassinated  at  Ljsima-  Seien<™is«»a»*in.ited 
chia3  by  Ptolemy  Ceraunus.  The  old  man,  for  Seleucus  was  more  ^s2SydS"'iSS2 
than  seventy-five  years  old,  had  just  before  destroyed  the  king-  ofM»cedoui»- 
dom  of  Lysimachus,  the  last  survivor  except  himself  of  the  immediate  successors 
and  former  generals  of  Alexander ;  and  after  fifty  years'  absence,  was  returning 
as  the  sovereign  of  Asia  to  that  country  which  he  had  left  as  an  unknown  officer 
in  Alexander's  army.  But  an  oracle,  it  is  said,  had  bidden  him  beware  of 
Europe  ;4  for  that  the  appointed  seat  of  his  fortunes  was  Asia.  And  scarcely 
had  he  landed  on  the  Thracian  Chersonesus,  when  he  was  assassinated  by  one  of 
his  own  followers,  by  Ptolemy  Ceraunus,5  the  half  brother  of  Ptolemy  Philadel- 
phus,  the  reigning  king  of  Egypt,  who  had  first  been  a  refugee  at  the  court  of 
Lysimachus,  and,  after  his  death,  had  been  taken  into  the  service  of  Seleucus, 
and  had  been  treated  by  him  with  the  greatest  kindness  and  confidence.  Seleu- 
cus' vast  kingdom,  which  reached  from  the  Hellespont  to  the  Indus,  was  in- 
herited by  his  son  Antiochus  ;9  but  his  murderer  seized  upon  the  throne  of 
Macedonia,  which  having  been  in  rapid  succession  filled  by  various  competitors, 
and  having  lastly  been  occupied  by  Lysimachus,  now,  in  consequence  of  his  over- 
throw and  death,  and  of  the  murder  of  his  conqueror,  seemed  to  lie  open  to  the 
first  pretender. 

Seleucus  outlived  by  about  two  years'1  his  old  ally  and  his  protector  in  his  ut- 
most need,  Ptolemy  the  son  of  Lagus,  kinp;  of  Eo-ypt.    With  more 

if,'  f  P.  *?J  "  •          T-»      i       Ptolemy  the  .on  of  La- 

Unbroken  good  fortune  than  any  other  of  his  contemporaries,  Ptol-  KUS  reign*  in  Epypt, 

emy  had  remained  master  of  Egypt,  first  as  satrap  and  afterwards  C< 
as  king,  from  the  first  division  of  Alexander's  empire  down  to  the  period  of  his 
own  death.  The  distinct  and  almost  unassailable  position  of  Egypt  saved  it  from 
the  sudden  conquests  which  often  changed  the  fortune  of  other  countries ;  the 
deserts  of  the  Nile  formed  a  barrier  not  easily  to  be  overcome.  To  Egypt,  Ptol- 
emy had  added  the  old  commonwealth  of  Gyrene,8  where  the  domestic  factions, 
according  to  the  frequent  fate  of  the  Greek  cities,  had  at  last  sacrificed  their 
common  independence  to  a  foreign  enemy.  He  was  also  master  of  the  rich  island 
of  Cyprus,9  and,  after  the  defeat  of  Antigonus  at  Ipsus,  he  had  extended  his 

ter,  devoted  as  it  is  to  matters  not  directly  con-  and  immortal  names,  on  which  we  can  scarcely 

nected  with  the  Roman  history  of  the  fifth  cen-  dwell  too  long  or  too  often. 

tury  of  Rome.    But  it  is  impossible  to  forget  a  Alexander  died  Olymp.  114-1-2,  B.  o.  328. 

that  all  the  countries  here  spoken  of  will  sue-  Seleucus  was  murdered  Olymp.  124-4,  B.  c.  280. 

cessively  become  parts  of  the  Roman  empire ;  See  Fynes  Clinton,  Fasti  Hellenici. 

the  wars  in  which  they  were  engaged  with  *  Appian,  Syriac.  62.   Porphyry,  apud  Euse- 

Rome  will  hereafter  claim  our  attention,  and  bium,  Chronic,  p.  63.  Ed.  Scaliger. 

therefore  their  condition  immediately  before  *  Appian,  Syriac.  63. 

those  wars  cannot  be  considered  foreign  to  my  *  Ptolemy  Ceraunus  was  the  son  of  Ptolemy 

subject.    Besides,  the  distinctness  of  the  east-  Soter,  by  E\irydice,  the  daughter  of  Antipater; 

ern  empire  from  the  western  was  productive  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus  was  his  son  by  Berenice. 

the  most  important  consequences;  and  this  dis-  Porphyry,  apud  Euseb.  p.  63.    Pausanias,  I.  6. 

tinctness  arose  from  the  spread  of  the  Greek  •  Metnnon  apud  Photium,  p.  226,  Ed.  Bek- 

language  and  manners  over  Asia  Minor,  Syria,  ker. 

and  Egypt,  by  Alexander's  conquests,  and  the  T  Ptolemy  Soter,  the  son  of  Lagus,  died  just 

establishment  of  his  successive  kingdoms.    As  forty  years  after  the  death  of  Alexander,  of 

for  the  notices  of  Greece  itself,  of  Sparta,  of  whose  actions  he  and  Aristobulus  were  the 

Thebes,  and  of  Athens,  they  cannot  plead  quite  earliest  and  most  authentic  historians.     Hia 

the  same  justification ;   but  I  trust  that  they  death  took  place  Olymp.  124-2,  B.  c.  283. 

may  be  forgiven,  as  an  almost  involuntary  trib-  •  Diodorus,  XVIII.  21. 

ate  of  respect  and  affection  to  old  associations  "  Ptolemy  reduced  the  several  petty  kings  ot 


364  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXV 

dominion  in  Syria,  as  far  as  the  valley  of  the  Orontes,  the  country  known  by  the 
name  of  Coele-Syria,10  or  the  vale  of  Syria.  His  dominion,  next  to  that  of  Seleu- 
cus,  was  by  far  the  most  extensive,  as  it  was,  without  any  exception,  the  most 
compact  and  secure  of  all  the  kingdoms  formed  out  of  Alexander's  empire. 

When  Alexander  died  at  Babylon,  only  seven  years  had  elapsed  since  his  con- 
quest of  Persia,  and  not  more  than  four  since  his  victory  over 
wa»  no7e^hak™by  Porus  and  his  campaign  in  India.  That  his  conquests  could  not 
have  been  completely  consolidated  within  so  short  a  period  is  evi- 
dent ;  but  it  affords  a  wonderful  proof  of  the  ascendency  of  the  Greek  race  over 
the  Asiatics,  that  the  sudden  death  of  the  great  conqueror  did  not  destroy  his 
unfinished  work ;  that  not  a  single  native  chief  ventured  to  assert  the  independ- 
ence of  his  country,  but  every  province  continued  in  the  unity  of  the  Macedonian 
empire,  and  obeyed  without  dispute  a  Macedonian  satrap.11  Nor  did  the  subse- 
quent wars  between  the  Macedonian  generals  destroy  the  spell  of  their  superior- 
ity. Eumenes  and  Antigonus  carried  on  their  contest  in  Susiana  and  Media,  and 
disposed  at  their  will  of  all  the  resources  of  those  countries ;  and,  after  the  mur- 
der of  the  last  of  Alexander's  children,  fourteen  years  after  his  own  death,  when 
obedience  was  no  longer  claimed  even  nominally  for  the  blood  and  name  of  the 
great  conqueror,  still  the  Greek  dominion  was  unshaken ;  and  Seleucus,  by  birth 
a  simple  Macedonian  subject,  sat  undisturbed  in  Babylon,  on  the  throne  of  Neb- 
uchadnezzar, and  held  the  country  of  Cyrus  as  one  amongst  his  numerous  prov- 
inces. 

This  continuance  of  the  Macedonian  power  was  owing,  no  doubt,  in  no  small 
Thit  was  owin  rti  measure»  ^°  Alexander's  comprehensive  wisdom.  He  made  a 
tohisron'cnirtor^py  Macedonian  soldier  of  his  guard,  Peucestes,12  satrap  of  Persia; 

toward*  the  Asiatics.        ,  ,  .          ,  .  ,.  011  i-x  t  *i  i  • 

but  the  simple  soldier,  unfettered  by  any  literary  or  philosophical 
pride,  did  not  scruple  to  adopt  the  Persian  dress,  and  to  learn  the  Persian  lan- 
guage ;  confirming  his  own  and  his  nation's  dominion  by  those  very  compliances 
which  many  of  his  more  cultivated  but  less  wise  countrymen  regarded  as  an 
unworthy  condescension  to  the  barbarians.13  The  youth  of  the  Asiatic  provinces14 
were  enlisted  in  the  Macedonian  army,  were  taught  the  discipline  of  the  phalanx, 
and  the  use  of  the  Greek  shield  and  pike ;  the  bravest  of  them  were  admitted 
into  the  more  distinguished  bodies  of  cavalry  and  infantry  known  by  the  name 
of  the  king's  companions ;  and  the  highest  of  the  Persian  nobility  were  made, 
together  with  the  noblest  of  the  Macedonians,  officers  of  the  king's  body-guard. 
Thus,  where  the  insulting  display  of  superiority  was  avoided,  its  reality  was  felt 
and  acknowledged  without  murmuring ;  and  when  the  king's  officers  became  in- 
dependent satraps,  the  Asiatics  saw  their  Macedonian  comrades  preferred,  almost 
without  a  single  exception,  to  these  dignities,  and  they  themselves  remained  the 
subjects  of  men  whom  they  had  so  lately  seen  nominally  their  equals. 

Thus  there  was  spread  over  Asia,  from  the  shores  of  the  ^Egean  to  the  Indus, 
spread  of  the  Greek  and  ov^r  the  whole  of  Egypt  also,  an  outer  covering  at  the  least 
toTk^oHsrlS  of  Greek  civilization,  however  thinly  it  might  have  been  laid  on 
eit>e«  in  Asia.  j^g  an(j  there,  on  the  solid  and  heterogeneous  mass  below.  The 

native  languages  were  not  extirpated,  they  were  not  even  driven,  as  afterwards 
in  the  western  provinces  of  the  Roman  empire,  to  a  few  mountainous  or  remote 
districts ;  they  remained  probably  in  general  use  for  all  the  common  purposes 
of  life :  but  Greek  was  everywhere  the  medium  of  communication  between  the 

the  island,   and  made  himself  master  of  it,  pointed  to  be  satraps  over  each,  in  Justin,  XIII. 

Olymp.  117-1,  B.   c.    312.      [Diodorus,  XIX.  4,  and  Diodorus,  XVIII.  3,  39.   There  is  scarce- 

79.]    He  afterwards  lost  it,  in  consequence  of  ly  a  single  Asiatic  name  on  the  list ;  only  Ox- 

his  great  naval  defeat  by  Demetrius  near  Sala-  yartes,  the  father  of  Koxana,  Alexander's  queen, 

mis,  Olymp.  118-2  [Diodorus,  XX.   53],  and  had  the  country  of  Paropamisadae ;  and  Porua 

finally  recovered  it  after  the  victory  of  Ipsus.  and  Taxilas  retained  for  a  time  their  govorn- 

[Plutarch,  Demetr.  35.]  rnents  on  the  Ilydaspes  and  the  Indus. 

»  Diodorus,  Fragm.  Vatican.  XXI.  1.  w  Arrian,  de  Expedit.    Alexand.  VI.  80. 

11  See  the  account  of  the  division  of  the  M  Arrian,  VII.  6. 

provinces,  and  of  the  Macedonian  generals  ap-  M  Arrian,  VII.  6, 11. 


CBAP.  XXXV.]       KEfeTORATION  OF  NATIVE  PRINCES  IN  ASIA. 

natives  of  different  countries;  it  was  the  language  of  the  court,  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  of  literature.  Many  new  cities  were  also  founded,  where  the  pre- 
dominant element  of  the  population  was  Greek  from  the  beginning  :  such  as  An- 
tioch,  Laodicea,  Apamea,  Seleucia  in  Syria,15  Seleucia  on  the  Tigris,  and  many 
other  places  built  also  by  the  same  founder,  Seleucus,  in  the  several  provinces  of 
his  empire.  From  these  an  influence  was  communicated  to  other  cities  in  their 
neighborhood,  which  were  older  than  the  Greek  conquest  ;  and  the  Greek  char- 
acter was  revived  in  places  which,  like  Tarsus,  claimed  to  be  originally  Grecian 
settlements,16  but  in  the  lapse  of  years  had  become  barbarized. 

In  this  manner  Asia  Minor  and  Syria  were  pervaded  in  every  part  by  the 
language  and  institutions  of  Growee,  and  retained  the  impression  TT 

,  ,  •        .      -i       /.      i          rt  i     Upper  Asia  was   soon 

through  many  centuries  down  to  the  period  ot  the  Saracen  and  i«t  to  the  Greek  d?- 

ni       i  '    i  TT  A     •        f  ±1        T-»        t  J.-LIT          minion,  and  was  agam 

Turkish  conquerors.  Upper  Asia,  trom  the  Jkuphrates  to  the  In-  e°vnec™e<|he  b^iaa^° 
dus,  was  effected  much  more  slightly  ;  and  the  connection  of  these  F 
countries  with  Greece  was  finally  broken  about  thirty  years  after  the  period  at 
which  we  are  now  arrived,  by  the  restoration  of  a  native  monarchy,  in  the  line 
of  the  Arsacidae.11  Seleucia  on  the  Tigris  then  became  the  capital  of  a  barbarian 
sovereign  ;  and  although  it,  with  some  of  the  other  Greek  cities  founded  by  Seleu- 
cus18 in  Media  and  Parthia,  had  not  lost  their  national  character  even  in  the  time 
of  Strabo,  yet  it  was  enough  if  they  could  retain  it  themselves  ;  there  was  no 
possibility  of  communicating  it  in  any  degree  to  the  nations  around  them. 

We  may  be  excused,  however,  from  extending  our  view  beyond  the  Euphrates, 
and  may  return  to  a  more  minute  examination  of  those  countries  Kin(,domg  half  Greek 
of  western  Asia  and  Africa  which  were  all  destined  to  become  half  barbarian  exiting 
successively  provinces  of  Rome.  And  here,  although  we  at  first 
sight  see  nothing  but  the  two  great  monarchies  of  Syria  and  Egypt,  yet  a  nearer 
view  shows  us  some  smaller  kingdoms  which  had  been  overlooked  by  the  strength 
of  the  first  Macedonian  kings,  and  established  themselves  boldly  against  the 
weakness  of  their  successors  :  kingdoms  ruled  by  a  race  of  princes,  partly  or 
chiefly  of  barbarian  descent,  but  where  the  Greek  character  notwithstanding  gave 
the  predominant  color  to  their  people,  and  even  to  themselves.  Such  were  the 
kingdoms  of  Bithynia  and  Pontus  on  the  northern  side  of  Asia  Minor.  Another 
distinct  state,  if  so  it  may  be  called,  was  formed  in  the  125th  Olympiad  by  the 
settlement  of  the  Gauls  to  the  south  of  Bithynia,  and  to  the  northwest  of 
Cappadocia  :  and  the  kingdom  of  Pergamus  grew  up  not  long  afterwards  on  the 
coasts  of  the  JEgean  and  the  Propontis  ;  but  as  yet  it  had  not  come  into  exist- 
ence. 

In  the  124th  Olympiad  Zipsetes19  or  Ziboetes  was  still,  at  the  age  of  more  than 

15  Appian,  Syriac.  57.  ici,  Vol.  III.  under  the  year  B.  c.  250,  A.  u.  c. 

16  KriVfia  T&v  pera  TpiTrroAfyow  TrAavijfl^vruv  'Ap-     404. 

yeiuv  Kara  fyrijaiv  'loDj.  Strabo,  XIV.  p.  673.  One  18  UepioiKtlrat  (>'/  M»/(5ia)  ir<$,W«»>  'EXX^viVt  Kar.i 
should  not  pay  much  regard  to  such  a  story,  r»>  v<pfyn<*iv  rqv  'AAe£av<5pou,  <t>v\<iKrjs  'ivt.Ksv 


were  there  not  other  grounds  for  believing  that  avyKvpovvruv  avrfi  /Jap.tfapuv.    Polybins,  X.  27. 
the  Greeks  at  a  very  early  period  had  settled  on        w  He  reigned'  from  336  B.  c.  to  278,  and  was 

the  coasts  of  Cilicia.    See  the  remarkable  state-  born  in  354.    His  father  Bas  was  born  in  397 

inent  preserved  in  the  Armenian  translation  of  B.  o.    Memnon  apud  Fhotium,  p.  227,  228.   Ed. 

Eusebius,  and  copied  by  Etisebius  from  Alex-  Bekker. 

under    Polyhistor  or  Abydenus,  that  Senna-        This  reference  may  perhaps  require  explana- 

cherib  was  called  down  trom  Nineveh  by  the  tion  for  some  readers.     Photius,  who  was  pat- 

news  of  a  Greek  descent  on  Cilieia,  which  he  riarch  of  Constantinople  in  the  latter  half  of  the 

repelled  after  a  very  hard-fought  battle.    Com-  ninth    century,   has    left  a  sort  of  catalogue 

pare  Niebuhr's  Klcine  Schriften,  p.  203.  Might  raisonne,  or  rather  an  abstract  of  the  various 

not  the  sons  of  Javan,  to  whom  the  Phoenicians  books  which  he  was  in  the  habit  of  reading. 

sold  Israclitish  captives  at  a  much  earlier  period  In  this  work,  which  he  called  his  library,  there 

(Joel  iii.  6),  be  the  Greek  settlers  on  the  Cilician  are  preserved  abridgments  of  many  books  which 

const  as  well  as  the  more  remote  inhabitants  of  would  otherwise  have  been  altogether  lost  to 

Greece  itself?  us  ;  and  amongst  the  rest  there  is  an  abstract 

11  In  plymp.  132-3,  B.  c.  250.  This  was  in  the  of  a  history  of  Ilcraclca  on  the  Exuine  sea,  writ- 

reign  of  Antiochus  Theos.    See  Justin.  XLI.  4,  ten  by  one  Memnon,  who  flourished  at  a  period 

who  makes  a  mistake,  however,  as  to  the  reign,  not    certainly  known,   but  which    cannot  be 

and  Arrian,  Partbic.  apud  Photium.  p.  17.  Ed.  placed  earlier  than  the  times  of  the  early  Ro- 

Bekker.    Sec  also  Fynes  Clinton,  Fasti  Ilclleu-  man  emperors.  In  speaking  of  Heraclea,  Mem- 


366  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXV. 

seventy,  reigning  over  the  Bithynians.     His  father  had  seen  the 

Kingdom  of  Bithvnia.  /•    A  1  J       »      •  •  T_       1  •  •   i  i  •  i  • 

torrent  of  Alexander  s  invasion  pass  by  him  without  touching  hi* 
dominions ;  and  whilst  the  conqueror  was  engaged  in  Upper  Asia,  the  Bithynian 
prince  had  repelled  with  success  the  attack  of  one  of  his  generals,  who  was  left 
behind  to  complete  the  conquest  of  the  countries  which  Alexander  had  merely 
overrun.  After  Alexander's  death,  European  Thrace  and  the  southern  coast  of 
the  Euxine  were  assigned  in  the  general  partition  of  the  empire  to  Lysimachus ; 
but  the  Bithynian  princes  held  their  ground  against  him,  and  still  continued  to 
reign  over  a  territory  more  or  less  extensive,  till  Lysimachus  and  his  dominions 
were  conquered  by  Seleucus  in  the  battle  on  the  plain  of  Corus  in  Phrygia. 
Zipastes  then  was  as  jealous  of  Seleucus  as  he  had  been  before  of  Lysimachus  ; 
and  after  Seleucus'  death,  he  cherished  the  same  feelings  towards  his  son  An- 
tiochus,  and  continued  to  resist  him  with  success  till  the  end  of  his  life. 

In  the  geography  of  Herodotus20  the  name  of  Cappadocia  is  applied  to  the 
w^o^e  breadth  of  Asia  Minor  eastward  of  the  Halys,  from  tho 
"  c^iam  °f  Taurus  to  the  shores  of  the  Euxine.  The  govern- 
ment of  all  this  country  had  been  bestowed  by  Darius,21  the  son 
ot  Hystaspes,  on  one  of  the  Persian  chiefs  who  had  taken  part  with  him  in  the 
conspiracy  against  Smerdis,  and  it  had  remained  from  that  time  forward  with  his 
posterity.  But  in  the  time  of  Xenophon,2*  the  tribes  along  the  Euxine  were 
practically  independent  of  any  Persian  satrap,  and  the  name  of  Cappadocia  was 
then,  as  afterwards,  restricted  to  the  southern  and  more  inland  part  of  the  coun- 
try. The  same  state  of  things  prevailed  in  the  early  part  of  the  reign  of  Philip 
of  Macedon  ;  Scylax,  in  his  Periplus,  notices  a  number  of  barbarian  tribes  between 
Colchis  and  Paphlagonia :  yet  immediately  to  the  eastward  of  Paphlagonia  he 
placed  what  he  calls  Assyria ;  and  Syria,  as  we  know,  was  the  name  anciently 
given  by  the  Greeks  to  that  country  which  they  afterwards  learnt  to  call 
by  its  Persian  name  Cappadocia.23  But  while  the  southern  part  of  their  old 
satrapy  passed  into  other  hands,  the  descendants  of  Darius'  fellow-conspirator 
strengthened  their  hold  on  the  northern  part  of  their  original  dominion ;  and  in 
the  reign  of  Alexander,  Mithridates,  son  of  Ariobarzanes,  is  called*4  by  Diodorus, 
"  king,"  and  his  kingdom  extended  along  the  coast  of  the  Euxine  from  the  con- 
fines of  Bithynia  to  those  of  Colchis.  Though  a  king,  however,  he  was  regarded 
as  a  vassal  by  Alexander's  general,  Antigonus,  wlien  he,  after '  the  death  of 
Eumenes,  became  master  of  all  Asia  from  the  Euphrates  to  the  ./Egean ;  and 
Antigonus  suspecting  his  fidelity  when  he  was  on  the  eve  of  his  decisive  struggle 
against  Cassander,  Ptolemy,  Seleucus,  and  Lysimachus,  caused  him  to  be  put  to 
death.85  His  son,  Mithridates,  notwithstanding,  succeeded  to  his  father's  domin- 
ions, retained  them  during  the  lifetime  of  Seleucus,  and  for  a  period  of  nearly 
eighteen  years  afterwards,  and  having  lived  to  witness  the  irruption26  of  the  Gauls 
and  their  settlements  on  the  very  borders  of  his  kingdom,  died,  after  a  reign  of 
thirty-six  years,  immediately  before  the  beginning  of  the  first  Punic  war,  and  was 
succeeded  in  his  turn  by  his  son  Ariobarzanes. 

npn  was  often  led  to  notice  the  neighboring  pian,  Mithridat.  9,  112,  makes  Mithridates  to 
kings  of  Bithynia,  and  thus  we  are  enabled  to  nave  been  descended  from  Darius  himself.  We 
give  the  succession  and  the  dates  of  the  reigns  find  no  Mithridates  or  Ariobarzanes  in  either  of 
of  those  obscure  princes.  So  capricious  is  the  the  lists  of  the  conspirators  against  Srnerdis 
char.ce  which  has  preserved  some  portions  of  given  by  Herodotus  and  Ctesias. 
ancient  history  from  oblivion,  while  it  has  ut-  M  Anabas.  VII.  8.  In  his  time  Mithridates 
terly  destroyed  all  record  of  others.  But  Pho-  was  satrap  of  Cappadocia  and  Lycaonia. 
tins''  library,  compiled  in  the  ninth  century,  m  Herodot.  I.  72.  And  in  the  Periplus  of 
shows  what  treasures  of  Greek  literature  were  the  Euxine  ascribed  to  Marcianus  of  Ileraclca 
then  existing  at  Constantinople,  which  in  the  (Hudson,  Geogr.  Min.  p.  73),  it  is  said  that  the 
course  of  the  six  following  centuries  perished  Cappadocians  were  called  by  some  White  Syr- 
irrccoverably.  In  this  respect  the  French  and  ians,  and  that  the  old  geographers  made  Cap- 
Venetian  conquest  in  the  thirteenth  century  padocia  extend  as  far  as  the  coast  of  the  Euxino 
was  far  more  destructive  than  the  Turkish  con-  M  Diodorus,  XVI.  90. 
quest  in  the  fifteenth.  M  Diodorus,  XX.  111. 


20  Herodot.  I.  72,  76,  compared  with  V.  49.  M  Mcmnon,  apud  Photium.  p.  220.   Ed.  Bek 

'•"  Polybius,  V.  43.    Diodorus,  XIX.  40.   Ai       ' 


Ap-    ker.    Diodorus,  XX.  111. 


CHAP.  XXXV.]  THE  GREEK  CITIES  OF  ASIA.  367 

Southern  Cappadocia  meanwhile  had  passed  before  the  conquest  of  Alexander 
into  the  hands  of  a  satrap  named  Ariarathes,27  to  whom  Diodorus 

.  '..  ,  .  ,  •»•         Southern  Cappnducuu 

gives  the  title  of  king.  Like  every  other  prince  and  state  m  Asia, 
he  had  been  unable  to  resist  the  power  of  the  Macedonian  invasion,  but  Alexan- 
der's death  broke,  as  he  supposed,  the  spell  of  the  Greek  dominion,  and  Aria- 
rathes ventured  to  dispute  the  decision  of  the  council  of  generals  which  had  as- 
signed Cappadocia  to  Eumenes,  and  to  retain  the  possession  of  it  himself.  Such 
an  example  of  resistance,  if  successful,  might  have  at  once  dissolved  the  Mace- 
donian empire,  and  Perdiccas  hastened  to  put  it  down.  He  encountered  Aria- 
rathes,28 defeated  him,  made  him  prisoner,  and  crucified  him ;  and  then,  accord- 
ing to  the  arrangement  of  the  council,  bestowed  the  government  of  Cappadocia 
on  Eumenes.  The  nephew  and  heir  of  Ariarathes,  who  also  bore  his  name,  took 
refuge29  in  Armenia,  and  there  waited  for  better  times.  He  saw  the  Macedonian 
power  divided  against  itself;  Perdiccas,  his  uncle's  conqueror,  had  been  killed  by 
his  own  soldiers  ;  Eumenes,  who  had  been  made  satrap  of  Cappadocia,  had  been 
put  to  death  by  Antigonus ;  and  Antigonus,  who  had  become  sovereign  of  all 
Asia  Minor,  was  engaged  in  war  with  Seleucus  the  ruler  of  Mesopotamia  and 
the  eastern  provinces.  Amidst  their  quarrels  Ariarathes,  with  the  help  of  the 
prince  of  Armenia,  made  his  way  back  to  his  country,  drove  out  the  Macedonian 
garrisons  by  which  it  was  occupied,  and  made  himself  king  of  Cappadocia. 

The  sovereignty  of  a  native  prince  gratified  the  national  feelings  of  the  people, 
while  from  a  Greek  ruler  they  may  have  derived  some  improve-  An  the  A8ialic  govern. 
ments  in  art  and  civilization.  But  from  neither  were  they  like  to  ^rimrian'we^ike 
receive  the  blessings  of  just  and  good  government;  and  in  this  re-  °ppressiveand  «"•«'?*• 
spect,  probably,  the  Greek  and  barbarian  rulers  were  perfectly  on  a  level  with 
each  other.  From  time  immemorial,  indeed,  in  Asia,  government  had  seemed  to 
have  no  other  object  than  to  exact  from  the  people  the  largest  possible  amount 
of  revenue,  and  the  system  of  finance  consisted  merely  in  the  unscrupulous  prac- 
tice of  oppression  and  fraud.  Never  was  there  a  more  disgraceful  monument  of 
an  unprincipled  spirit  in  such  matters,  than  that  strange  collection  of  cases  of 
open  robbery  or  fraudulent  dealing,  which  was  so  long  ascribed  to  Aristotle,  and 
which  still  is  to  be  found  amongst  his  works,  under  the  title  of  the  second  book 
of  the  Economics.  Its  real  date  and  author  are  unknown  ;30  but  it  must  have 
been  written  for  the  instruction  of  some  prince  or  state  in  Asia,  arid  it  gives  a 
curious  picture  of  the  ordinary  ways  and  means  of  a  satrap  or  dynast,  as  well  as 
of  the  expedients  by  which  they  might  supply  their  ordinary  occasions.  "A 
satrap's  revenue,"  says  the  writer,31  "arises  from  six  sources  :  from  his  tithes  of 
the  produce  of  all  the  land  in  his  satrapy ;  from  his  domains ;  from  his  cus- 
toms ;  from  his  duties  levied  on  goods  within  the  country,  and  his  market  duties ; 
from  his  pastures  ;  and,  sixthly,  from  his  sundries,"  amongst  which  last  are  reck- 
oned a  poll-tax,82  and  a  tax  on  manufacturing  labor.  And  amongst  a  king's  ways 
and  means  is  expressly  mentioned,  a  tampering  with  the  currency,  and  a  raising 
or  lowering  the  value  of  the  coin33  as  it  might  suit  his  purposes. 

But  far  above  the  kingdoms  of  Asia,  whether  Greek  or  semi-barbarian,  were 
those  free  Greek  cities  which  lined  the  whole  coast  of  Asia  Minor, 
from  Trapezus,  at  the  south-eastern  corner  of  the  Euxine,  to  Soli  thTcofs«eokf  A£*  V" 
and  Tarsus,  with  their  Greek  or  half  Greek  population,  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Gulf  of  Issus,  and  almost  on  the  frontier  of  Syria.    Of  these  Greek 
cities,  Sinope  and  Heraclea  were  the  most  famous  on  the  north  coast ;  the  shore 


Diodorus,  XXXI.  Excerpt.  PhotiS.  31  can  It  uSr,  2f  rSv  irpocrdSwv  •  and  yns,  and  T<a* 

'  Diodorus,    XXXI.     apuu.     Photium,     and  iv  rfj  x<!ipa  I6id)v  ytvopivuv,  and  t/jinopiuv,  and  re- 

X VIII.  16.  Awi",  and  PocKTjuaTW,  and  ruv  aXXwv.     CEconotnic, 

29  Diodorus,  XXXI.  apud  Phot.  II.  1 

"°  Seethe  article  on  this  subject  in  Niebuhr's  M  eKrrj  St.  ft  and  rdv  «AAwv,  firiKt<f>d\at6v  TC  Kal 

Kleine  Sehriftcn,  p.  412,  and  another  by  Mr.  xclP<at"it'°v  npoffayopcvouivrj. 

Lewis,  in  the  first  volume  of  the  Philological  S3  ncpl  rd  v6utorua   Af'yw,  JTO?OV  Kal  ndrs   rluiov  9 

Museum.  tvuvov'iroinTiov. 


368  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP. 

of  the  ^Egean  was  covered  with  towns  whose  names  had  been  famous  from  re- 
mote ages ;  but  the  noblest  state,  not  of  Asia  Minor  only,  but  almost  of  the 
whole  world,  was  the  great  and  free  and  high-minded  commonwealth  of  Rhodes. 

The  island  of  Rhodes,  till  nearly  the  end  of  the  Peloponnesian  war,  was  divided 
Rhode*  its  wise  and  between  the  three  Dorian  cities,  Lindus,34  lalysus,  and  Camirus. 
fhelusfanTShpirit  But  in  the  93d  Olympiad,  about  three  years  before  the  battle  of 
of  us  cituens.  JEgospotami,  the  three  states  agreed  to  found  a  common  capital,35 

to  which  they  gave  the  name  of  the  island,  and  from  that  time  forwards  the  city 
of  Rhodes  became  eminent  amongst  the  cities  of  the  Greek  name.  It  was  built 
on  the  northern  side  of  the  island,  after  a  plan  given  by  Hippodamus  of  Mile- 
tus,36 the  most  famous  architect  of  his  age,  and  it  stood  partly  on  the  low  ground 
nearly  at  the  level  of  the  sea,  and  partly,  like  Genoa,  on  the  side  of  the  hill, 
which  formed  a  semicircle  round  the  lower  part  of  the  town.  Rhodes  was  fa- 
mous alike  in  war  and  peace ;  the  great  painter,  Protogenes,  enriched  it  with 
pictures  of  the  highest  excellence,  and  which  were  universally  admired ;  the 
famous  colossal  figure  of  the  sun,  more  than  a  hundred  feet  in  height,  which 
bestrode  the  harbor's  mouth,  was  reputed  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world  ;  and 
the  heroic  resistance  of  the  Rhodians  against  Demetrius  Poliorcetes  was  no  less 
glorious  than  the  defence  of  the  same  city  against  the  Turks  in  later  times  by  the 
knights  of  St.  John.  But  Rhodes  could  yet  boast  of  a  better  and  far  rarer  glory, 
in  the  justice  and  mutual  kindness  which  distinguished  her  political  institutions, 
and  the  social  relations  of  her  citizens  ;37  and,  above  all,  in  that  virtue  so  rare  in 
every  age,  and  almost  unknown  to  the  nations  of  antiquity,  a  spirit  of  general 
benevolence,  and  of  forbearance  even  towards  enemies.  The  naval  power  of 
Rhodes  was  great,  but  it  was  employed,  not  for  purposes  of  ambition,  but  to  put 
down  piracy.38  And  in  the  heat  of  the  great  siege  of  their  city,  when  Demetrius 
did  not  scruple  to  employ  against  them  the  pirates39  whose  crimes  they  had  re- 
pressed, and  when  a  thousand  ships,  belonging  to  merchants  of  various  nations, 
had  come  to  the  siege,  like  eagles  to  the  carcass,  to  make  their  profit  out  of  the 
expected  plunder  of  the  town,  and  out  of  the  sale  of  its  citizens  as  slaves,  this 
noble  people  rejected  with  indignation  the  proposal  of  some  ill-judging  orators, 
to  pull  down  the  statues  of  Antigonus  and  Demetrius,40  and  resolved  that  their 
present  hostility  to  those  princes  should  not  tempt  them  to  destroy  the  memo- 
rials of  their  former  friendship.  The  Rhodians,  in  the  midst  of  a  struggle  for 
life  and  death,  allowed  the  statues  of  their  enemies  to  stand  uninjured  in  the 
heart  of  their  city.  The  Romans,  after  all  danger  to  themselves  was  over,  could 
murder  in  cold  blood  the  Samnite  general,  C.  Pontius,  to  whom  they  owed  not 
only  the  respect  due  to  a  brave  enemy,  but  gratitude  for  the  generosity  with 
which  he  had  treated  them  in  his  day  of  victory. 

I  have  thus  attempted  to  give  a  sketch  of  the  state  of  Asia  in  the  125th  Olym- 
piad :  but  it  should  be  remembered,  that  although  the  Greek  lit- 

The   literature  of  thig    r  e  >•>  •  •      i  t          •  ,    •.    i  .•      i 

period  ims  almost  whoi-  erature  ot  this  period  was  very  voluminous,  yet  it  has  so  entirely 
perished,  that  hardly  a  single  writer  has  escaped  the  wreck. 
Thus  we  know  scarcely  more  of  Greece  and  Asia  in  the  middle  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury of  Rome,  than  we  know  of  Rome  itself ;  that  is,  we  have  in  both  cases  the 
skeleton  of  political  and  military  events,  but  we  have  no  contemporary  pictures 
of  the  real  state  of  either  nation.  Almost  the  sole  remains  of  the  Greek  litera- 
ture of  this  period  are,  perhaps,  that  treatise  on  public  economy  or  finance,  which 
has  been  falsely  ascribed  to  Aristotle,41  and  the  corrupt  fragments  of  Dicasar- 

54  Thucydidcs,  VIII.  44.  »  Diodorus,  XX.  82,  83. 

r5  Diodorus,  XIII.  75.  40  Diodorus,  XX.  93. 

86  Compare  Strabo,  XIV.  p.  643,  and  Aristot.  4J  That  it  is  not  Aristotle's  work  seems  to  mo 

Politic.  II.  6,  and  Diodorus,  XIX.  45.  certain ;  but  I  do  not  think  that  it  can  be  much 

37  Strabo,  XIV.  p.  652,  653,  Tfo^iTtvoiifvrj  KU\-  later  than  Aristotle's  age,  for  the  writer  appears 

\iora  r&v  'EAAjjvwp,  is  the  character  given  of  to  regard  the  dominion  of  Alexander  as  still 

Rhodes  by  Diodorus,  XX.  81.  being  one  governed  by  the  king,  with  his  sa~ 

*  Diodorus,  XXI.  81.     Strabo,  XIV.  p.  652.  traps  in  the  several  provinces,  a  notion  which 


CHAP.  XXXV.]  SICILY—SYRACUSE.  369 

chus,  a  scholar  of  Aristotle,  and  a  friend  of  T  heophrastus,  on  the  topography  of 
Greece.  And  not  only  the  contemporary,  but  the  later  literature,  which  might 
have  illustrated  these  times,  has  also  for  the  most  part  perished ;  the  entire  and 
connected  history  of  Diodorus  ends  for  us  with  the  119th  Olympiad,  and  the 
history  of  the  subsequent  years  can  be  gleaned  only  from  scattered  and  meagre 
sources ;  from  one  or  two  of  the  lives  of  Plutarch,  from  Justin's  abridgment,  from 
the  mere  sketches  contained  in  Appian,  and  from  the  fragments  of  the  chronolo- 
gers,  which  are  exclusively  chronological,  preserved  to  us  by  Eusebius. 

The  names  of  Sicily,  of  Syracuse,  and  of  Agathocles,  are  never  once  mentioned 
in  the  ninth  and  tenth  books  of  Livy,  while  he  is  giving  the  his-  sicily.  Tho 
tory  of  the  second  and  third  Samnite  wars;  nor  would  any  one  ^.SS 
suspect,  from  his  narrative,  that  there  had  existed  during  a  period  p°werof  A 
of  twenty-eight  years,  from  436  to  about  464  or  465,42  separated  from  Italy  only 
by  a  narrow  strait,  one  of  the  greatest  powers  at  d  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
men  to  be  found  at  that  time  In  the  world.  But  this  is  merely  one  of  the  conse- 
quences of  the  absence  of  all  Roman  historians  contemporary  with  the  fifth  cen- 
tury. Livy  did  and  could  only  copy  the  annalists  of  the  seventh,  or  of  the  mid- 
dle* of  the  sixth  century,  and  the  very  oldest  of  these,  separated  by  an  interval 
of  a  hundred  years  from  the  Samnite  wars,  and  having  no  original  historian  older 
than  themselves,  did  but  put  together  such  memorials  of  the  past  as  happened 
to  be  still  floating  on  the  stream  of  time,  stories  which  had  chanced  to  be  pre- 
served in  particular  families,  or  which  had  lived  in  the  remembrance  of  men 
generally.  Thus,  as  I  have  before  observed,  the  military  history  of  the  Samnite 
wars  is  often  utterly  inexplicable :  the  detail  of  marches,  the  objects  aimed  at  in 
each  campaign,  the  combinations  of  the  generals,  and  the  exact  amount  of  their 
success,  are  lost  in  oblivion  ;  but  particular  events  are  sometimes  given  in  great 
detail,  and  anecdotes  of  remarkable  men  have  been  preserved,  while  their  con- 
nection with  each  other  has  perished.  Agathocles  never  made  war  with  the  Ro- 
mans, and  his  name  therefore  did  not  occur  in  the  triumphal  Fasti  of  any  great 
Roman  family.  What  uneasiness  his  power  gave  to  the  senate;  how  gladly  they, 
must  have  seen  his  arms  employed  in  Africa  ;43  how  anxiously  they  must  have 
watched  his  movements  when  his  fleet  invaded  and  conquered  the  Liparsean 
islands,44  or  when  he  crossed  the  Ionian  gulf,  and  defended  Corcyra  with  suc- 
cess against  the  power  of  Cassander  ;45  above  all,  when  he  actually  landed  in 
Italy,  with  Etruscan  and  Ligurian  soldiers  in  his  service,  and  formed  an  alliance 
with  the  Apulians  and  Peucetians  or  Pediculans,40  to  assist  him  in  his  conquest  of 
Bruttium  :  this  no  Roman  tradition  recorded,  and  therefore  no  later  annalist  has 
mtioned ;  but  they  who  can  represent  to  themselves  the  necessary  relations  of 

fents,  can  have  no  difficulty  in  conceiving  its  reality. 
It  is  mentioned  also  that  Agathocles,47  in  his  African  wars,  had  many  Samnite 

)ldiers  in  his  army  as  well  as  Etruscans,  and  in  the  year  446  or  447,  an  Etrus- 

linly  may  have  outlasted  the  life  of  Alexan-  certainly.     Agathocles  reigned   in  all  twenty- 

der  himself,  for  his  generals  for  several  years  eight  years.    See  Diodorus,  XXI.  12.     Fragm. 

professed  to  be  the  subjects  of  his  infant  son,  Hoeschel. 

but  which  must  have  passed  away,  at  any  rate  **  During  four  years,  from  Olymp.  117-8  tc 

within  a  few  years,  when  the  generals  assumed  118-2  inclusive;  that  is,  during  &«  Etruscan 

severally  the  kingly  diadem.  campaigns  of  Q.  Fabius  in  the  second  Samnite 

"  The  beginning  of  Agathocles'  dominion  is  war. 

placed  by  Diodorus  in  Olymp.  115-4,  which,  ac-  **  In  Olymp.  119-1,  the  last  year  of  the  second 
cording  to  his  synchronism,  is  the  year  of  the  Samnite  war.     Diodorus,  XX.  101. 
consulship  of  M.  Foslius  and  L.  Plautius,  and  **  In  the  120th  Olympiad,  but  the  exact  year 
the  ninth  year  of  the  second  Samnite  war.  His  is  not  known,  and  therefore,  somewhere  about 
death  cannot  be  determined  exactly,  because  the  beginning  of  the  third  Samnite  war.     Dio- 
of  the  confusions  and  different  systems  of  the  dorus,  XXI.  2.   Fragm.  Hoeschel.      Compare 
Roman  chronology.     It  would  fall  in  Olymp.  also  Fragm.  Vatican,  XXI.  2. 
122-4,  or  B.  c.  289 ;  but  whether  that  year  would  *8  About  the  same  period,  just  after  his  expo- 
coincide  with  the  consulship  of  M.  Valerius  dition  to  Corcyra.    Diodorus,  Fragm.  Hoeschel, 
and  Q.  Csedieius,  one  year  after  the  end  of  the  XXI.  3,  4. 
third  Samnite  war,  or  with  one  of  the  two  sue-  *7  Diodorus,  XX.  11  64. 
eceding  consulships,  it   is    impossible   to  fix 
24 


370  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXV 

can  fleet  of  eighteen  ships48  came  to  his  relief  at  Syracuse,  -when 
"™  of°TeftUn°antioMlohf  he  was  blockaded  by  the  Carthaginians,  and  enabled  him  to  defeat 

the  enemy  and  effect  his  passage  once  more  to  Africa.  This  was 
three  or  four  years  before  the  end  of  the  second  Samnite  war,  and  just  after 
the  submission  of  the  principal  Etruscan  states  to  Rome,  in  consequence  of  the 
great  successes  of  Q.  Fabius.  We  are  told,  also,  that  at  one  time  the  Tarentines4" 
applied  to  him  to  command  their  forces  against  the  Messapians  and  Lucanians, 
and  that  he  went  over  to  Italy  accordingly,  which,  though  the  date  is  not  men- 
tioned, must  have  taken  place  in  the  latter  part  of  his  reign,  when  he  was  mak- 
ing war  upon  the  Bruttians ;  that  is,  as  nearly  as  we  can  fix  it,  in  the  120th  or 
121st  Olympiad,  whilst  the  third  Samnite  war  was  raging.  It  is  strange  that 
neither  the  Samnites  nor  the  Etruscans  ever  asked  him  to  aid  them  against  Rome, 
or,  if  they  did,  that  he  should  not  have  been  tempted  to  engage  in  so  great  a 
contest.  But  the  nearer  interest  of  humbling  the  Carthaginians,  and  of  estab- 
lishing his  power  on  the  south  coast  of  Italy,  prevented  him  from  penetrating 
through  the  straits  of  Messana,  and  sending  a  fleet  to  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber. 
And  no  doubt,  if  he  had  attacked  the  Romans,  they  would  have  formed  a  close 
alliance  with  Carthage  against  him,  as  they  did  shortly  afterwards  against  Pyr- 
rhus ;  nay,  it  is  probable  that  the  renewal  of  the  old  league  between  the  two 
countries,  which  took  place  in  448,50  may  have  been  caused  in  some  degree  by 
their  common  fear  of  Agathocles,  who  had  at  that  period  finally  evacuated  Africa, 
but  had  not  yet  made  peace  with  Carthage. 

Agathocles  died  in  the  last  year  of  the  122d  Olympiad,  about  three  years  after 
Diitraoted  state  of  su  the  end  of  the  third  Samnite  war.  Had  he  lived  fifty  years  earlier, 
Sf^iSiw^SrSb  ne»  like  Dionysius,  would  have  been  known  by  no  other  title  than 
later  years.  faai  of  tyrant ;  but  now  the  successors  of  Alexander  had  accus- 

tomed men  to  tolerate  the  name  of  king,  in  persons  who  had  no  hereditary  right 
to  their  thrones  ;  and  Agathocles  certainly  as  well  deserved  the  title  as  Lysima- 
chus,  or  the  ruffian  Cassander.  Polybius  accused  Timseus  of  calumniating  him  ; 
but  surely  his  own  character  of  him  must  be  no  less  exaggerated  on  the  other 
side,  when  he  says41  that  although  in  the  beginning  of  his  career  he  was  most 
bloody,  yet  when  he  had  once  firmly  established  his  power,  he  became  the 
gentlest  and  mildest  of  men.  Like  Augustus,  he  was  too  wise  to  indulge  in 
needless  cruelty ;  but  his  later  life  was  not  so  peaceful  as  that  of  Augustus,  and 
whenever  either  cruelty  or  treachery  seemed  likely  to  be  useful,  he  indulged  in 
both  without  scruple.  The  devastation  and  misery  of  Sicily  during  his  reign 
must  have  been  extreme.  Dinocrates,  a  Syracusan  exile,52  was  at  the  head  of  an 
army  of  20,000  foot  and  3000  horse,  and  had  made  himself  master  of  several 
cities,  and  so  well  was  he  satisfied  with  his  buccaneer  condition,  that  he  rejected 
Agathocles'  offer  of  allowing  him  to  return  to  Syracuse,  and  of  abdicating  his  own 
dominion  that  the  exiles  might  return  freely.  Then  Agathocles  called  the  Car- 
thaginians over  to  put  Dinocrates  down ;  and  gave  up  to  them  as  the  price  of 
their  aid  all  the  cities  which  they  had  formerly  possessed  in  Sicily.  The  exiles 
were  afterwards  defeated,  and  Dinocrates  was  now  glad  to  make  his  submission  ;68 
and  from  this  time,  A.  u.  c.  449,  we  hear  of  no  further  civil  wars  or  massacres 
in  Sicily,  till  the  period  immediately  preceding  Agathocles'  death,  which  took 
place  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  later.  But  his  last  days  were  full  of  misery. 
His  son,  Agathocles,54  was  murdered  by  his  grandson  Archagathus,  and  the  old 
tyrant,  who  was  now  reduced  almost  to  the  brink  of  the  grave  by  a  painful  and 
hopeless  disorder,  dreaded  lest  Archagathus  should  murder  the  rest  of  his  family 
as  soon  as  he  should  himself  be  no  more.  Accordingly,  he  resolved  to  send  his 
wife,  Texena,65  with  his  two  young  sons,  and  all  his  treasure,  to  Egypt,  her  na- 

*  Diodorus,  XX.  61.    In  Olymp.  118-2.  w  Diodorus,  XX.  77,  78. 

•  Strabo,  VI.  p.  280.  u  Diodorus,  XX.  89,  90. 

"  Livy.  IX.  43.  M  Diodorus,  XXI.  12.    Fragm.  Hoeschel. 

§1  Polybius,  IX.  28.  w  Justin,  XXIII.  2.    The  account  of  the  part- 


CHAP.  XXXV.]  DEATH  OF  AGATHOCLES.  371 

live  country,  whilst  he  himself  should  be  left  alone  to  die.  On  his  death,  the 
old  democracy56  was  restored  without  a  struggle,  his  property  was  confiscated, 
and  his  statues  thrown  down.  But  it  was  a  democracy  in  name  only,  for  we 
find  that  the  same  man,  Hicetas,  was  continued  in  the  office  of  cap  tain -general 
for  the  next  nine  years57  successively ;  and  so  long  a  term  of  military  command 
in  times  of  civil  and  foreign  war  was  equivalent  to  a  despotism  or  tyranny. 

At  the  moment  of  Agathocles'  death,  there  was  a  Syracusan  army58  in  the 
field,  consisting,  as  usual,  chiefly  of  mercenaries,  and  commanded 

,°  .  .•',  -r»ir  i         •  •  i     Exceisei  committed  by 

by  the  tyrant  s  grandson,  Archagathus.     But  Msenon,  who  is  said  the  mercenary  »oidi*r». 

.  J  T^.      ,J         ,         °  ,  11^11  They  occupy  Memoa. 

in  Diodorus  account  to  have  poisoned  Agathocles,  and  who  was 
now  with  the  army  of  Archagathus,  contrived  to  murder  Archagathus,  and  to  get 
the  army  into  his  own  hands.  He  then  attempted  to  get  possession  of  Syracuse, 
and  to  make  himself  tyrant,  and  finding  himself  resisted  by  the  new  government 
and  the  captain-general,  Hicetas,  he  too  called  in  the  Carthaginians.  Syracuse 
was  quite  unable  to  resist,  and  submitted  to  the  terms  which  they  imposed. 
They  gave  400  hostages,  and  consented  to  receive  back  all  the  exiles,  under  which 
term  all  Msenon's  army  were  included.  What  was  become  of  Msenon  himself 
we  know  not ;  but  the  mercenaries,  being  mostly  Samnite  or  Lucanian  foreigners, 
were  still  looked  upon  as  an  inferior  caste  to  the  old  Syracusan  citizens ;  and  as 
these  last  formed  the  majority  of  the  people,  none  of  the  new  citizens  could  ever 
get  access  to  any  public  office.  This  led  to  fresh  disturbances,  but  at  last  the 
strangers  agreed  to  sell  their  properties  within  a  certain  time,  and  to  leave  Sicily. 
They  accordingly  came  to  Messana,59  in  order  to  cross  the  strait  and  return  to 
Italy  ;  but  being  admitted  into  the  city,  they  rose  by  night  and  massacred  the 
principal  inhabitants,  and  kept  the  women  and  the  city  for  themselves.  From 
this  time  forwards  the  inhabitants  of  Messana  were  known  by  the  name  of  Ma- 
mertini,  sons  of  Mamers  or  Mars,  that  being  the  name  by  which  these  Italian  sol- 
diers of  fortune  had  been  used  to  call  themselves. 

While  Messana  had  thus  fallen  into  the  hands  of  a  barbarian  soldiery,  the  con- 
dition of  the  rest  of  Sicily  was  scarcely  happier.  Hicetas  had  the  TyraDts  ip  the  Mvemi 
power  of  a  tyrant  in  Syracuse,  Phintias60  was  tyrant  in  Agrigen-  citie»°fsicily- 
turn,  Tyndarion  in  Tauromenium,  Heraclides  in  Leontini,  and  other  men  whose 
names  have  not  reached  posterity  exercised  the  same  dominion  in  the  smaller 
cities.  Hicetas  and  Phintias  made  war  upon  each  other,  made  plundering  inroads 
into  each  other's  territories,  and  mutually  reduced  the  frontier  districts  to  a  state 
of  utter  desolation.  Gela  was  destroyed  by  Phintias,  and  its  inhabitants  removed 
to  a  new  town  which  he  founded  on  the  coast  near  the  mouth  of  the  Himera, 
and  called  after  his  own  name.  And  the  Mamertines  availed  themselves  of  all 
this  misery  to  extend  their  own  power,  even  t:  the  opposite  side  of  the  island ; 
they  sacked  Camarina  and  Gela,61  which  had  Ken  again  partially  inhabited  after 
its  destruction  by  Phintias,  and  obliged  several  of  the  Greek  cities  to  pay  them 
tribute.  Thus  the  Greek  power  in  Sicily,  which  had  been  so  formidable  under 
Agathocles,  was  now  quite  prostrated,  and  the  whole  island  seemed  likely  to 
become  the  spoil  of  the  Carthaginians  and  Mamertines.  This  course  of  eventa 
on  one  side  of  the  strait,  and  the  extension  of  the  Roman  dominion  a  few  years 
later  to  the  extreme  coast  of  Bruttium  on  the  other  side,  tended  inevitably  to 
bring  about  a  collision  between  Rome  and  Carthage,  such  as  Pyrrhus  foretold 
when  he  found  it  impossible  to  revive  and  consolidate  the  Greek  interest,  and 
restore  in  a  manner  the  dominion  of  Agathocles. 

ing  between  Agathoeles  and  his  family  is  given  expressions  are,  'IKITOS  ivvta  In;  6waffTtveas — 

by  Justin  with"  much  simplicity  and  good  feel-  tV^dAXerat  rijs  rvpavvttos. 

ing,  and  it  is  much  to  his  credit  that  he  pre-        M  Diodorus,  Fragm.  Hoeschel.  XXI.  12,  18. 
ferred  this  story  to  the  horrible  and  incredible        69  Diodorus,  Fragm.  Hoeschel.  XXI.  13.  PO-- 

tales  about  the  last  days  of  Agathocles  which  lybius,  I.  7. 

Diodorus  has  copied  apparently  from  Timeeus.        60  Diodorus,  Fragm.  Hoeschel.  XXII.  2, 11. 
1  Diodorus,  Fragm.  Hoeschel.  XXI.  12.  C1  Diodorus,  Fragm.  Hoeschel.  XXIII.  2.  P^ 

"  Diodorus,  Fragm.  Hoeschel.  XXII.  «.    His  lybius,  I.  8. 


oonditi 
the   Gree 

yoke  afte: 
Seleucus. 


372  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXV 

And  now,  before  I  speak  of  Pyrrhus  himself  and  the  fortunes  of  his  early  years, 
Greece,  it.  degraded  we  must  turn  our  eyes  to  Greece,  the  \vorn-out  and  cast-off  skin 
""J?r  ^rom  which  the  living  serpent  had  gone  forth  to  carry  his  youth 
an(*  v^o°r  to  ot^er  lands.  Greek  power,  Greek  energy,  Greek 
genius,  might  now  be  found  indeed  anywhere  rather  than  in 
Greece.  Drained  of  all  its  noblest  spirits,  for  so  hopeless  was  the  prospect  at 
home,  that  any  foreign  service68  offered  a  temptation  to  the  Greek  youth  to  enter 
it ;  yet  exposed  to  the  miseries  of  war,  and  eagerly  contended  for  by  rival  sov- 
ereigns, because  its  possession  was  still  thought  the  most  glorious  part  of  every 
dominion  ;  mocked  by  every  despot  in  turn  with  offers  of  liberty,  yet  as  soon  as 
it  was  delivered  from  the  yoke  of  one,  condemned  under  some  pretence  to  receive 
the  garrison  of  another  into  its  citadels ;  Greece,  in  the  middle  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury of  Rome,  seemed  utterly  exhausted,  and  lay  almost  as  dead.  Demetrius 
Poliorcetes  had  retained  his  hold  upon  it  after  his  Asiatic  dominion  had  been  lost 
by  the  event  of  the  battle  of  Ipsus ;  and  even  when  he  himself  engaged  in  his 
last  desperate  attempt  upon  Asia,  and  whilst  he  was  passing  the  last  years  of  his 
life  as  a  prisoner  in  the  hands  of  Seleucus,  Greece  was  still,  for  the  most  part, 
under  the  power  of  his  son,  Antigonus  Gonatas.  But  upon  the  death  of  Seleu- 
cus Nicator,  when  Antigonus  was  disputing  the  sovereignty  of  Macedonia  with 
Ptolemy  Ceraunus,  Seleucus'  murderer,  the  Greeks  made63  a  feeble  attempt  to 
assert  their  liberty.  Sparta  once  more  appeared  at  the  head  of  the  national  con- 
federacy, and  Areus,  the  Spartan  king,  was  intrusted  with  the  conduct  of  the 
war.  The  Greeks  attacked  ^Etolia,  which  appears  at  this  time  to  have  been  in 
alliance  with  Antigonus,  but  they  were  repulsed  with  loss ;  and  then,  as  usual, 
jealousy  broke  out,  and  the  confederacy  was  soon  dissolved.  Yet,  almost  imme- 
diately afterwards,  there  was  formed  the  first  germ  of  a  new  confederacy,  which 
existed  from  this  time  forwards  till  the  total  extinction  of  Grecian  independence, 
and  in  which  there  was  revived  a  faint  image  of  the  ancient  glory  of  Greece,  the 
pale  martinmas  summer  of  her  closing  year.  This  confederacy  was  the  famous 
Achaian  or  Achaean  league. 

The  Achaian  name  is  conspicuous  in  the  heroic  ages  of  Greece,  and  in  her  last 
FoimationoftheAchas-  decline,  but  during  the  period  of  her  greatness  is  scarcely  ever 
brought  before  our  notice.  The  towns  of  Achaia  were  small  and 
unimportant,  and  the  people  lived  for  many  generations  in  happy  obscurity ;  but 
after  the  death  of  Ptolemy  Ceraunus,  when  dread  of  a  Gaulish  invasion  kindled 
a  general  spirit  of  exertion,  and  when  Antigonus  was  likely  to  have  sufficient 
employment  on  the  side  of  Macedonia,  four  Achaean  cities,64  Dyme,  Patrae,  Tri- 
taea,  and  Pharae,  formed  a  federal  union  for  their  mutual  defence.  According  to 
the  constitution  of  the  league,  each  member  was  to  appoint  in  succession,  year 
by  year,  two  captains-general,66  and  one  secretary,  or  civil  minister,  to  conduct 
the  affairs  of  the  union.  These  four  states,  like  the  forest  cantons  of  Switzerland, 
were  the  original  members,  and  in  a  manner  the  founders  of  the  confederacy ; 
and  at  the  period  of  Pyrrhus'  invasion  of  Italy,  it  consisted  of  these  alone. 

It  is  not  possible  to  discover  the  condition  of  the  several  states  of  Greece, 
The  c  >  Pel  however  much  their  ancient  fame  must  excite  an  interest  even  for 
neeu»c'jiH*t°y  held  In  their  last  decay.  But  generally  they  were  subjected  to  the  Ma- 
cedonian king,  Antigonus,66  either  directly,  by  having  a  Macedo- 
nian garrison  in  their  citadels,  or  indirectly,  as  being  ruled  by  a  tyrant  from 
among  their  own  people,  who  for  his  own  sake  upheld  the  Macedonian  suprem- 
acy. Sicyon67  had  been  governed  by  various  tyrants  ever  since  it  had  been 
taken  by  Demetrius  Poliorcetes,  when  he  destroyed  the  lower  town,  and  removed 

n  Diodorus,  XX.  40.  He  says  that  when  Aratus  delivered  Sicyon  in 

63  Justin,  XXIV.  1.  251  B.*C.  some  of  the  exiles  whom  ho  then  re- 

•*  Polybius,  II.  41.  stored  had  been  in  banishment  fifty  years.  And 

u  Polybius,  II.  43.  Cicero,  copying  from  the  same  source  however, 

68  Polybjus,  II.  41.  IX.  29.  namely,  Aratus'  own  memoirs,  says  the  sama 

n  Diodorus,  XX.  102.    Plutarch,  Aratus,  9.    thing.    De  Officiis,  II.  23. 


CHAP.  XXXV.]  NORTHERN  GREECE.  373 

the  whole  population  within  the  precincts  of  the  old  citadel.  Megalopolis68  about 
this  time  must  have  been  under  the  dominion  of  its  tyrant,  Aristodemus,  of  Phi- 
galea,  who  owed  his  elevation  to  factions  in  the  oligarchy  by  which  the  city  had 
been  before  governed.  In  Argos69  Aristippus  had  the  ascendency,  through  the 
support  of  king  Antigonus.  The  Acropolis  of  Corinth70  was  held  by  one  Alex- 
ander (we  know  not  when  or  by  what  means  he  won  it),  and  the  strength  of  the 
place  enabled  him  to  enjoy  a  certain  degree  of  independence  ;  so  that,  after  his 
death,  Antigonus  was  obliged  to  employ  stratagem  in  order  to  get  it  for  himself 
out  of  the  hands  of  Alexander's  widow,  Nicaea.  Society  was  generally  in  a  state 
of  disorder,  robbery  and  plundering  forays  were  almost  universal,  and  Greece 
could  no  longer  boast  that  she  had  banished  the  practice  of  carrying  arms  in 
peace ;"  for  men  now  went  armed  so  commonly,  that  conspirators  could  meet 
and  arm  themselves  in  open  day  without  exciting  any  suspicion. 

Something  more  of  life  was  to  be  seen  in  the  states  to  the  north  of  the  isthmus 
of  Corinth.  When  the  Gauls  invaded  Greece  in  the  second  year 
of  the  125th  Olympiad,  Athens,  Megara,  Boaotia,  Phocis,  Locris, 
and  JEtolia  sent  a  confederate  army  to  Thermopylae  to  oppose 
them  ;  and  the  Boeotian  force72  amounted  to  10,000  heavy-armed  infantry,  and 
500  horse,  a  number  equal  to  that  which  won  the  battle  of  Delium  against  the 
whole  power  of  Athens  in  the  Peloponnesian  war.  Thebes  had  twice  revolted 
from  Demetrius  Poliorcetes,  and  had  been  twice  reduced  by  him,73  and  after  his 
second  conquest  of  it  he  had  pulled  down  its  walls74  and  left  it  defenceless. 
Antigonus  Gonatas  retained  possession  of  it  till  he  succeeded  in  establishing  him- 
self in  Macedonia ;  then  his  hold  upon  southern  Greece  was  relaxed,  except  on 
those  cities  where  he  still  kept  a  garrison  of  his  soldiers,  or  where  a  tyrant  who 
looked  to  him  for  protection  governed  almost  as  his  officer.  But  Bceotia  seems 
to  have  been  left  to  itself,  with  nearly  its  old  constitution ;  according  to  which 
Thebes  enjoyed  a  certain  supremacy  over  the  other  cities,  but  nothing  like  that 
dominion  which  she  had  claimed  in  the  days  of  her  greatness.  The  country  was 
safe  and  flourishing  when  compared  with  Peloponnesus,  and  Tanagra  is  mentioned15 
as  a  place  at  once  prosperous  and  deserving  its  prosperity ;  its  citizens  were 
wealthy  yet  simple  in  their  manners,  just,  and  hospitable.  Thebes,  on  the  con- 
trary, is  described  as  a  scene  of  utter  anarchy  ;  acts  of  violence  were  constantly 
committed  with  impunity,  and  justice  was  so  evaded  or  overborne  by  violence, 
that  twenty-five  or  even  thirty  years76  sometimes  elapsed  before  the  injured  party 
could  obtain  a  hearing  for  his  cause  before  the  magistrates.  This  was  owing 
principally  to  the  numerous  societies  or  clubs  which  existed,  avowedly  for  mere 
objects  of  convivial  entertainments ;  but  which  becoming  extremely  wealthy,  for 
men  without  children,  and  even  some  who  had  children,  often  left  all  their  prop- 
erty to  their  club,  were  enabled  no  doubt  to  corrupt  justice,  in  order  to  screen 

w  Pausanias,  VIII.  27.  He  puts  Aristodemus,  liove,  in  the  older  constitution.    Bdckh  thinks 

however,  too  early,  when  he  says  that  he  be-  that  it  was  one  of  the  prerogatives  of  Thebes, 

came  tyrant  soon  after  the  Lamian  war,  and  that  this  magistrate  should  be  always  a  Theban. 

confounds  Acrotatus,  son  of  Areus,  with  Aero-  Corpus  Inscript.  Vol.  I.  p.  729. 
tatus,  son  of  Cleomenes.    In  318  B.  c.  Megalopo-       78  Polybius,  XX.  6.    Diceearchus,  Stat.  Graec. 

Us  was  governed  by  a  strict  oligarchy.    See  Dio-  p.  15,  et  seqq.  Hudson.    The  text  in  these  frag- 

dorus,  XVIII.  68.    Compare  Polybius,  X.  25.  ments  of  Dicaearchus   is  often  hopelessly  cor- 

69  Plutarch,  Pyrrhus,  30.  rupt ;   but  they  seem   also,  independently  of 

Plutarch,  Aratus,  16,  17.  such  faults,  to  have  been  interpolated  by  some 

'  Plutarehj  Aratus,  6.  more  modern  writer,  or  rather  their  substance 

'  Pausanias,  X.  20.  to  have  been  given  by  him  in  his  own  language, 

1  Plutarch,  Demetrius,  39,  40.  not  without  many  additions.     We  know  the 

1  Diodorus,  Fragm.  Hoeschel.  XXI.  10.  manner  in  which  old  topographical  accounts 

"  Diceearchus,  Stat.  Graec.  p.  13.    Ed.  Hud-  are  copied  by  one  writer  after  another,  each  of 

*on.    The  inscriptions  of  this  period  show  that  whom  adds  something  to  them  of  his  own ;  and 

there  was  still  a  government  for  all  Boeotia,  thus  the  work  of  Dicaearchus  seems  to  have 

toiifo  Hiintioiuruv  ffvvifyiov,  and  Boeotarchs,  as  in  formed  the  groundwork  of  the  existing  frag- 

ancient  times  ;    there  was  also  a  magistrate  ments,  which  have  been  wrought  up  by  a  later 

called  ap%wv  tv  KOIV&  Boiwrai',  or  apxuv  BotwroJj,  writer,  and  altered  both  in  their  language  and 

who  seems  to  have  been  the  head  of  the  Boeo-  matter, 
rchfl,  and  of  whom  there  is  no  mention,  I  be- 


374  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXV 

the  outrages  of  their  members.  A  strong  but  not  improbable  picture  of  the 
woist  abuses  of  such  clubs,  which  even  in  their  best  state,  and  in  the  healthiest 
condition  of  society,  are  always  fraught  with  evil  either  politically  or  morally. 
Forty  years  had  now  passed  since  Athens  had  lost  Demosthenes.  His  death, 
as  was  most  fitting,  coincided  exactly  with  the  period  of  his  coun- 
^y'overthTQwn^y"^!  try's  complete  subjection ;  within  a  month"  after  Antipater  had 
established  a  Macedonian  garrison  in  Munychia,  Demosthenes  es- 
caped his  vengeance  by  a  sudden  and  painless  death18  in  the  island  of  Calauria. 
The  shade  of  Xerxes  might  have  rejoiced  to  see  that  his  own  people  had  a  share 
in  the  humiliation  of  his  old  enemy  ;  for  in  the  army  with  which  Antipater  crushed 
the  Greek  confederates  in  the  Lamian  war  there  were  Persian  archers,  slingers, 
and  cavalry,79  who  had  been  brought  to  his  aid  from  Asia  by  Craterus,  and  who 
thus  strangely  found,  in  their  actual  subjection  to  a  Greek  power,  an  opportunity 
of  revenging  the  fatal  days  of  Salamis  and  Plataea.  That  great  democracy,  with 
all  its  faults,  by  far  the  noblest  example  of  free  and  just  government  which  the 
world  had  then  witnessed,  was  again  destroyed  by  Antipater,  after  a  duration  of 
seventy-one  years  since  its  restoration  by  Thrasybulus.  All  citizens  whose  prop- 
erty fell  short  of  2000  drachmse  were  deprived  of  their  political  rights ;  and 
more  than  half  of  the  Athenian  people  were  thus  disfranchised.  Lands  in  Thrace 
were  offered  to  them,  and  they  migrated  thither  in  great  numbers  ;80  whilst  the 
remnant,  who  were  now  exclusively  the  Athenian  people,  were  left  in  mockery 
to  the  enjoyment  of  Solon's  laws,  while  a  Macedonian  garrison  occupied  Muny- 
chia, and  commanded  the  entrance  into  the  harbor  of  Piraeus. 

Then  followed  a  period  of  fifteen  years,  during  which  Athens  remained  sub- 
ject, first  to  Antipater  and  then  to  Cassander  his  son  ;  and  al- 

And  nominally  restored    ».  -         .  ..£          .  -  ..  j  j    i_        /-*  j       a 

by  Demetriu.  Poiior-  though  the  qualification  of  a  citizen  was  reduced  by  Cassander8 
to  1000  drachmse,  only  half  of  the  sum  fixed  by  his  father,  and 
thus  the  internal  government  became  somewhat  more  popular,  yet  still,  whilst 
Munychia  and  Piraeus  were  in  the  power  of  a  foreign  prince,  Athens  could  have 
no  independent  national  existence.  In  the  year  of  Rome  447,  three  years  before 
the  end  of  the  second  Samnite  war,  Cassander's  garrisons  were  driven  out  by 
Demetrius  Poliorcetes,82  the  old  democracy  was  restored,  and  the  Athenians  were 
declared  to  be  free.  But  it  was  only  a  shadow  of  the  "  fierce  democratic,"  and 
of  the  real  freedom  of  the  days  of  Pericles  and  Demosthenes.  The  utmost  base- 
ness of  flattery  was  lavished  on  Demetrius,  such  flattery  as  was  incompatible  with 
any  self-respect,  and  which  confessed  that  Athens  was  dependent83  for  the  great- 
est national  blessings  not  on  itself,  but  on  foreign  aid. 

A  few  years  afterwards,  when  his  fortune  was  ruined  by  the  event  of  the 
Demetrhu  him»eif  oc-  battle  of  Ipsus,  the  Athenians  refused  to  receive  him  into  their 
A&eni^nshdriveaouthu  city  \  and  this  so  stung  him  that  when  his  affairs  began  to  mend, 
garrisons.  jie  j^  siege  to  Athens,  and  having  obliged  it  to  surrender,  he  not 

only  occupied  Piraeus  and  Munychia,  but  put  a  garrison  into  the  city  itself,  con- 
verting the  hill84  of  the  Museum  into  a  Macedonian  citadel.     It  was  recovered 

•  "  Plutarch,  in  Demosth.  28.  Sons  of  the  brave  who  fought  at  Marathon  ! 

"  Ibid.  30.    The  common  story  was  that  De-  Your  feeble  spirits.      Greece  her  head  hath 

mosthenes  killed  himself  by  a  poison  which  he  bowed 

carried  about  him:   but  his  nephew,  Demo-  As  if  the  wreath  of  Liberty  thereon 

chares,  expressed  his  belief  that  his  death  was  Would  fix  itself  as  smoothly  as  a  cloud, 

natural;  or  rather,  in  his  own  language,  "that  Which,  at  Jove's  will,  descends  on  Pelion'a 

the  gods,  in  their  care  for  him,  nad  rescued  top. 
him  from  the  cruelty  of  the  Macedonians  by  a 

speedy  and  gentle  death."  Ah!    that  a  conqueror's  word  should  bo  B« 

'•  Diodorus,  XVIII.  16.  dear! 

*  Diodorus,  XVIII.  18.  Ah !  that  a  boon  could  shed  such  rapturom 

•'  Diodorus,  XVIII.  74.  joys  I 

83  Diodorus,  XX.  45,  46.  A  gift  of  that  which  is  not  to  be  given 

•*  Who  can  help  remembering  Mr.  Words-  By  all  the  blended  powers  of  earth  and  hear- 

Worth's  beautiful  lines  ?  en." 

"  So  ye  prop,  •*  Plutarch,  Demotr.  30,  34.   Pausanias,  I.  25* 


CHAP.  XXXV.]  ^ETOLIA.  375 

again,  when  he  had  been  driven  out  of  Macedonia  by  Lysimachus  and  Pyrrhus, 
by  one  of  the  last  successful  efforts  of  Athenian  valor.  Olympiodorus,85  who 
had  already  acquired  the  reputation  of  a  soldier  and  a  general,  led  the  whole 
population  of  Athens  into  the  field ;  he  defeated  the  Macedonians,  stormed  the 
Museum,  and  delivered  Piraeus  and  Munychia.  This  was  in  the  second  year  of 
the  123d  Olympiad:  so  that  when  Pyrrhus  sailed  for  Italy  seven  years  after- 
wards, Athens  was  really  independent,  for  she  had  gained  her  freedom,  not  by 
the  gift  of  another,  but  by  her  own  sword. 

This,  however,  was   almost  a  solitary  gleam  of  light  amidst  the  prevailing 
darkness.     In  general  there  were  neither  soldiers,  statesmen,  nor  . 

^  _  .  .  prn  , .  .        ,     Intellectual     «tat«     ol 

orators  now  to  be  found  in  Athens.  The  great  tragedians  had 
long  since  become  extinct ;  and  Thucydides  has  neither  in  his 
own  country,  whether  free  or  in  subjection,  nor  in  any  other  country  or  age  of 
the  world,  found  a  successor  to  rival  him.  Plato's  divine  voice  was  silent,  and 
the  "  Master  of  the  Wise"86  had  left  none  to  inherit  his  acuteness,  his  boundless 
knowledge,  and  his  manly  judgment,  at  once  so  practical  and  so  profound.  The 
theatre,  indeed,  could  boast  of  excellence,  but  it  was  only  in  the  new  comedy,  the 
sickliest  refinement  of  the  drama,  and  a  sure  mark  of  a  dec 'lining  age.  Still  there 
was  intellectual  life  of  no  common  kind  existing  at  this  time  in  Athens.  There 
were  now  living  and  teaching  within  her  walls,  two  men  whose  doctrines  in  phi- 
losophy were  destined  to  influence  most  widely  and  lastingly  the  characters  and 
conduct  of  their  fellow-creatures,  the  founders  of  the  two  great  rival  sects  of  the 
later  age  of  the  Roman  republic, — Epicurus  and  Zeno. 

But  Boeotia  and  Athens  were  no  longer  the  principal  powers  of  northern 
Greece ;  the  half-barbarous  ^Etolians  had  risen  to  such  an  emi-  ^^ 

nence,  that  we  find  them  able,  at  a  somewhat  later  period,  to  con-  ad^nu.™.*  orftn«w- 
tend  single-handed  with  the  kingdom  of  Macedon.  Their  country 
was  still,  as  in  the  days  of  Thucydides,  separated  from  Acarnania87  by  the  Ache- 
lous,  and  was  stretched  in  length  from  the  shores  of  the  Gulf  of  Corinth  to 
those  of  the  Malian  Bay,  at  the  back  of  Locris,  Doris,  and  Phocis.  But  a  sort 
of  federal  government  succeeded,  in  later  times,  to  the  multitude  of  scattered  and 
independent  villages  which  formerly  composed  the  ^Etolian  nation ;  a  general 
assembly  of  deputies  from  all  the  -^Etolian  towns  met  every  year  at  Thermum  to 
elect  a  captain-general,88  a  master  of  the  horse,  and  a  secretary  for  the  general 
government  of  the  confederacy ;  great  fairs89  and  festivals,  to  which  the  people 
came  up  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  were  held  at  the  same  place ;  and  Ther- 
mum thus  grew  in  wealth  and  magnificence,  and  its  houses  became  noted  for  the 
magnificence  of  their  furniture,  as  the  inhabitants,  on  these  great  occasions, 
opened  their  doors  to  receive  all  comers,  with  a  hospitality  not  common  in  Greece 
since  the  heroic  ages.  But  there  were  other  points  in  which  the  ^Etolians  equally 
retained  the  habits  of  an  early  state  of  society ;  in  the  best  days  of  Grecian  civ- 

*  Plutarch,  Bernetr.  46.    Pausanias,  I.  26.  in  the  year  before  the  Gaulish  invasion,  the 

"  «  Vidi  '1  maestro  di  color  che  sanno  ^tol^n?  obtained  possession  of  Heraclea  in 

Seder  tra  filosofica  famiglia."  Trachima.    (Pausanias,  X  20,  §  9.)    At  a  later 

DANTE,  Inferno,  IV.  pe™>d,   Naupactus    was    become  an  .Etolian 

town,  but  we  do  not  know  when  it  was  con- 

<T  It  had,  however,  acquired  several  towns  quered. 

•Ituated  in  its  neighborhood  which  had  former-  M  Polybius,  V.  8,  XXII.  15,  §  10.     The  cap- 

ly  been  independent.  The  date  of  these  several  tain-general  and  secretary  were  officers  also  of 

acquisitions  is  diffiult  to  fix  precisely.     The  the  Achaean  league.      Whether   the  ^Etolian 

JDtplians  had  occupied  the  famous  Cirrhaean  league  was  formed  on  the  Achsaan  model,  or 

plain  just  after  the  death  of  Seleucus ;  a  repe-  whether  it  existed  earlier,  we  cannot  tell, 

tition  of  the  old  Phocian  sacrilege,  which  was  w  ayopal  KOI  vavqyvptts.    Polyb.  V.  8.    Theao 

the  cause  or  pretence  of  a  general  attack  upon  fairs  and  religious  festivals,  held  along  with  th« 

them  by  the  Pelopounesian  Greeks  under  the  assemblies  for  political  purposes,  remind  us  of 

supremacy  of  Sparta.    But  in  this  new  sacred  the  great  Etruscan  assemblies  at  the  temple  of 

war,  the  authors  of  the  sacrilege  were  more  Voltumna.    The  fairs  seemed  to  imply  that  th« 

fortunate  than  the  Phocians  of  old,  and  the  towns  in  JEtolia  were  still  little  better  than  vil- 

JEtolians  repelled  their  assailants  with  great  lages,  so  as  to  have  but  few  shops  for  the  rego- 

low»     Justin.  XXIV.  1.    About  the  same  time,  lar  supply  of  commodities. 


376  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXV 

ilization,.  when  life  and  property  were  scarcely  less  secure  at  Athens  than  they 
are  at  this  day  in  the  best  governed  countries  of  Europe,  the  ^Etolians  went 
always  armed;90  and  the  character  of  a  robber  was  still  deeraed  honorable 
amongst  them,  as  it  had  been  in  all  parts  of  Greece  in  the  Homeric  age.  Aa 
the  nation  became  more  powerful,  this  spirit  was  displayed  on  a  larger  scale,  and 
-<Etolian  adventurers,  countenanced,  but  not  paid  or  organized,  by  the  national 
government,  made  plundering  expeditions  on  their  own  account  both  by  land 
and  sea,  and  were  not  very  scrupulous  in  their  choice  of  the  objects  of  their 
attack.  These  adventurers  were  called  "  pirates,"  irstgarcr/i,  a  name91  which  occurs 
in  the  written  language  of  Greece  for  the  first  time  about  this  period,  when  the 
long  wars  between  Alexander's  successors  and  the  general  decline  of  good  gov- 
ernment had  multiplied  the  number  of  such  marauders. 

The  ^Etolians  will  play  an  important  part  hereafter  in  this  history,  when  theii 
foiiti««i  relation,  of  quarrels  with  Macedon  and  the  Achaean  league  led  them  to  con- 
clude an  alliance  with  Rome,  and  to  array  themselves  with  the 
Roman  armies,  on  their  first  crossing  the  sea  to  carry  on  war  in  Greece.  At 
present  their  place  in  the  Greek  political  system  seems  not  to  have  been  defi- 
nitely fixed  ;  they  were  in  alliance  with  Antigonus  Gonatas92  before  he  obtained 
possession  of  Macedon,  at  the  time  when  their  occupation  of  the  Cirrheean  plain 
involved  them  in  a  sacred  war  with  Peloponnesus,  and  they  were  also  the  allies 
of  Pyrrhus  and  the  Epirots  ;  but  their  peculiar  hostility  to  Macedon  and  to  the 
Achaeans  had  not  as  yet  been  called  into  existence.  Polybius,  from  whom 
we  derive  most  of  our  knowledge  of  them,  was  too  much  their  enemy  to  do 
them  full  justice  ;  and  on  the  great  occasion  of  the  Gaulish  invasion  of  Greece, 
they  performed  their  duty  nobly,  and  no  state  served  the  common  cause  more 
bravely  or  more  effectually.  Yet  a  people  who  made  plunder  their  glory  can 
have  had  little  true  greatness  ;  and  it  must  have  been  an  evil  time  for  Greece, 
when  the  ^Etolians  became  one  of  the  most  powerful  and  most  famous  of  the 
Grecian  states. 

Northward  of  the  Ambracian  gulf,  and  lying  without  the  limits  of  ancient  as 
Epinw.  it»  variou.  of  modern  Greece,  the  various  Epirot  tribes  occupied  the  coast  of 
K;  Bndreari"y  huto-  the  Ionian  sea  as  far  as  the  Acroceraunian  promontory,  reaching 
ry  »nd  uaditiom.  inland  as  far  as  the  central  mountains  which  turn  the  streams  east- 
ward and  westward,  and  from  the  western  boundary  of  Thessaly  and  Macedonia. 
Within  these  limits  the  Molossians,  Thesprotians,  Chaonians,  and  many  other 
obscurer  people,  had  from  the  earliest  times  led  the  same  life,  and  kept  the 
same  institutions.  They  lived  mostly  in  villages93  or  in  small  village-like  towns, 
scattered  over  the  mountains,  in  green  glades  opening  amidst  the  forests,  or 
along  the  rich  valleys  by  which  the  mountains  are  in  many  places  intersected, 
going  always  armed,  and,  with  the  outward  habits,  retaining  also  much  of  the 
cruelty  and  faithlessness  of  barbarians,  attended  by  their  dogs,  a  breed  of  sur- 
passing excellence,94  and  maintaining  themselves  chiefly  by  pasturage,  their  ox- 

"  Thucydides,  I.  5.  "  Justin,  XXIV.  1.    Dion  Cassias,  Fragm. 

fl  Polybius,  IV.  3.  6.    Valckenaer  says  that    Peiresc.  XXXIX. 


the  word  vctparfr  occurs,  for  the  first  time  in  83  oixovvt  Kara  *w/iay,  is  the  cJiaiacter  given  by 

the  surviving  Greek  literature,  in  the  Septua-  Scylax  of  the  Chaonians,   Thesprotians,   and 

ffint  translation  of  the  Bible.     There  it  is  to  be  Molossians  equally.    Periplus,  p.  11.  12,  Ed. 

found  in  Job  XXV.  3,  and  Ilosea  VI.  10;  in  Hudson.    But  we  hear  of  some  towns  among 

both  instances,  I  think,  signifying  a  robber  by  them,  although  of  none  of  any  considerable  size 

and  rather  than  by  sea.    And  so  irttpaTfoiov  is  or  importance. 

used  in  Genesis  XLIX.  19.    Thus  the  Scholiast  •*  The  ancient    character  of  the  Molcasian 

on  Pindar,  Pyth.  62,  says  that  irciparal  properly  dogs  is  well  known.     Mr.  Hughes  found  them 

means  ol  tv  6<5ui  Kaicovpyovvrcs.    Sec  Valckenaer  as  numerous  and  as  fierce  as  they  were  in  an- 

on Ammonius,'  p.  194.    The  Greek  translators  cient  days  ;   the  breed,  he  thinks,  has  in  no 

of  the  Bible  could  not  have  got  the  word  from  respect  degenerated.     He  describes  them  as 

old  Greece,  but  the  robber  population  of  Isauria  "  varying  in  color  through    different  shades 

»nd  Cilicia,  who  made  the  name  of  pirate  so  from  a  dark  brown  to  a  bright  dun,  their  long 

famous  about  two  centuries  afterwards,  had  fur  being  very  soft,  and  thick  and  glossy;  in 

probably  already  begun  to  be  troublesome,  and  size  they  are  about  equal  to  an  English  mastiff: 

lo  molest  the  Egyptian  merchant  vessels.  they  have  a  long  nose,  delicate  ears  finely  point 


CHAP,  XXXV.]  FAMILY  OF  PYRRHUS.  377 

en95  being  amongst  the  best  of  which  the  Greeks  had  any  knowledge.  In  the  heart 
of  their  country  stood  the  ancient  temple  of  Dodona,  a  name  famous  for  genera- 
tions before  Delphi  was  yet  in  existence  ;  the  earliest  seat  of  the  Grecian  oracles, 
whose  ministers,  the  Selli,  a  priesthood  of  austerest  life,  received  the  answers  of 
the  god  through  no  human  prophet,  but  from  the  rustling  voice  of  the  sacred 
oaks  which  sheltered  the  temple.  These  traditions  ascend  to  the  most  remote 
antiquity  :  but  Epirus  had  its  share  also  in  the  glories  of  the  heroic  age,  and 
Pyrrhus  the  son  of  Achilles  was  said  to  have  settled  in  the  country  of  the  Molos- 
sians  after  his  return  from  Troy,96  and  to  have  been  the  founder  of  the  line  of 
Molossian  kings.  The  government,  indeed,  long  bore  the  character  of  the  heroic 
period  ;  the  kings,  on  their  accession,  were  wont,  it  is  said,  to  meet  their  assem- 
bled people97  at  Passaron,  and  swore  to  govern  according  to  the  laws,  while  the 
people  swore  that  they  would  maintain  the  monarchy  according  to  the  laws.  In 
later  times  Epirus  had  become  connected  with  Macedonia  by  the  marriage  of 
Olympias,  an  Epirot  princess,  with  Philip  the  father  of  Alexander.  Her  brother, 
Alexander  of  Epirus,  was  killed,  as  we  have  seen,  in  Italy,  where  he  had  carried 
on  war  in  defence  of  the  Greek  Italian  cities  against  the  Lucanians  ;  and  on  his 
death  his  first  cousin98  ^Eacides  succeeded  to  the,  throne.  ^Eacides  married  Pthia, 
the  daughter  of  Menon  of  Pharsalus,  a  distinguished  leader  in  the  last  struggle 
between  Greece  and  Macedon  after  the  death  of  Alexander,  and  the  children  of 
this  marriage  were  two  daughters,  Troias  and  Deidamia,  and  one  son,  Pyrrhus. 

.^Eacides    had    taken    part   with    his    cousin  Olympias,99   when    Cassander 
wanted  to  destroy  all  the  family  of  Alexander  in  order  to  seat 


^ 

himself  on  the  throne  of  Macedon.  But  Cassander  had  tampered  rifusf 
with  some  of  the  Epirot  chiefs  ;  the  cause  of  Olympias  was  not  " 
popular,  and  the  Epirots  did  not  wish  to  be  involved  in  a  quarrel  with  the 
party  which  was  likely  to  be  the  ruling  power  in  Macedon.  They  accordingly 
met  in  a  general  assembly,  and  deposed  and  banished  their  king.  ^Eacides  him- 
self was  out  of  their  power,  as  he  was  still  in  the  field  on  the  frontiers  of  Mace- 
donia with  the  few  soldiers  who  remained  true  to  him,  and  his  daughter  Deida- 
mia was  with  Olympias.  But  Pyrrhus,  then  an  infant,  had  been  left  at  home, 
and  the  rebel  chiefs100  having  murdered  many  of  his  father's  friends,  sought  for 
him  also  to  destroy  him.  He  was  hurried  off  in  his  nurse's  arms  by  a  few  de- 
voted followers,  and  carried  safely  into  Illyria,  where  Glaucias,  one  of  the  Illyrian 
kings,  protected  him,  and  as  his  father  was  killed  in  battle  soon  afterwards,101  Pyr- 
rhus remained  under  Glaucius'  care,  and  was  brought  up  by  him  along  with  his 
own  children. 

Ten  or  eleven  years  afterwards,  when  the  power  of  Cassander  in   Greece 
seemed  to  be  tottering,  and  Demetrius  Poliorcetes  had  re-estab- 
lished the  democracy  at  Athens,  Glaucias108  entered  Epirus  with  ^KS^JSS 
an  armed  force,  and  restored  Pyrrhus  to  the  throne.     But  again  c° 
the  face  of  affairs  changed  ;  the  great  league  between  Cassander,  Ptolemy,  Se- 
leucus,  and  Lysimachus  was  formed,  and  Demetrius  was  obliged  to  loosen  his 
hold  on  Greece,  that  he  might  help  his  father  in  Asia  ;  thus  Cassander's  party 
recovered  their  influence  in  Epirus,  and  Pyrrhus,  who  was  still  only  seventeen 
years  old,  was  driven  a  second  time  into  exile.     He  now  joined  Demetrius,  who, 
besides  their  common  enmity  to  Cassander,  had  married  Deidamia  his  sister  ; 

ed,  magnificent  tail,  legs  of  a  moderate  length,  might  mislead  ;   as,  for  instance,  he  confounds 

with  a  body  nicely  rounded  and  compact."  Tharyntas  or  Tharypus,  the  great  grandfather 

Travels  in  Albania,  &c.,  Vol.  I.  p.  483.  of  ^Eacides,  with  Arybas  his  father,  and  makes 

*  See  Kruse's  Hellas,  Vol.  I.  p.  368,  and  the  ^Eacides  and  Alexander  brothers  instead  of 

authorities  there  quoted.  cousins,  unless  by  the  term  "  frater"  he  mean» 

'  Pausanias.  I.  11.  frater  patruelis"  and  not  "  frater  geimanua." 

Plutarch,  Pyrrhus,  56.  w  Diodorus,  XIX.  36. 

*  For  the  family  of  Pyrrhus,  see  Plutarch,  10°  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  2. 
Pyrrh.  I.    Pausanias,  I.  11.    Diodorus,  XVI. 


»»  Diodorus,  XIX.  74. 

f  2,  and  XIX.  5  1  .   See  also  Justin,  XVII.  8  ;  but        im  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  3. 
in  his  account  there  are  some  things  which 


He    interferes    i 


378  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXX7 

and  with  him  he  crossed  over  into  Asia,  and  was  present  at  the  battle  of  Ipsus. 
After  that  great  defeat  he  still  remained  faithful  to  Demetrius,  and  went  as  a 
hostage  for  him103  into  Egypt,  when  Demetrius  had  concluded  a  separate  peace 
with  Ptolemy  Soter.  Here  fortune  first  began  to  smile  upon  him  ;  he  obtained 
the  good  opinion  and  regard  of  Ptolemy's  queen,  Berenice,  and  received  in  mar- 
riage Antigone,  her  daughter  by  a  former  husband.  By  Berenice's  assistance  he 
was  supplied  with  men  and  money,  and  returned  once  more  to  Epirus.  His 
kinsman,  Neoptolemus,  the  son  apparently  of  Alexander,  who  had  died  in  Italy, 
had  been  placed  on  the  throne,  when  he  himself  had  been  driven  from  it  ;  but 
Neoptolemus  was  become  unpopular,  and  Pyrrhus  found  many  partisans.  Dread- 
ing, however,  lest  Neoptolemus  should  apply  to  some  foreign  prince  for  aid,  he 
entered  into  a  compromise  with  him,104  and  the  two  rivals  agreed  to  share  the 
regal  power  between  them.  The  end  of  such  an  arrangement  could  not  be 
doubtful  ;  suspicions  arose,  and  Pyrrhus  accusing  Neoptolemus  of  forming  de- 
signs against  his  life,  did  himself  what  he  charged  his  rival  with  meditating,  and 
having  treacherously  murdered  him,  after  having  invited  him  to  his  table  as  a 
guest,  he  remained  the  sole  sovereign  of  Epirus. 

His  old  enemy  Cassander  died  in  the  first  year  of  the  121st  Olympiad,  five 
years  after  the  battle  of  Ipsus.     Not  one  of  Alexander's  succes- 

feres    in    the     *  _        _          .         IT* 

Scr"  the  sors  gained  his  power  by  more  or  worse  crimes  than  Cassan- 
der ;  and  as  his  house  had  been  founded  in  blood,  by  the  murder 
of  Alexander's  family,  so  now  in  its  own  blood  was  it  to  perish.  His  sons  An- 
tipater  and  Alexander105  quarrelled  for  his  inheritance.  Antipater  murdered  his 
own  mother,  Thessalonica,  the  daughter  of  the  great  Philip  of  Macedon,  and  half- 
sister  of  Alexander  ;  and  now  the  last  survivor  of  the  old  royal  family  of  the  race 
of  Hercules.  Alexander  his  brother  applied  to  Pyrrhus  for  aid,  and  purchased 
it  by  ceding  to  him  all  that  the  Macedonian  kings  had  possessed  on  the  western 
side  of  Greece  ;  Tymphaea  and  Parauaea,106  just  under  the  central  ridge  which 
turns  the  streams  to  the  two  opposite  seas,  and  Ambracia,  Acarnania,  and  Amphi- 
lochia,  on  the  northern  and  southern  shores  of  the  Ambracian  gulf.  These  were 
added  permanently  to  the  kingdom  of  Pyrrhus,  and  he  fixed  his  capital  at  Ambracia. 

The  price  was  thus  paid,  and  Alexander  drove  out  his  brother,  by  Pyrrhus' 
Extinction  of  cwsan-  help,  and  became  king  of  Macedonia.  Antipater  fled  to  Lysima- 
chus  for  protection,  and  was  afterwards  put  to  death  by  him.107 
Alexander  was  in  his  turn  murdered  by  Demetrius  Poliorcetes,  who,  after  all  his 
reverses,  thus  established  his  family  on  the  throne  of  Macedon  ;  and  the  bloody 
house  of  Cassander  utterly  perished. 

Six  or  seven  years  afterwards  the  restless  ambition  of  Demetrius  leagued  his 
Pyrrhus  win.  Macedo-  old  enemies,  Seleucus,  Ptolemy,  and  Lysimachus,  once  more 
Sfgino«?Kpi™  •"<?  against  him,  and  they  encouraged  Pyrrhus  to  invade  Macedonia. 
^grt8coufntne»niiig^re  Pyrrhus  dethroned  Demetrius,108  and  obtained  possession  of  a  part 
for  about  .uyeaM.  of  ^jg  dommjons,  the  other  part  being  claimed  by  Lysimachus. 

108  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  4.                  10*  Ibid.  5.  tribea  by  Thucydides,  II.  80,  and  it  appears 

106  Porphyry  and  Dexippus  ;    apud  Euseb.  that  Alexander  was  but  restoring  to  Pyrrhus 

Chronic.   Ed.   Scaliger.   p.   58,   63.    Plutarch,  countries  which  geographically  belonged  more 

Pyrrh.  6.  to  Epii*us  than  to  Macedon,  and  some  of  which 

ioc  piutarch,  Pyrrh.   6.      The  present   text  had  in  earlier  times  been  connected  with  it 

reads  rfi»  rt  tfvp<f>aiuv  xal  rtiv  Ttaoa\lav  rtjf  Ma*f£<5o-  politically. 

Waj.  Palmer  had  corrected  Erw/i0a/av  or  Tvpfaiav  In  Stephanus  Byzant.  in  Xaovia,  there  is  a 

instead  of  Nv/i#a/av,  and  Niebuhr  with  no  less  quotation   from  Proxenus  (an  historian  who 

certainty  has  restored  Ilapavalav  for  irapaMnv.  wrote  about  Pyrrhus  ;  see  Dionys.  Halic.  XIX. 

Eom.  Geschichte,  Vol.  III.   p.  536.     He  ob-  11,  Fragm.  Mai.  and  Fynes  Clinton,  Fasti  Hel- 

gervcs  that  irapaX/av  could  only  mean  the  coast  len.  Vol.  III.  563)  enumerating  the  people  of 

between  Dium  and  the  Strymon,  which  it  is  ab-  Chaonia.  It  runs,  Tv^aloi,  TapatfXjoi,  TA^w>ovcj, 

surd  to  suppose  ceded  to  Pyrrhus.    Tymphcea  where  K.  O.  Muller  corrects  Tv/i0nioi,  Hapavnlot. 

and  Parauaea,  Niebuhr  adds,  are  mentioned  to-  "  Uber  die  Makcdoner.  N.  33."    His  correction 

gether  by  Arrian,   Exped.  Alexand.   I.  7,   as  and  Niebuhr's  mutually  confirm  one  another. 

countries  which  Alexander  passed  by  on  his  m  Porphyry  and  Dexippus,  apud  Euseb.  pp. 

march  from  Illyria  into  Thessaly.      The  Pa-  58-63.    Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  7.     Demetrius,  36. 

rauaeans  are  reckoned  along  with  the  Epirot  10*  Plutarch,  Demetrius,  44.    Pyrrh.  11. 


. 


HAP.  XXXV.]  HE  IS  INVITED  TO  ITALY.  379 

But  at  the  end  of  seven  months109  Lysiraachus  made  himself  master  of  the  whole 
of  Macedonia,  and  drove  Pyrrhus  across  the  mountains  into  his  native  kingdom 
of  Epirus.  There  he  reigned  in  peace  for  about  six  years,  his  dominions  inclu- 
ding not  Epirus  only,  but  those  other  countries  which  had  been  the  price  of  his 
first*  interference  in  the  quarrels  of  Cassander's  sons,  Tymphsea  and  Parausea  on 
the  frontiers  of  Macedonia,  and  the  coasts  on  both  sides  of  the  Ambracian  gulf. 
He  united  himself  in  an  alliance  with  his  neighbors  the  ^Etolians,  which  was  re- 
newed in  the  reign  of  his  son.  And  thus  he  had  leisure  to  ornament  his  new 
capital,  Ambracia,  which  he  enlarged  by  adding  to  it  a  new  quarter110  called 
after  his  own  name,  and  decorated  it  with  an  unusual  number  of  statues  and 
pictures. 

But  although  Pyrrhus  himself  was  reigning  peaceably  in  Epirus,  yet  the  period 
which  elapsed  between  his  expulsion  from  Macedonia  and  his  Ital-  Revo,utionsdurLngthia 
ian  expedition  was  marked  by  great  revolutions  elsewhere.  Ptol-  ^iod  in  other  coua. 
emy,  the  founder  of  the  Macedonian  dynasty  in  Egypt,  died  after  ta 
a  reign  or  dominion  of  forty  years  from  the  death  of  Alexander.  Demetrius 
Poliorcetes  ended  his  days  about  the  same  time  after  a  two  years'  captivity  in 
Syria.  Lysimachus  was  killed  soon  afterwards,  as  has  been  already  mentioned, 
in  a  battle  with  Seleucus,  and  Seleucus  himself,  the  last  survivor  of  Alexander's 
immediate  successors,  was  murdered  seven  months  after  his  victory  by  Ptolemy 
Ceraunus.  The  murderer,  who  was  half  brother  to  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  the 
second  of  the  Macedonian  kings  of  Egypt,  took  possession  of  the  vacant  throne 
of  Macedonia,  and  became  immediately  involved  in  war  with  Antiochus,  son  of 
Seleucus,  and  with  Antigonus,  the  son  of  Demetrius  ;1U  the  first  of  whom  wished 
to  revenge  his  father's  death,  while  the  other  was  trying  to  recover  Macedonia, 
which,  as  having  been  held  by  his  father  during  six  or  seven  years,  he  regarded 
as  his  lawful  inheritance.  In  the  mean  time,  he  was  actually  the  sovereign  of 
Thessaly,  and  exercised  a  great  power  over  all  the  states  of  Greece ;  and  was  in 
alliance  with  Pyrrhus  and  the  ^Etolians.  The  Greeks,  as  we  have  seen,  made  a 
fruitless  attempt  to  assert  their  independence,  by  attacking  his  allies,  the  JEto- 
lians ;  but  they  were  easily  beaten,  and  Antigonus  seems  to  have  reigned  with- 
out further  molestation  in  Thessaly  and  Bceotia,  whilst  Ptolemy  Ceraunus  still 
held  his  ill-gotten  power  in  Macedonia. 

Things  were  in  this  state  when  ambassadors"2  from  Tarentum  entreated  Pyr- 
rhus to  cross  over  into  Italy,  to  protect  both  themselves  and  the  ^^  u  .^.^  ^ 
other  Greek  cities  of  Italy  from  a  barbarian  enemy  far  more  for-  ti£r  Tarentine.  in* 
midable  than  the  Lucanians,  the  old  enemies  of  his  kinsman  Alex- 
ander. Times  were  now  so  changed  that  the  Lucanians  and  Samnites  were 
leagued  in  one  common  cause  with  the  Greeks,  with  whom  they  had  been  so 
long  at  enmity ;  the  Etruscans  had  taken  part  also  in  the  confederacy ;  yet  the 
united  efforts  of  so  many  states  were  too  weak  to  resist  the  new  power  which 
had  grown  up  in  the  centre  of  Italy,  and  was  fast  arriving  at  the  dominion  of  the 
whole  peninsula.  To  conquer  these  fierce  barbarians,  and  to  save  so  many  Greek 
cities  from  slavery  was  a  work  that  well  became  the  kinsman  of  the  great  Alex- 
ander, the  descendant  of  Achilles  and  JEacus. 

The  prayer  of  the  Tarentines  suited  well  with  the  temper  and  the  circumstan- 
ces of  Pyrrhus.  He  promised  them  his  aid,  and  began  forthwith  to  prepare  for 
his  passage  to  Italy,  and  for  his  war  with  the  Romans. 

IW  Porphyry  and  Dexippus.  apud  Euseb.  pp.  m  Justin,  XXIV.  1.  Memnon,  opud  Pho» 
68-68.  tium,  p.  226.  Ed.  Bekker. 

See  Polybius,  XXII.  10, 13.  m  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  18. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI, 

SOME  AND  THE  EOMAN  PEOPLE  AT  THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  WAR  WITH  TBB 
TARENTINES  AND  WITH  PYRRHUS. 


"Privatus  illis  census  erat  brevis 
Commune  magnum ;  nulla  decempedis 
Metata  privatis  opacam 

Portions  excipiebat  Arctpn, 
Nee  fortuitum  spernere  cespitem 
^eges  sinebant,  oppida  publico 
Sumtu  jubentes  et  dec-rum 
Templa  iiovo  decorare  saxo." 

HORAT.  Carmin.  II.  15. 


THE  preceding  chapter  has  been  compiled  from  materials  which  in  their  actual 
sketch  of  the  intem«i  state  are  often  fragmentary,  and  even  when  they  are  perfect,  are 
not  original.  But  yet  they  were  derived  from  original  sources ; 
for  although  the  contemporary  histories  of  Alexander's  successors  have  long 
since  perished,  yet  they  did  once  exist,  and  were  accessible  to  the  writers  whom 
we  read  and  copy  now.  We  cross  the  Adriatic  to  inquire  into  the  state  of  Italy, 
and  not  only  are  our  existing  materials  the  merest  wreck  of  a  lost  history,  not  only 
would  they  tell  their  story  to  us  at  second  hand,  if  they  had  been  preserved  en- 
tire ;  but  even  these  very  accounts  could  have  been  taken  from  no  contemporary 
historians,  for  none  such  ever  existed.  In  this  absolute  dearth  of  direct  informa- 
tion, it  is  impossible  that  the  following  sketch  should  be  other  than  meagre,  and 
it  must  also  rest  partly  on  conjecture.  Unsatisfactory  as  this  is,  yet  the  nature 
of  the  case  will  allow  of  nothing  better ;  and  I  can  but  encourage  myself,  while 
painfully  feeling  my  way  amid  such  thick  darkness,  with  the  hope  of  arriving  at 
length  at  the  light,  and  enjoying  all  the  freshness  and  fulness  of  a  detailed  con- 
temporary history. 

In  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century,  the  Roman  people  was  divided  into  three- 
Thedivi.ionioftheRo-  and-thirty  tribes  ;l  and  the  total  number  of  citizens,  which  included, 
mau  people.  besides  those  enrolled  in  the  tribes,  the  agrarians,  and  the  people 

of  those  foreign  states,  which  had  been  obliged  to  receive  the  civitas  sine  suf- 
fragio,  amounted  to  272,000.2  What  proportion  of  these  were  enrolled  in  the 
tribes,  or,  in  other  words,  enjoyed  the  full  rights  of  citizenship,  we  cannot  tell, 
nor  have  we  any  means  of  estimating  the  number  of  the  serarians ;  nor  again, 
can  we  draw  any  inference  as  to  the  population  of  the  city  of  Rome,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  country  tribes ;  nor  can  we  at  all  compute  the  proportion  of 
slaves  at  this  time  to  freemen.  The  class  of  serarians,  however,  must  have  been 
greatly  diminished,  since  freedmen  and  persons  engaged  in  retail  trade  or  manu- 
factures had  been  enrolled  in  the  tribes ;  and  it  could  have  only  contained  those 

1  That  is  to  say,  twenty  tribes  are  known  to  tribes  were  created,  which  included  the  Priver 

have  existed  in  the  earliest  period  of  the  com-  natians,  and  the  settlers  in  the  Falernian  plain, 

mon  wealth,  and  another  was  added  soon  after-  And,  lastly,  after  the  JSquian^war,  two  more 

wards.    The  number  of  twenty-one  continued  were  added  in  455,  the  Aniensian  and  the  Te- 

till  after  the  Gaulish  invasion,  when  four  more  rentine,  in  which  were  enrolled  the  ^Equians. 
were  added  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Tiber,  in        All  these  are  clearly  local  tribes,  and  their 

368;  namely,  the  Stellatine,  the  Tromentme,  situation  is  well  known.    The  same  may  bo 

the  Sabatine,  and  the  Arniensian.    Two  more  said  of  the  *our  city  tribes,  the  Colline,  the  Es- 

were  added  in  397  for  the  inhabitants  of  the  old  quiline,  the  Palatine,  and  the  tribe  of  Subura. 

Volscian  lowlands  near  the  Pomptine  marshes,  But  to  the  remaining  seventeen,  which   aro 

the  Pomptine  and  the  Publilian.  Two  more  were  mostly  named  after  some  nohle  Roman  family, 

added  after  the  Latin  war  in  422,  the  Maecian  as  the  JSmilian,  the  Cornelian,  the  Fabian,  &c.t 

and  the  Scaptian,  for  the  Lanuvians  and  some  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  assign  their  propel 

other  people  of  Latium.    In  the  second  Sam-  locality, 
nite  war,  m  436-7,  the  Ufentine  and  Falerian        a  Livy,  Epit.  XI. 


CHAP.  XXXVI.]      MANNER  OF  LIFE  OF  THE  COUNTRY  TRIBES.  381 

who  had  forfeited  their  franchise,  either  in  consequence  of  their  having  incurred 
legal  infamy,  or  by  the  authority  of  tho  censors. 

The  members  of  the  country  tribes,  of  those  at  least  which  had  been  created 
within  the  last  century,  lived  on  their  lands,  and  probably  only  Mftnner  of  ,.fe  of  tha 
went  up  to  Rome  to  vote  at  the  elections,  or  when  any  law  of  citizens  of  the  coantry 

*  iii  tribes. 

great  national  importance  was  proposed,  and  there  was  a  power- 
ful party  opposed  to  its  enactment.  They  were  also  obliged  to  appear  on  the 
Capitol  on  the  day  fixed  by  the  consuls  for  the  enlistment  of  soldiers  for  the . 
legions.3  Law  business  might  also  call  them  up  to  Rome  occasionally,  and  the 
Roman  games,  or  any  other  great  festival,  would  no  doubt  draw  them  thither  in 
great  numbers.  With  these  exceptions,  and  when  they  were  not  serving  in  the 
legions,  they  lived  on  their  small  properties  in  the  country ;  their  business  was 
agriculture,  their  recreations  were  country  sports,  and  their  social  pleasures  were 
found  in  the  meetings  of  their  neighbors  at  seasons  of  festival ;  at  these  times 
there  would  be  dancing,  music,  and  often  some  pantomimic  acting,  or  some  rude 
attempts  at  dramatic  dialogue,  one  of  the  simplest  and  most  universal  amuse- 
ments of  the  human  mind.  This  was  enough  to  satisfy  all  their  intellectual 
cravings  ;  of  the  beauty  of  painting,  sculpture,  or  architecture,  of  the  charms  of 
eloquence  and  of  the  highest  poetry,  of  the  deep  interest  which  can  be  excited 
by  inquiry  into  the  causes  of  all  the  wonders  around  us  and  within  us,  of  some  of 
the  highest  and  most  indispensable  enjoyments  of  an  Athenian's  nature,  the  ag- 
ricultural Romans  of  the  fifth  century  had  no  notion  whatsoever. 

But  it  was  not  possible  that  an  equal  simplicity  should  have  existed  at  Rome. 
Their  close  and  constant  intercourse  with  other  men  sharpens  and 

,   .  c      i          •    i      i  •  •   •  1  And  of  those  of  the  city 

awakens  the  faculties  of  the  inhabitants  ot  cities ;  and  country  ^^J?]"^:  ££ 
sports  being  by  the  necessity  of  the  case  denied  to  them,  they  uniani^Ud'thebgui- 
learn  earlier  to  value  such  pleasures  as  can  be  supplied  by  the  art 
or  genius  of  man.  Besides,  the  conduct  of  political  affairs  on  a  large  scale, 
much  more  when  these  affairs  are  publicly  discussed  either  in  a  council  or 
in  a  popular  assembly,  cannot  but  create  an  appreciation  of  intellectual  power 
and  of  eloquence ;  and  the  multiplied  transactions  of  civil  life,  leading  per- 
petually to  disputes,  and  these  disputes  requiring  a  legal  decision,  a  knowledge 
of  law  became  a  valuable  accomplishment,  and  the  study  of  law,  which  is 
as  wholesome  to  the  human  mind  as  the  practice  of  it  is  often  injurious,  was 
naturally  a  favorite  pursuit  with  those  who  had  leisure,  and  who  wished  either 
to  gain  influence  or  to  render  services.  Thus  the  family  of  the  Claudii  seem 
always  to  have  aspired  after  civil  rather  than  military  distinction.  Appius 
Claudius,  the  censor,  was  a  respectable  soldier,  but  he  is  much  better  known  by 
his  great  public  works  and  by  his  speech  against  making  peace  with  Pyrrhus, 
than  by  his  achievements  in  war;  nay,  it  is  said,  that  his  plebeian  colleague  in 
the  consulship,  L.  Volumnius,  taunted  him  with  his  legal  knowledge  and  his  elo- 
quence, as  if  he  could  only  talk4  and  not  fight.  The  Claudii,  however,  were  dis- 
tinguished by  their  high  nobility,  independently  of  any  personal  accomplish- 
ments ;  but  the  family  of  the  Coruncanii  owed  its  celebrity  entirely,  so  far  as  it 
appears,  to  their  acquaintance  with  the  law.  Ti.  Coruncanius5  was  consul  with 
P.  Laevinus  in  the  year  when  Pyrrhus  came  into  Italy,  and  was  named  dictator 
more  than  thirty  years  afterwards  for  the  purpose  of  holding  the  comitia.  He 
left  no  writings  behind  him,  but  was  accustomed  to  the  very  latest  period  of  his 
life  to  give  answers  on  points  of  law  to  all  that  chose  to  consult  him ;  and  his 
reputation  was  so  high  that  he  was  the  first  plebeian6  who  was  ever  appointed  to 
the  dignity  of  pontifex  maximus.  The  Ogulnii  also  appear  to  have  been  a  family 
distinguished  for  knowledge  and  accomplishments.  Two  brothers  of  this  name 
were,  as  we  have  seen,  the  authors  of  the  law  which  threw  open  the  offices  of 


*  Pplybius,  VI.  19.  5  Pomponius,  de  Origins  Juris,  §  35,  38.    Ci- 

4  Livy,  X.  19.  cero,  Brutus,  14.    Cato  Major,  9. 

•  Livy,  Epit.  XVIII. 


382  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXVI 

augur  and  pontifex  to  the  commons,  and  afterwards  in  their  ssdileship  they  orna- 
mented the  city  with  several  works  of  art ;  and  one  of  them,  besides  his  embassy 
to  Epidaurus,  already  noticed,  was  sent  as  one  of  three  ambassadors7  to  Ptolemy 
Philadelphia,  king  of  Egypt,  soon  after  the  retreat  of  Pyrrhus  from  Italy. 

There  was  as  yet  no  regular  drama,  for  Livius  Andronicus  did  not  begin  to  ex- 
Totai  absence  of  AH  iu-  hibit  his  plays  till  after  the  first  Punic  war;8  but  there  were  pan- 
.rature.  tomimic  dances  performed  by  Etruscan  actors  ;9  there  were  the 

saturae10  or  medleys,  sung  and  acted  by  native  performers ;  and  there  were  the 
comic  or  satirical  dialogues  on  some  ludicrous  story  (fabellas  atellanae),  in  which 
the  actors  were  of  a  higher  rank,  as  this  entertainment  was  rather  considered  an 
old  national  custom,  than  a  spectacle  exhibited  for  the  public  amusement.  There 
were  no  famous  poets,  nor  any  Homer,  to  embody  in  an  imperishable  form  the 
poetical  traditions  of  his  country  ;  but  there  were  the  natural  elements  cf  poetry," 
and  the  natural  love  of  it;  and  it  was  long  the  custom  at  all  entertainments11  that 
each  guest  in  his  turn  should  sing  some  heroic  song,  recording  the  worthy  deeds 
of  some  noble  Roman.  So  also  there  was  no  history,  but  there  was  the  innate 
desire  of  living  in  the  memory  of  after-ages ;  and  in  all  the  great  families,  pane- 
gyrical orations  were  delivered  at  the  funeral  of  each  of  their  members,  contain- 
ing a  most  exaggerated  account  of  his  life  and  actions.12  These  orations  existed 
in  the  total  absence  of  all  other  statements,  and  from  these  chiefly  the  annalists 
of  the  succeeding  century  compiled  their  narratives ;  and  thus  every  war  is  made 
to  exhibit  a  series  of  victories,  and  all  the  most  remarkable  characters  in  the  Ro- 
man story  are  represented  as  men  without  reproach,  or  of  heroic  excellence. 

But  whilst  literature  was  unknown,  and  poetry,  and  even  the  drama  itself, 
were  in  their  earliest  infancy,  the  Romans  enjoyed  with  the  keen 

Public        amusements.  ,       i    i  •     i    .     j  i  /•      i  •  i  •    i  iiiji 

the  great  games  of  the  est  delight  the  sports  ot  the  circus,  which  resembled  the  great 
national  games  of  Greece.  Every  year  in  the  month  of  Septem- 
ber13 four  days  were  devoted  to  the  celebration  of  what  were  called  indifferently, 
the  Great  or  the  Roman  Games.  Like  all  the  spectacles  of  the  ancient  world, 
they  were  properly  a  religious  solemnity,  a  great  festival  in  honor  of  the  three 
national  divinities  of  the  Capitoline  temple,  Jupiter,  Juno,  and  Minerva.  On 
the  first  day  of  the  festival,  the  whole  people  went  in  procession14  from  the  Capi- 
tol through  the  Forum  to  the  circus ;  there  the  sacrifice  was  performed,  and 
afterwards  the  exhibition  of  the  various  games  began,  which  was  so  entirely  a 

7  Dionysius,  XX.  4.     Fragm.  Vatic.  Valer.  Roman  Antiquities.    The  view  of  the  circus 
Maxim.  IV.  3.  §  9.  and  the  Palatine,  given  in  Panvinius'  work,  13 

8  Clinton,  Fasti  Hellenici,  Vol.  III.  p.  25,  B.  c.  curious,  as  showing  how  greatly  Rome  has 
240.  changed  in  the  last  250  years.     A  shorter  ac- 

9  Livy,  VII.  2.  count  may  be  found  in  Rosini  and  Dempster's 

10  I  am  not  venturing  to  determine  the  ety-  work  on  Roman  antiquities ;   and  the  topog- 
inology  of  this  word,  but  giving  merely  a  de-  raphy  of  the  circus  is  given  in  Bunsen   and 
scription  of  the  thing.     "Olim  carmen  quod  ex  Platner's  description  of  Borne,  Vol.  III.  p.  91. 
vurhs  poematibus  constabat,  satyra  vocabatur,  Gibbon  has  given  one  of  his  lively  and  com- 
quale  scripserunt  Pacuvius  et  Ennius."    Dio-  prehensive  sketches  of  the  games  of  the  circus, 
modes,  III.  9.     Livy  speaks  of  the  saturse  or  in  his  account  of  the  reign  of  Justinian,  which 
satyrse,  as  an  intermediate  state  in  the  dramatic  notices  every  important  point  in  the  subject, 
art' between  the  acting  of  regular  stories  with  a  A  representation  of  the  circus  is  given  on  sev- 
plot,  and  the  mere  rude  sparring  with  coarse  eral  coins  which  may  be  seen  in  Panvinius' 
icsts,  "  versum  incompositum  temere  ac  rudem  work,  and  which  enables  us  to  form  a  sufficient 
aiternis  jaciebant,"  which  used  to  go  on  between  notion  of  its  appearance.  The  bands  or  factions 
two  performers.    The  saturae  appear,  then,  to  of  the  drivers  are  noticed  in  numerous  inscrip- 
have  been  comic  songs  in  regular  verse,  in  tions. 

which  a  great  variety  of  subjects  were  succes-  "  Tertullian,  De  Spectaculis,  VII.     His  enu- 

sively  noticed,  without  any  more  connection  meration  of  the  several  parts  of  the  great  pro- 

than  as  being  each  of  them  points  on  which  the  cession  is  full  and  lively.  _  "  De,  simulacrorum 

nearers  could  be  readily  excited  to  laughter.  serie,   de  imaginum  agrnine,   de  curribus,  de 

11  Cicero,  Brutus,  19.  thensis,  de  armamaxis,  de  sedibus,  de  coronis, 

12  Cicero,  Brutus,  16.     Livy,  VIII.  40.  de  exuviis,  quanta  praeterea  sacra,  quanta  sac- 

13  The  fullest  work  on  the  games  of  the  cir~  rificia  praecedant,  intercedant,  succcdant,  quot 
ens  is,  I  suppose,  that  of  Onuphrius  Panvinius  collegia,  quot  sacerdotia,  quot  officiamoveantur, 
(Onofrio  Panvini,  a  Veronese,  who  flourished  sciurit  homines  illius  urbis  in  qua  daemoniorutli 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  16th  century),  published  conventus  consedit." 

in  the  ninth  volume  of  Graevius'  Collection  of 


CHAP.  XXXVI.]  PUBLIC  BUILDINGS,  TEMPLES,  ETC.  363 

national  ceremony,  that  the  magistrate  of  highest  rank  who  happened  to  be  in 
Rome  gave  the  signal  for  the  starting  of  the  horses  in  the  chariot  race.  The 
circus  itself  was  especially  consecrated  to  the  sun,  and  the  colors  by  which  the 
drivers  of  the  chariots  were  distinguished,  were  supposed  to  have  a  mystical 
allusion  to  the  different  seasons.15  Originally  there  were  only  two  colors,  white 
and  red,  the  one  a  symbol  of  the  snows  of  winter,  the  other  of  the  fiery  heat 
of  summer ;  but  two  others  were  afterwards  added,  the  spring-like  green,  and 
the  autumnal  gray  or  blue.  The  charioteers,  who  wore  the  same  colors,  were_ 
called  the  red  or  white,  or  green  or  blue  band  (factio),  and  these  bands  became 
in  later  times  the  subject  of  the  strongest  party  feeling ;  for  men  attached  them- 
selves either  to  the  one  or  the  other,  and  would  have  as  little  been  induced  to 
change  their  color  in  the  circus  as  their  political  party  in  the  commonwealth. 
It  does  not  appear  that  these  colors  were  connected  with  any  real  differences, 
social  or  political ;  there  were  no  ideas  of  which  they  were  severally  the  sym- 
bols ;  and  thus,  while  the  commonwealth  lasted,  the  bands  of  the  circus  seem  to 
have  excited  no  deeper  or  more  lasting  interest  than  the  wishes  of  their  respect- 
ive partisans  for  their  success  in  the  chariot  race.  But  afterwards,  -'hen  the 
emperor  was  known  to  favor  any  one  color  mot\3  than  another,  that  color  would 
naturally  become  the  badge  of  his  friends,  and  the  opposite  color  the  rallying 
point  of  his  enemies ;  and  when  a  real  political  feeling  was  connected  with  these 
symbols,  it  vvas  not  wonderful  that  the  bands  of  the  circus  became  truly  factions, 
and  that  their  quarrels  in  the  lower  empire  should  have  sometimes  deluged  Con- 
stantinople with  blood. 

The  Romans  in  the  fifth  century  enjoyed  the  games  as  keenly  as  their  descend- 
ants under  the  emperors ;  but  the  lavish  magnificence  of  the  im- 

•    i  -I,  ,-,  i  ,TT         11  i«     Public  works.    Numer- 

penal  circus  was  as  yet  altogether  unknown.  Wooden  boxes16  o»s  templet  buut  u*a 
supported  on  poles,  like  the  simplest  form  of  a  stand  on  an  Eng- 
lish race-course,  were  the  best  accommodation  as  yet  provided  for  the  specta- 
tors ;  and  it  was  only  in  the  fifth  century  that  the  carceres17  were  first  erected, 
a  line  of  buildings  of  the  common  volcanic  tufo  of  Rome  itself,  extending  along 
one  end  of  the  circus,  each  with  a  door  opening  upon  the  course,  from  which  the 
horses  were  brought  out  to  take  their  places,  before  they  started  on  the  race. 
But  although  the  works  of  this  period  were  simple,  yet  they  now  began  to  be 
very  numerous,  and  some  of  them  were  on  a  scale  of  very  imposing  grandeur. 
Livy  has  recorded  the  building  of  seven  new  temples18  within  ten  years,  between 
452  and  462  ;  for  the  period  immediately  following  we  have  no  detailed  history, 
but  the  foundation  of  the  temple  of  ^Esculapius,  about  two  years  later,  is  noticed 
in  the  epitome  of  Livy's  eleventh  book ;  and  many  others  may  have  been  founded, 
of  which  we  have  no  memorial.  It  is  mentioned  also  that  C.  Fabius19  orna- 
mented one  of  these  temples,  that  of  Deliverance  from  Danger,  with  frescoes  of 
his  own  execution,  in  consequence  of  which  he  obtained  the  surname  of  Pictor. 
The  date  of  the  Greek  artists,  Damophilus  and  Gorgasus,20  who  painted  the 
frescoes  of  the  temple  of  Ceres,  close  by  the  circus,  we  have  no  means  of  deter- 
mining, but  several  notices  show  that  a  taste  for  the  arts  was  beginning  at  this 
time  to  be  felt  at  Rome.  The  colossal  bronze  statue  of  Jupiter,  set  up  by  Sp. 
Carvilius  in  the  Capitol,  in  the  year  461,  has  been  already  noticed,  as  well  as  the 
famous  group  of  the  she-wolf  suckling  Romulus  and  Remus,  which  was  placed 
in  the  comitium  three  years  before.  And  at  the  same  time  a  statue  of  Jupiter  in 

15  Tertullian,  ibid.  VIII.  IX.  in  the  great  battle  of  Sentinum  (X.  29) ;  a  third 

*  Livy,  I.  35.  near  the  circus,  dedicated  to  Venus  (X.  31);  a 

n  Livy,  VIII.  20.     Suetonius  in  Claud.  21.  fourth  dedicated  to  Victory  (X.  33);  a  fifth  to 

There  are  representations  of  the  carceres  in  one  Jupiter  the  Stayer  of  Flight  (X.  37) ;  a  sixth  to 

or  two  of  the  engravings  of  Panvinius'  work,  Fortis  Fortuna  (X.  46) ;  and  a  seventh  to  Sal  us, 

copied  from  antiques.  or  Deliverance  from  Danger,  which  was  the 

Namely,  a  temple  of  Bellona,  vowed  by  temple  painted  by  Fabius  Pictor  (Livv.  X.  1), 
Appius  Claudius  in  458  (Livy,  X.  19) ;  another        Ja  Pliny,  Hist.  Nntur.  XXXV.  §  19." 
of  Jupiter  the  Victorious,  vowed  by  Q.  Fabius        *  Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.  XXXV.  §  45. 


384  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXYL 

a  chariot  drawn  by  four  horses,21  the  work  of  an  Etruscan  artist,  and  wrought  in 
clay,  was  erected  on  the  summit  of  the  Capitol. 

The  temple  of  Bellona,  built  by  Appius  Claudius82  in  fulfilment  of  a  vow  made 
Fnm»y  images  worn  °n  tue  field  °f  battle,  was  decorated  with  a  row  of  shields  or 
like  mask,  at  funeral*,  escutcheons,  on  which  were  represented  his  several  ancestors  with 
scrolls  recording  the  offices  which  they  had  filled,  and  the  triumphs  which  they 
had  won.  Whoever  of  these  had  been  the  father  of  a  family  was  represented 
with  all  his  children  by  his  side,  as  in  some  of  our  old  monuments.  In  these 
and  in  all  similar  works,  an  exact  likeness23  was  considered  of  much  greater  im- 
portance than  any  excellence  of  art  ;  for  the  object  desired  was  to  transmit  to 
posterity  a  lively  image  of  those  who  had  in  their  generation  done  honor  to 
their  name  and  family.  For  this  purpose  waxen  busts,  the  scorn  of  the  mere 
artist,  were  kept  in  cases  ranged  along  the  sides  of  the  court  in  the  houses  of  all 
great  families  ;  these  were  painted  to  the  life,  and  being  hollow,  were  worn  like 
a  mask24  at  funerals  by  some  of  the  dependents  of  the  family,  who  also  put 
on  the  dress  of  the  office  of  rank  of  him  whose  semblance  they  bore  ;  so  that  it 
seemed  as  if  the  dead  were  attended  to  his  grave  by  all  the  members  of  his  race 
of  past  generations,  no  less  than  by  those  who  still  survived.  None  were  so 
represented  who  had  not  in  their  lifetime  filled  some  honorable  public  station, 
and  thus  the  number  of  images  worn  at  any  funeral  was  the  exact  measure  of 
the  family's  nobility. 

No  other  aqueduct  had  yet  been  added  to  that  constructed  by  Appius  Clau- 

TheAppian  road  payed  dius  in  his  famous  censorship  ;  nor  had  any  later  road  rivalled 

the  magnificence  of  the  Appian.    This  was  paved  with  lava  in  the 

year  461,  from  the  temple  of  Mars,25  a  little  on  the  outside  of  the  city  walls,  to 

Bovillce,  at  the  foot  of  the  Alban  hills. 

The  city  itself  was  still  confined  within  the  walls  of  Servius  Tullius.  The 
Extent  and  aspect  of  Capitol  and  the  Quirinal  hills  formed  its  northern  limit,  and 
the  city>  looked  down  immediately  on  the  open  space  of  the  Campus  Mar- 

tins, now  covered  with  the  greatest  part  of  the  buildings  of  modern  Rome.  Art  or 
caprice  had  not  yet  effaced  the  natural  features  of  the  ground,  by  cutting  down 
hills  and  filling  up  valleys,  nor  had  the  mere  lapse  of  time  as  yet  raised  the  soil 
by  continued  accumulations  to  a  height  far  above  its  original  level.  The  hills, 
with  their  bare,  rocky  sides,  and  covered  in  many  parts  with  sacred  groves, 
the  remains  of  their  primeval  woods,  rose  distinctly  and  boldly  from  the  valleys 
between  them  ;  on  their  summits  were  the  principal  temples  and  the  houses  of 
the  noblest  families  ;  beneath  were  the  narrow  streets  and  lofty  houses,26  roofed 
only  with  wood,  of  the  more  populous  quarters  of  the  city,  and  in  the  midst, 
reaching  from  the  Capitoline  hill  to  the  Palatine,  lay  the  comitium  and  the  Ro- 
man Forum. 

A  spot  so  famous  well  deserves  to  be  described,  that  we  may  conceive  its  prin- 

Description  of  the  FO-  cipal  features,  and  image  to  ourselves  the  scene  as  well  as  the  actors 

in  so  many  of  the  great  events  of  the  Roman  history.     From  the 

foot  of  the  Capitoline  hill97  to  that  of  the  Palatine,  there  ran  an  open  space  of 

21  Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.  XXXV.  §  158.  the  ancestors  of  the  first  Appius,  and  what 

M  Pliny  (Hist.  Nat.  XXXV.  §  2,  3)  ascribes  offices  could  they  have  filled  at  Rome,  when  he 

these  shields  to  the  first  Appius  Claudius,  who  himself  was  the  first  of  his  family  who  became 

was  consul  with  P.  Servihus  in  259.     But  un-  a  Roman? 

less  the  words  "  qui  consul  cum  Servilio  fuit  ^  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  XXXV.  §  4.  6. 

anno  urbis  CCLIX."  are  an  unlucky  gloss  of  24  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  XXXV.  §  6.    Polybius, 

some  ignorant  reader,  as  is  most  probable,  they  VI.  53. 

pecm  to  show  an  extraordinary  carelessness  in  2B  Livy,  X.  47. 

Pliny  himself;  for  to  say  nothing  of  the  direct  26  Pliny,  XVI.  §  36,  quoting  from  Cornelius 

testimony,  which  ascribes  the  foundation  of  the  Nepos. 

temple  of  Bellona  to  Appius  the  Blind  in  458.  **  The  whole  of  the  following  description  of 

'  ' 


fixed  to  this  temnle  :  but  who  could  have  been    given  by  its  author  in  another  form,  in  a  lettei 


CHAP.  XXXVI.]  DESCRIPTION  OF  THE  FORUM.  385 

unequal  breadth,  narrowing  as  it  approached  the  Palatine,  and  enclosed  on  both 
sides  between  two  branches  of  the  Sacred  Way.  Its  narrower  end  was  occupied 
by  the  comitium,  the  place  of  meeting  of  the  populus  or  great  council  of  the 
burghers  in  the  earliest  times  of  the  republic,  whilst  its  wider  extremity  was  the 
Forum,  in  the  stricter  sense,  the  market-place  of  the  Romans,  and  therefore  the 
natural  place  of  meeting  for  the  commons,  who  formed  the  majority  of  the  Ro- 
man nation.  The  comitium  was  raised  a  little  above  the  level  of  the  Forum,  like 
the  dais  or  upper  part  of  our  old  castle  and  college  halls,  and  at  its  extremity 
nearest  the  Forum  stood  the  rostra,  such  as  I  have  already  described  it,  facing 
at  this  period  towards  the  comitium,  so  that  the  speakers  addressed,  not  indeed 
the  patrician  multitude  as  of  old,  but  the  senators,  who  had,  in  a  manner,  suc- 
ceeded to  their  place,  and  who  were  accustomed  to  stand  in  this  part  of  the  as- 
sembly, immediately  in  front  of  the  senate-house,  which  looked  upon  the  comi- 
tium from  the  northern  side  of  the  Via  Sacra.  The  magnificent  basilicae,  which 
at  a  later  period  formed  the  two  sides  cf  the  Forum,  were  not  yet  in  existence, 
but  in  their  place  there  were  two  rows  of  solid  square  pillars  of  peperino,  forming 
a  front  to  the  shops  of  various  kinds,  which  lay  behind  them.  These  shops  were 
like  so  many  cells,  open  to  the  street,  and  closed  behind,  and  had  no  communica- 
tion with  the  houses  which  were  built  over  them.  Those  on  the  north  side  of 
the  Forum  had  been  rebuilt  or  improved  during  the  early  part  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury, and  were  called  in  consequence  the  new  shops,  a  name  which,  as  usual  in 
such  cases,  they  retained  for  centuries.  On  the  south  side,  the  line  of  shops  was 
interrupted  by  the  temple  of  Castor  and  Pollux,  which  had  been  built,  according 
to  the  common  tradition,  by  the  dictator,  A.  Postumius,  in  gratitude  for  the  aid 
afforded  him  by  the  twin  heroes  in  the  battle  of  the  lake  Regillus.  On  the  same  side 
also,  but  further  to  the  eastward,  and  nearly  opposite  to  the  senate-house,  was 
the  temple  of  Vesta,  and  close  to  the  temple  was  that  ancient  monument  of  the 
times  of  the  kings  which  went  by  the  name  of  the  court  of  Numa. 

In  the  open  space  of  the  Forum  might  be  seen  an  altar  which  marked  the  spot 
once  occupied  by  the  Curtian  pool,  the  subject  of  such  various  tra-  StatueS)  &c.( in  the Fo. 
ditions.  Hard  by  grew  the  three  sacred  trees28  of  the  oldest  rum' 
known  civilization,  the  fig,  the  vine,  and  the  olive,  which  were  so  carefully  pre- 
served or  renewed  that  they  existed  even  in  the  time  of  the  elder  Pliny.  Further 
towards  the  Capitol,  at  the  western  extremity  of  the  Forum,  were  the  equestrian 
statues  of  C.  Msenius  and  L.  Camillus,  the  conquerors  of  the  Latins. 

Nor  was  the  interior  of  the  comitium  destitute  of  objects  entitled  to  equal  ven- 
eration.    There  was  the  black  stone  which  marked,  according  to 
one  tradition,  the  grave  of  Faustulus,  the  foster-father  of  Romulus,  j«et»of  hTtemt  £  the 
according  to  another  that  of  Romulus  himself.     There  was  the 
statue  of  Attius  Navius,  the  famous  augur ;  and  there  too  was  the  sacred  fig- 
tree,  under  whose  shade  the  wolf  had  given  suck  to  the  two  twins,  Romulus  and 
Remus.     A  group  of  figures  representing  the  wolf  and  twins  had  been  recently 
set  up  in  this  very  place  by  the  sediles,  Q.  and  Cn.  Ogulnius,  and  the  fig-tree 

the  Chevalier  Canina,  written  in  French  (Rome,  history,  that  his  topography  is  necessarily  rcn- 

1837).    He  has  also  prefixed  to  some  impressions  dered  of  less  value.     Bunsen  has  had  every  ad- 

of'bis  German  article,  which  have  been  printed  vantage  of  local  knowledge  no  less  than  Nibby, 

separately,  all  the  passages  in  the  ancient  writers  but  with  his  local  knowledge  he  combines  othei 

which  throw  any  light  on  the  topography  of  the  qualities  which  Nibby  is  fur  from  possessing 

Forum.  equally. 

Since  this  chapter  was  written,  I  have  seen  However,  the  general  correctness  of  the  de- 

Nibby's  latest  work  on  the  topography  of  Rome,  scription  of  the  Forum  in  the  fifth  century  of 


which  was  published  in  1839.    His  plan  of  the  Rome,  as  given  in  the  text,  is  independent  of 

Forum  differs  topographically  from  Bunsen's;  the  question  whether  the  position  of  the  Forum 

he  places  it  further  to  the  west,  and  arranges  is  to  be  fixed  a  certain  number  of  yards  more 

the  buildings  differently.     But  historically  his  to  the  eastward  or  to  the  westward.     And  most 

views  are  so  imperfect,  and  he  follows  so  con-  of  those  buildings,  the  site  of  which  has  been 

tentedly  the  old  popular  accounts,  without  the  so  much  disputed,  were  not  in  existence  at  the 

slightest  knowledge,  so  far  as  appears,  of  the  period  to  which  this  sketch  relates. 

tUrht  which  Nicbuhr  has  thrown  on  the  Roman  m  Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.  XV.  §  78. 


25 


386  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [.CHAP.  XXXVI 

itself  had  been  removed  by  the  power  of  Attius  Navius,  so  said  the  story,89  from 
its  original  place  under  the  Palatine,  that  it  might  stand  in  the  midst  of  the 
meetings  of  the  Roman  people.  Nor  were  statues  wanting  to  the  comitium  any 
more  than  to  the  Forum.  Here  were  the  three  sibyls,  one  of  the  oldest  works 
of  Roman  art ;  here  also  were  the  small  figures  of  the  Roman  ambassadors  who 
had  been  slain  at  Fidense  by  the  Veientian  king  Tolumnius  ;  and  here  too,  at  the 
edge  of  the  comitium  where  it  joined  the  Forum,  were  the  statues  which  the 
Romans,  at  the  command  of  the  Delphian  oracle,  had  erected  in  honor  of  the 
wisest  and  bravest  of  the  Greeks,  the  statues  of  Pythagoras  and  Alcibiades. 

The  outward  appearance  of  the  Forum  in  the  fifth  century  was  very  different 
character  of  the  popu.  from  its  aspect  in  the  times  of  the  Caesars,  and  scarcely  less  dif- 
kuon ;  the  shops,  *c.  ferent  was  ^e  population  by  which  it  was  frequented  at  either 
period.  Rome  was  not  yet  the  general  resort  of  strangers  from  all  parts  of  the 
world ;  the  Tiber  was  as  yet  not  only  unpolluted  by  the  Syrian  Orbntes,  but  its 
waters  had  received  no  accession  from  the  purer  streams  of  Greece  ;  and  the 
crowd  which  thronged  the  Forum,  however  numerous  and  busy,  consisted  mainly 
of  the  citizens,  or  at  least  of  the  inhabitants  of  Rome.  The  shops  of  the  silver- 
smiths had  lately  superseded  those  of  a  less  showy  character  on  the  north  side  of 
the  Forum ;  but,  on  the  other  side,  the  butchers'  and  cooks'  shops  still  remained, 
as  in  the  days  of  Virginius,  and  it  marks  the  manners  of  the  times,  that  the 
wealthier  citizens  used  to  hire  cooks20  from  these  places  to  bake  their  bread  for 
them,  having  as  yet  no  slaves  who  understood  even  the  simplest  parts  of  the  art 
of  cookery. 

The  names  of  the  principal  families,  as  well  as  of  the  most  distinguished  men 
Great  famiiif8  of  thu  of  this  pefiod,  have  naturally  been  mentioned  already  in  the  course 
penod'  of  the  narrative.  It  is  enough  to  remark  that  Appius  Claudius 

was  still  alive,  though  now  old  and  blind,  that  M.  Valerius  Corvus  was  also  liv- 
ing, but  his  public  career  had  been  for  some  time  ended ;  and  that  Q.  Fabius, 
the  hero  of  the  third  Samnite  war,  had  died  not  long  after  its  conclusion.  Q. 
Publilius  Philo  was  also  dead,  and  with  him  expired  the  nobility  of  his  family. 
But  there  were  ready  to  meet  Pyrrhus,  the  two  victorious  generals  of  the  great 
campaign  of  461,  L.  Papirius  Cursor  and  Sp.  Carvilius  Maximus  ;  M'.  Curius 
Dentatus  was  still  in  the  vigor  of  life,  and  Q.  Fabius  and  P.  Decius  had  both  left 
sons  to  uphold  the  honor  of  their  name.  The  great  Cornelian  house  contributed 
eminent  citizens  for  their  country's  service  from  three  of  its  numerous  branches  ; 
among  the  consuls  of  the  fourth  Samnite  war  we  find  a  Cornelius  Lentulus,  a 
Cornelius  Rufinus,  and  a  Cornelius  Dolabella.  Two  other  names  will  demand 
our  notice  for  the  first  time,  those  of  C.  Fabricius  and  L.  Csecilius  Metellus,  the 
first  pre-eminent  in  the  purest  personal  glory,  but  a  glory  destined  to  pass  away 
from  his  family  after  one  generation,  "  no  son  of  his  succeeding ;"  while  L.  Csecilius, 
if  he  did  not  attain  himself  to  the  highest  distinction,  was  yet  "  the  father  of  a  line 
of  more  than  kings,"  of  those  illustrious  Metelli  who,  from  the  first  Punic  war  to 
the  end  of  the  commonwealth,  were  amongst  the  noblest  and  the  best  citizens  of 
Rome. 

Against  a  whole  nation  of  able  and  active  men  the  greatest  individual  genius 
of  a  single  enemy  must  ever  strive  in  vain.  The  victory  of  Pyrrhus  at  Heraclea 
was  endangered  by  a  rumor  that  he  was  slain,  for  in  his  person  lay  the  whole 
strength  of  his  army  and  of  his  cause.  But  had  the  noblest  of  the  Fabii  or  Cor- 
nelii  fallen  at  the  head  of  a  Roman  army,  the  safety  of  the  commonwealth  would 
not  have  been  for  a  single  moment  in  jeopardy.  This  contrast  alone  was  sufficient 
tc  ensure  the  decision  of  the  great  war  on  which  we  are  now  about  to  enter. 

""  The  passage  in  Pliny  which  mentions  this  "  Pliny,  Histor.  Natur.  XVIII.  §  108.    So  in 

story,  XV.  §  77,  is  clearly  corrupt,  and  various  the  Aulularia  of  Plautus,  the  cooks  are  hired  in 

corrections  of  it  have  been  attempted.    Bunsen  the  Forum  to  go  to  Euclio's  house,  and  dress 

has  given  one  in  a  note  to  his  article  on  the  his  daughter's  wedding  dinner. 
Forum,  Beschreib.  der  Stadt.  Eom.  III.  p.  62. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII, 

FOREIGN  HISTORY  FROM  464  TO  479— WARS  WITH  THE  ETRUSCANS,  GAULS^ 
AND  TARENTINES— FOURTH  SAMNITE  WAR— PYRRHUS  KING  OF  EPIRUS  IN. 
ITALY— BATTLES  OF  HERACLEA,  ASCULUM,  AND  BENEVENTUM. 


Non  Simois  tibi  nee  Xanthus  nee  Dorica  castra 
Defuerint ;  alius  Latio  jam  partus  Achilles. 

VIKGXL,  ^En.  VI.  87. 


THE  third  Samnite  war  ended  in  the  year  464,  and  Pyrrhus  invaded  Italy  ex- 


actly ten  years  later,  in  the  year  474.     The  events  of  the  interven- 

'-• 


Fourth    Samnit*    wat 

»nd  co 


.%«.!_.,.-••.  j     j  ,•  i  •  our         amn 

ing  period,  both  foreign  and  domestic,  are,  as  we  have  seen,  in-  »nd  coalition 
volved  in  the  deepest  obscurity  ;  but  as  I  have  attempted  tc  pre- 
sent an  outline  of  the  internal  state  of  Rome,  so  I  must  now  endeavor  to  irace 
the  perplexed  story  of  her  foreign  relations,  from  the  first  seeds  of  war,  which 
the  jealousy  of  the  Tarentines  either  sowed  or  earnestly  fostered,  to  the  organi- 
zation of  that  great  coalition,  in  which  the  Gauls  at  first,  and  Pyrrhus  afterwards, 
were  principal  actors. 

On  the  side  of  Etruria  there  had  been  for  a  long  time  past  neither  certain  peace 
nor  vigorous  war.  Jealousies  between  city  and  city,  and  party  State  and  deposition* 
revolution  in  the  se\viral  cities  themselves,  were,  as  we  have  seen,  °ftheEtruscan»- 
forever  compromising  the  tranquillity  and  paralyzing  the  exertions  of  the  Etrus- 
can nation.  In  461  the  cities  of  southern  Etruria  had  taken  up  arms,  and  had 
persuaded  the  Faliscans  to  join  them  ;  and  in  462  we  hear  of  victories  obtained 
over  the  Faliscans  by  the  consul,  D.  Junius  Brutus.1  No  further  particulars  are 
known  of  the  progress  of  the  contest,  but  it  appears  from  the  epitome  of  Livy's 
eleventh  book,  that  at  some  time  or  other  within  the  next  eight  years,  the  peo- 
ple of  Vulsinii  took  a  principal  part  in  it,  and  in  471  the  whole,  or  nearly  the 
whole,  of  the  Etruscan  nation  were  engaged  in  it  once  again. 

Further  to  the  north  "  the  Senoniau  Gauls  remained  quiet,"  says  Polybius,1 
"  for  a  period  of  ten  years  after  the  battle  of  Sentinum."     If  we 
take  this  statement  to  the  letter1;  we  must  fix  the  renewal  of  the 
Gaulish  war  in  469  ;  yet  we  cannot  trace  any  act  of  hostility  till  the  year  471. 
The  Gauls  appear  first  to  have  engaged  as  mercenaries  in  the  Etruscan  service,  and 
afterwards  to  have  joined  the  new  coalition  in  their  own  name. 

To  the  south  of  Rome,  Lucania,  during  the  third  Samnite  war,  had  remained 
faithful  to  the  Romans,  and  in  the  year  460  we  expressly  read  of  Of  &«  Iranian.  «ma 
Lucanian  cohorts  serving  with  the  Roman  legions.3  Of  Tarentum  Tarentines- 
nothing  is  recorded  after  its  short  war  with  the  Lucanians  and  Romans  in  451, 
which  appears  to  have  been  ended,  as  I  have  already  observed/  by  an  equal 
treaty. 

Italy  was  in  this  state  when  the  Luca«ians  attacked  the  Greek  city  of  Thurii. 
We  know  not  the  cause  or  pretext  of  the  quarrel,  but  those  unfor-  The  remans  att«<* 
tunate  Greek  cities  of  Italy  were  at  this  time  the  prey  of  every  ^.'^pT^h/fc 
spoiler;  Agathocles  had  made  repeated  expeditions  to  that  coast  mftu»for^. 
in  the  latter  years  of  his  reign,  and  had  taken  Croton  and  Hipponium,5  while  tho 
Italian  nations  of  the  interior  had  from  time  immemorial  regarded  them  as  ene- 
mies. Thurii  itself  had  been  taken  by  Cleonymus  in  45  26  when  he  was  playing 

1  Zonaras,  VIII.  1  *  See  chap.  XXXIII. 

3  Polybius,  II.  19  •  Diodorus,  XXI.  4,  8,  Fragai.  HoescheL 

»  Livy,  X.  33.  •  Livy,  X.  2. 


388 


HISTORY  OF  ROME. 


[CHAP.  XXXVH 


the  buccaneer  along  all  the  coasts  of  Italy ;  and  a  Roman  army  had  then  come 
to  its  aid,  but  too  late  to  prevent  its  capture.  This  was  perhaps  remembered 
now,  when  the  city  was  threatened  by  the  Lucanians,  and  the  Romans  were  im- 
plored once  again  to  bring  help  to  the  people  of  Thurii.  The  request  was  not  at 
first  granted ;  as  far  as  we  can  make  out  the  obscure  story  of  these  times,  the 
first  attacks  must  have  been  made  about  the  period  of  the  domestic  troubles  at 
Rome,  when  the  commons  occupied  the  Janiculum,  and  obliged  the  senate  to  con- 
sent to  the  Hortensian  laws.  During  two  successive  summers,  the  Lucanians 
ravaged  the  territory  of  Thurii,7  and  so  far  as  appears,  there  was  no  power  of  re- 
sistance in  the  inhabitants  themselves,  and  no  foreign  sword  was  drawn  to  defend 
them. 

Meanwhile  the  Hortensian  laws  were  passed,  and  with  them,  or  shortly  before, 
.    an  agrarian  law  had  been  passed  also.     The  power  of  the  assembly 

The    people    in    their        /•       i  MIII  i  I-IT  *  it 

tnbe^votejor  war  with  of  the  tribes  had  been  acknowledged  to  be  sovereign,  and  the 
popular  party  for  some  years  from  this  time,  feeling  itself  to  have 
the  disposal  of  all  that  the  state  might  conquer,  appears  to  have  been  as  fond 
of  war  as  ever  was  the  Athenian  democracy  under  Pericles,  while  the  aristo- 
cratical  party,  for  once  only  in  the  history  of  Rome,  seems  to  have  adopted  the 
peaceful  policy  of  Cimon  and  Nicias.  C.  ^Elius,  one  of  the  tribunes,  proposed 
and  carried  in  the  assembly  of  the  tribes  what  Pliny8  calls  a  law  against  Stenius 
Statilius,9  the  captain-general  of  the  Lucanians ;  in  other  words,  he  moved  that 
war  should  be  declared  against  Stenius  Statilius  and  all  his  followers  and  abet- 
tors ;  and  the  tribes  gave  their  votes  for  it  accordingly.  The  people  of  Thurii 
voted  to  ^Elius,  as  a  mark  of  their  gratitude,  a  statue  and  a  crown  of  gold,  and 
probably  a  Roman  army  was  sent  to  their  aid,  and  relieved  them  from  the  pres- 
ent danger  ;  but  the  Lucanians  were  not  subdued,  and  it  was  evident  that  they 
would  not  be  left  to  contend  against  Rome  single-handed. 


7  The  data  for  the  arrangement  of  all  these 
events  in  order  of  time  are  as  follows:  1.  The 
interposition  of  the  Romans  in  behalf  of  the 
Thurians  is  mentioned  in  the  epitome  of  the 
eleventh  book  of  Livy,  and  the  twelfth  book  be- 
gan apparently  with  the  consulship  of  Dolabella 
and  Domitius  in  the  year  471.  2.  M'.  Curias 
obtained  an  ovation  or  smaller  triumph  for  his 
victories  over  the  Lucanians.  ( Auctor  de  Viris 
Illustribus,  in  M'.  Curio.)  This  must  either 
have  been  in  the  year  after  his  consulship,  when 
he  was  perhaps  prastor,  or  else  in  471,  when  we 
know  that  he  was  appointed  praetor  after  the 
defeat  and  death  of  L.  Csecilius.  3.  But  when 
C.  Julius  earned  his  resolution  for  a  war  with 
the  Lucanians,  the  Lucanian  general  Statilius 
had  twice  assailed  the  Thurians  ("  bis  infestave- 
rat,  Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.  XXXIV.  §  32),  which, 
I  think,  implies  that  he  had  ravaged  their  lands 
for  two  successive  years ;  but  the  peace  with 
the  Samnites  was  only  concluded  in  the  year 
when  Curius  was  consul ;  and  throughout  the 
war  the  Lucanians  were  in  alliance  with  Rome, 
nor  were  they  likely  then  t<?  meddle  with  the 
Thurians.  4.  C.  ^Elius  passed  his  resolution  as 
tribune  ;  but  before  the  Hortensian  laws  were 
carried,  such  a  resolution  was  not  likely  to  have 
been  brought  forward  by  a  tribune,  nor  would 
it  have  been  carried  had  the  senate  been  opposed 
to  it ;  and  had  they  not  been  opposed  to  it,  it 
would  have  been  moved  probably  by  one  of  the 
consuls  with  their  authority.  5.  There  is  a  C. 
Julius  recorded  in  the  consular  Fasti,  as  having 
been_  consul  in  468 ;  we  dp  not  know  whether 
this  is  the  same  person  with  the  tribune ;  but 
if  he  were,  his  tribuneship,  as  preceding  his 
consulship,  must  have  taken  place  before  the 
yaw  468.  6.  The  date  of  the  Hortensian  laws 
in  inknown,  but  several  modern  writers  place 


it  in  the  very  year  468,  when  C.  jElius  v:as  con- 
sul. On  the  whole,  I  would  arrange  theso 
events  in  the  following  order : 

A.  U.  C.  464.    End  of  the  third  Samnite  war. 

A.  U.  C.  466,  467.  Lucanians  attack  the  Thu- 
rians. 

A.  U.  C.  467.  The  Hortensian  laws.  C. 
JElius,  tribune,  carries  his  motion  in  the  assem- 
bly of  the  tribes  for  a  war  with  the  Lucanians. 

A.  U.  C.  468.  C.  JElius,  consul,  chosen  per- 
haps as  a  reward  for  his  popular  conduct  in  his 
tribuneship. 

A.  U.  C.  471.  M'.  Curius  praetor.  His  ova- 
tion over  the  Lucanians. 

A.  U.  C.  472.  C.  Fabricius  consul.  He  de- 
feats the  Lucanians,  and  raises  the  siege  of 
Thurii. 

If  it  be  thought  that  this  scheme  leaves  too 
great  an  interval  between  the  declaration  of  war 
asrainst  the  Lucanians,  and  any  recorded  events 
of  the  war  (although,  in  the  total  absence  of  all 
details  of  this  period,. this  objection  is  not  of 
much  weight),  then  we  must  suppose  that  C. 
Julius,  the  tribune,  and  C.  Julius,  the  consul, 
were  different  persons ;  >  and  we  might  then 
place  the  resolution  against  the  Lucanians  a 
year  or  two  later.  But  it  seems  more  probable 
that  the  consul  and  the  tribune  were  one  and 
the  same  man,  and  then  I  think  the  above  scheme 
oifers  fewer  difficulties  than  any  other. 

8  Histor.  Natur.  XXIV.  §  32. 

•  It  was  probably  a  rogatio  to  the  following 
effect:  "  Vellent  juberentne  cum  StenioStatilio 
Lucanorum  prsetore,  quique  ejus  sectam  secuti 
essent,  bellum  iniri."  If  there  was  a  Roman 
party  still  predominant  in  any  part  of  Lucania, 
it  would  explain  why  the  rogatio  should  have 
rather  specified  Statilius  personally  than  de- 
clared war  against  the  whole  Lucanian  people. 


CHAP.  XXXVIL]  ROMAN  AMBASSADORS  MASSACRED.  389 

These  events  appear  to  have  taken  place  about  six  years  after  the  conclusion 
of  the  third  Samnite  war,  in  the  year  470,  when  C.  Servilius  Tucca  The  Tarentines  arebu 
and  L.  Csecilius  Metellus  were  consuls.  Whatever  was  the  cause,  »y  m  forming  »  coaii. 

,  .....  tion  (igaiu»t  Rome. 

the  Tarentines10  at  this  period  were  most  active  m  forming  a  new 
coalition  against  Rome.  They  endeavored  to  excite  the  Samnites  to  renew  the 
war,  and  the  Samnites,  with  the  Lucanians,  Apulians,  and  Bruttians,  were  to 
form  a  confederacy  in  the  south  of  Italy,  of  which  Tarentum  was  to  be  the  head. 
The  Romans  sent  C.  Fabricius  to  the  several  Samnite  and  Apulian  cities,  to  per-~ 
suade  them,  if  possible,  to  remain  true  to  their  alliance  with  Rome.  But  the 
states  to  whom  he  was  sent  laid  hands  on  him  and  arrested  him,  and  then  dis- 
patched an  embassy  with  all  speed  into  Etruria,  to  secure,  if  possible,  the  aid  of 
the  Etruscans,  Umbrians,  and  Gauls.  Fabricius,  we  may  suppose,  was  made  a 
hostage  for  the  safety  of  those  Samnite  hostages  who  had  been  demanded  by  the 
Romans  after  the  late  peace,  and  his  release  was  probably  the  stipulated  price  of 
theirs. 

In  the  following  year,  471,  the  Roman  consuls  were  P.  Cornelius  Dolabella 
and  Cn.  Domitius  Calvinus.  The  storm  broke  out  against  Rome  General  wftr  Ths 
in  every  direction.  In  the  south  the  Samnites,  Lucanians,  Brut-  BtnaeanMndCtanbi* 

i  ii-iitf  •  i>    i       i  i     **ef?e  Arretium,  whicfc 

tians,  and  probably  the  Apulians,  were  now  in  a  state  ot  declared  *™J»  foith^ul    t<( 
hostility  ;  while  in  the  north  the  mass  of  the  Etruscans  were  in 
arms,  and  had  engaged,11  it  seems,  large  bodies  of  the  Senonian  Gauls  in  their 
service,  although  the  Senonians,  as  a  nation,  still  professed  to  be  at  peace  with 
Rome.     In  Arretium,  however,  the  Roman  party  was  still  predominant  ;    the 
Arretines  would  not  join  their  countrymen  against  Rome  ;  and  A.  u.  c.  471.  A.  c. 
accordingly  Arretium12  was  besieged  by  an  Etruscan  army,  of  which  M3> 
a  large  part  consisted,  as  we  have  seen,  of  Gaulish  mercenaries. 

The  new  consuls  came  into  office  at  this  period,  about  the  middle  of  April  ;  so 
that  the  season  for  military  operations  had  begun  before  they 


aeciug  Metelhlg  -lt 
could  be  ready  to  take  the  field.     Thus  L.  Caecilius  Metellus,  the  defend  «d  «wn 


consul  of  the  preceding  year,  had  been  left  apparently  with  his 
consular  army  in  Etruria  during  the  winter  ;  and  when  the  Etruscans  began  the 
siege  of  Arretium,  he  marched  at  once  to  its  relief.  According  to  the  usual 
practice  of  this  period,  he  was  elected  praetor  for  the  year  following  his  consul- 
ship, and  he  seems  to  have  just  entered  upon  his  new  office  when  he  led  his 
army  against  the  enemy.  We  know  nothing  of  the  particulars  of  the  battle,  but 
the  result  was  most  disastrous  to  the  Romans.13  L.  Metellus  himself,  seven  mili- 
tary tribunes,  and  13,000  men  were  killed  on  the  field  ;  and  the  remainder  of  the 
army  were  made  prisoners. 

The  consternation  caused  by  such  a  disaster  at  such  a  moment  must  have  been 
excessive.  M'.  Curius  Dentatus  was  appointed  praetor  in  the  room  TheGauismnmcreth. 
of  Metellus,  and  sent  off  with  all  haste  with  a  fresh  army  to  main-  Roman  »mbaS8»do«- 
tain  his  ground  if  possible.  At  the  same  time  an  embassy  was  sent  to  the  Gauls 
to  complain  that  their  people  were  serving  in  the  armies14  of  the  enemies  of  Rome, 
while  there  was  peace  between  the  Gauls  and  Romans,  and  to  demand  that  the 
prisoners  taken  in  the  late  battle  might  be  released.  But  the  Gauls  were  at  once 
elated  and  rendered  savage  by  their  late  victory.  The  Romans  assuredly  had 
not  sold  their  lives  cheaply  ;  many  brave  Gauls  had  fallen,  and  amongst  the  rest 
one  of  their  noblest  chiefs,  Britomaris.  His  son,  the  young  Britomaris,  called  for 

10  Zor.aras,  VIII.  2,  and  Dion  Cassius,  Fragm.  writers  shows  that  both  are  taken  from  a  com- 
Ursiu.  CXLIV.  mon  source,  which  doubtless  was  Livy.    They 

11  Appian,  de  Rebus  Gallic.  XI.    Samnitic.  vary  from  the  account  given  by  Poly  bins,  in  rep- 
VI.                                    ,  resenting  the  murder  of  the  Roman  ambassa- 

1  Polybius,  II.  19.  dors  as  preceding  the  defeat  of  Metellus.     Ap- 

13  Orosius,  III.  22,  and  Augustine,  do  Civi-  pian,  copying  from  Dionysius,  agrees  with  Po- 

tato Dei,  III.  17.     Orosius  dedicated  his  history  lybius. 

to  Augustine,  and  the  exact  similarity  of  the        "  Appian,  Samnitic.  Fragm.  VI.  Gallic.  XI. 
notices  about  the  defeat  of  L.  Metellus  in  both 


390  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXVIl 

vengeance  for  his  father's  blood ;  and  the  Roman  ambassadors,  the  sacred  fecinlei 
themselves,  were  murdered  by  the  barbarians,  and  their  bodies  hewed  in  pieces, 
and  the  mangled  fragments  cast  out  without  burial. 

The  consul,  P.  Dolabella,  had  already  left  Rome  with  the  usual  consular  army, 
and  was  on  his  march  into  northern  Etruria,15  when  he  received 
the  tidings  of  this  outrage.  Immediately  he  resolved  on  vengeance, 
and  instead  of  advancing  into  Etruria,  he  turned  to  the  right, 
marched  through  the  country  of  the  Sabines  into  Picenum,  and  from  thence  led 
his  army  into  the  territory  of  the  Gauls.  The  flower  of  their  warriors  were  ab- 
sent in  Etruria ;  those  who  were  left,  and  endeavored  to  resist  the  invaders,  were 
defeated  with  great  slaughter :  no  quarter  was  given  to  any  male  able  to  bear 
arms :  the  women  and  children  were  carried  off  as  slaves,  the  villages  and  houses 
were  burnt,  and  the  whole  country  was  made  a  desert.  Meanwhile  the  Gauls 
in  Etruria,  maddened  at  these  horrors,  and  hoping  to  enjoy  a  bloody  revenge, 
urged  the  Etruscans  to  seize  the  opportunity,  and  to  march  straight  upon  Rome. 
But  Cn.  Domitius,  with  the  other  consular  army,16  was  covering  the  Roman  ter- 
ritory ;  perhaps  M*.  Curius  had  joined  him,  or  was  hanging  on  the  rear  of  the 
enemy  during  their  march  through  Etruria,  and  was  so  at  hand  to  co-operate 
in  the  battle.  At  any  rate,  the  victory  of  the  Romans  was  complete ;  and  the 
Gauls  who  survived  the  battle  slew  themselves  in  despair.  It  was  resolved  by 
the  senate  to  occupy  their  country  without  delay,  and  to  plant  in  it  a  Roman 
colony. 

These  events  had  passed  so  rapidly  that  the  season  for  military  operations  was 
And  also  over  the  Boian  n°t  Jet  nearly  at  an  end.  The  Boian  Gauls,17  the  neighbors  of  the 
Bauie  rfnuieEiIk? v"a-  Senonians,  enraged  and  alarmed  at  the  total  extermination  of  their 
diraon>  countrymen,  took  up  arms  with  the  whole  force  of  their  nation, 

poured  into  Etruria,  and  encouraged  the  party  adverse  to  Rome  to  try  the  for- 
tune of  war  once  again.  What  the  Samnites  and  Lucanians  were  doing  at  this 
moment  we  know  not ;  but  probably  a  praetorian  or  proconsular  army  with  the 
whole  force  of  the  Campanians,  and  perhaps  of  the  Marsians  and  Pelignians,  was 
in  the  field  against  them ;  and  after  the  loss  of  C.  Pontius  we  hear  of  no  Sam- 
nite  leader  whose  ability  was  equal  to  the  urgency  of  the  contest.  Thus  Dola- 
bella and  Domitius  were  enabled  to  turn  their  whole  attention  to  the  Etruscans 
and  Gauls.  Again,  however,  all  details  were  lost,  and  we  only  know  that  the 
scene  of  the  decisive  action18  was  the  valley  of  the  Tiber,  just  below  its  junction 
with  the  Kar,  and  the  neighborhood  of  the  small  lake  of  Vadimon,  which  lay  in 
the  plain  at  no  great  distance  from  the  right  bank  of  the  river. 

The  victory  of  the  Romans  was  complete  ;19  the  flower  of  the  Etruscan  army 
perished,  while  the  Gauls  suffered  so  severely  that  a  very  few  of  their  number 
wert.  all  that  escaped  from  the  field. 

The  consuls  of  the  ensuing  year  were  C.  Fabricius  and  Q.  JEmilius  Papus. 

Again  the  Etruscans  and  Gauls  renewed  their  efforts,  but  one 

B2.  The'  oauis  make  consular  army  was  now  thought  enough  to  oppose  to  them,  and 

^Emilius  alone  defeated  them  utterly,  and  obliged  the  Gauls  to 

conclude  a  separate  peace.20     The  Etruscans,  who  seemed  to  "  like  nor  peace  nor 

16  Appian,  Samnitic.  VI.  Gallic.  XI.  rival  of  the  consul's  messenger.    The  same  story 
18  Appian,  Samnitic.  VI.  Gallic.  XI.  is  told  of  one  of  the  battles  fought  between  Tar- 

17  Polybius,  II.  20.  quinius  Priscus  and  the  Sabines  ;  but  there,  at 

18  Polybius,  II.  20.    Dion  Cassius,  Mai  Scrip-    any  rate,  the  scene  of  the  action  was  within  a 
tor.    Vatican,  t.  II.  p.  536.  Florus,  II.  13.    The    very  few  miles  of  Eome.    Livy,  I.  37. 

lake  Vadimon  was  esteemed  sacred.    See  Pliny,  **  Polybius,  II.  20.    It  must  have  been  JEm\l- 

Epist.  VIII.  20,  where  he  gives  a  description  of  it.  ius  who  defeated  the  Gauls,  because  we  know 

19  Polybius,  II.  20.    One  of  the  fragments  of  that  Fabricius  was  employed  in  the  south :  but 
Dion  Cassius,  published  by  Mai  in  his  Scriptor.  the  fragments  of  the  Fasti  Capitolini  for  this 
Veter.  Vatican.  Collect.  Vol.  II.  p.  536,  states  year  contain  only  thus  much  : 

that  Dolabella  attacked  the  Etruscans  as  they  "     "...  eisquo III.  Non.  Mart." 

were  crossing  the  Tiber,  and  that  the  bodies  of  Dionysius,  however,  says  expressly  that  ./Erail- 

the  enemy  carried  down  by  the  stream  brought  ius,   the  colleague    of  Fabricius,   commanded 

the  news  of  the  battle  to  Eome  before  the  ar-  against  the  Etruscans  in  this  year.    XVIII.  5. 


CHAP.  XXXVII.]  CRUISE  OF  THE  ROMAN  FLEET.  393 

war,"  would  not  yet  submit ;  or  perhaps  some  states  yielded  while  others  con- 
tinued the  contest ;  but  there  remained  only  the  expiring  embers  of  a  great  fire  ; 
and  the  Roman  party  in  the  several  cities  was  gradually  gaining  the  ascendency, 
and  preparing  the  way  for  that  lasting  treaty  which  was  concluded  two  years 
afterwards. 

In  the  south,  C.  Fabricius  was  no  less  successful.     He  defeated  the  Samnites, 
Lucanians,  and  Bruttians  in  several  great  battles,21  and  penetrated 

±.      &  r-  ,1        r        •  Victories    of  Fnbricim 

through  the  enemy  s  country  to  the  very  shores  or  the  Ionian  sea,  in  the  south  ovw_th* 
where  Thurii  was  at  that  very  time  besieged  by  Statilius  at  the 
head  of  a  Lucanian  and  Bruttian  army.  Fabricius  defeated  the  enemy,  stormed 
their  camp,  and  raised  the  siege  of  Thurii  ;22  for  which  service  the  Thurians  ex- 
pressed their  gratitude  as  they  had  done  two  years  before  to  the  tribune,  C. 
-^Elius,  by  voting  that  a  statue  should  be  made  and  given  to  him,  to  be  set  up 
by  him  in  Borne.  Thus  the  coalition  which  the  Tarentines  had  formed  seemed 
to  be  broken  to  pieces,  while  its  authors  had  not  yet  drawn  the  sword,  and  were 
still  nominally  at  peace  with  the  Romans. 

Fabricius  left  a  garrison  in  Thurii,  and  led  his  army  back  to  Rome  with  so 
rich  a  treasure  of  spoil,23  that  after  having  made  a  liberal  distribu- 

,.  ..  ,     -i  •  IT  i  i     ,          11     ,1  .    .       A  Roman  fleet  is  sen'. 

tion  of  money  amongst  his  soldiers,  and  returned  to  all  the  citi-  to  cruise  on  the  co«* 
zens  the  amount  of  the  war-taxes  which  they  had  paid  in  that 
year,  he  was  still  able  to  put  four  hundred  talents  into  the  treasury.  In  the 
mean  time,  as  the  army  was  withdrawn  from  Lucania,  a  fleet  was  sent  to  protect 
the  Thurians,  and  to  watch  probably  the  movements  of  the  Tarentines,  whose 
dispositions  must,  ere  this,  have  become  sufficiently  notorious.  Accordingly,  L. 
Valerius,24  one  of  the  two  officers  annually  chosen  to  conduct  the  naval  affairs  of 
the  commonwealth,  with  a  fleet  of  ten  ships  of  war,  sailed  on  to  the  eastward  of 
Thurii,  and  unexpectedly  made  his  appearance  before  the  walls  of  Tarentum,si 
and  seemed  to  be  preparing  to  force  his  way  into  the  harbor. 

It  was  the  afternoon20  of  the  day,  and  as  it  was  the  season  of  the  Dionysia. 
when  the  great  dramatic  contests  took  place  and  the  prizes  were  The  Tarentines  attack 
awarded  to  the  most  approved  poet,  the  whole  Tarentine  people  Mddefoatit- 
were  assembled  in  the  theatre,  the  seats  of  which  looked  directly  towards  the 
sea.  All  saw  a  Roman  fleet  of  ships  of  war,  in  undoubted  breach  of  the  treaty 
existing  between  the  two  states,  which  forbade  the  Romans  to  sail  to  the  east- 
ward of  the  Lacinian  headland,  attempting  to  make  its  way  into  their  harbor. 
Full  of  wine,  and  in  the  careless  spirits  of  a  season  of  festival,  they  readily  lis- 
tened to  a  worthless  demagogue,  named  Philocharis,  who  called  upon  them  to 

1  Dionysius,  XVTTI.  5.  or  land-locked  basin,  running  far  into  the  land, 

2  Dionysius,  XVIII.  5.     Valerius  Maximus,  and  communicating  with  the  open  sea  by  a  sin- 
I.  8,  §  6.     Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.  XXXIV.  §  32.  gle  narrow  passage.     It  is  now  called  the  Mare 
Mr.  Fynes  Clinton,  by  mistake,  refers  the  ac-  Piccolo.    The  ancient  city  formed  a  triangle, 
count  in  Valerius  Maximi .>  *o  Fabricius'  second  one  side  of  which  was  washed  by  the  open  sea, 
consulship  in  476.    But  the  mention  of  the  re-  and  another  by  the  waters  of  the  harbor :  the 
lief  of  Thurii  shows  clearly  that  it  belongs  to  his  base  was  a  wall  drawn  across  from  the  sea  to 
first  consulship.  the  harbor,  and  the  point  of  the  triangle  came 

The  story  in  Valerius  Maximus  relates  a  won-  down  to  the  narrow  passage  which  was  the  har- 

derful  appearance  of  a  warrior  of  extraordinary  bor's  mouth.    Here  at  the  extreme  point  of  the 

stature,  who  led  the  Romans  to  the  assault  of  city  was  the  citadel,  the  site  of  which  is  occu- 

the  enemy's  camp,  arid  who  was  not  to  be  found  pied  by  the  modern  town.    An  enemy  entering 

the  next  day  when  the  consul  was  going  to  re-  the  harbor  of  Tarentum  would  therefore  be  as 

ward  him  with  a  mural  crown.     This,  it  was  completely  in  the  heart  of  the  city,  as  in  the 

said,  was  no  other  than  Mars  himself,  who  great  harbor  of  Syracuse ;  and  Cicero's  descrip- 

fought  on  this  day  for  his  people.    Compare  the  tion  will  apply  even  more  strongly  to  Tarentum 

btory  in  Herodotus  of  the  gigantic  warrior  whose  than  to  Syracuse;  "quo  simul  atque  adisset 

mere  appearance  struck  the  Athenian  Epizelus  non  modo  a  latere  sod  etiam  a  tergo  magnam 

blind  at  Marathon,  VI.  117.  partem  urbis   relinqueret." — Verres,   Act.   II. 

83  Dionysius,  XVIII.  16.  V.  38.    See  Keppel  Craven,  Tour  through  the 

34  Appian  calls  him  "Cornelius,"  Samnitic.  southern  provinces  of  Naples,  p.  174,  and  Ga- 

Fragm.  VII.    Dion  Cassius,  Fragm.  Bekker.  e  gliardo,  Descrizione  di  Taranto. 

Ubro  IX.  calls  him   "Valerius,"  and  so  does  28  Dion  Cassius,  Fragm.  Ursin.  CXLV.    Zo« 

Zonarag,  who  copies  Dion,  VIII.  2.  naras,  VIII.  2. 

*  The  harbor  of  Tarentum  was  a  deep  gulf, 


392  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXX VII 

punish  instantly  the  treachery  of  the  Romans,  and  to  save  their  ships  antl  their 
city.  Wiser  citizens  might  remember,  that  by  the  Greek  national  law,  ships  of 
war  belonging  to  a  foreign  power  appearing  under  the  walls  of  an  independent 
city,  in  violation  of  an  existing  treaty,27  were  liable  to  be  treated  as  enemies.  But 
explanations  and  questionings  were  not  thought  of  now :  the  Tarentines  manned 
their  ships,  sailed  out  to  meet  the  Romans,  put  them  instantly  to  flight,  sunk  four 
of  their  ships  without  resistance,  and  took  one,  with  all  its  crew.  L.  Valerius, 
the  duumvir,  was  killed,  and  of  the  prisoners,  the  officers  and  soldiers  serving  on 
board  were  put  to  death,  and  the  rowers  were  sold  for  slaves. 

Thus  fully  committed,  the  Tarentines  determined  to  follow  up  their  blow. 
Ti«y  «p«i  the  Roman.  They  taxed  the  Thurians28  with  preferring  barbarian  aid  to  that  of 
Tarentum,  a  neighboring  and  a  Greek  city,  and  with  bringing  a 
Roman  fleet  into  the  Ionian  sea.  They  attacked  the  town,  allowed  the  Roman 
garrison  to  retire  unhurt,  on  condition  of  their  opening  the  gates  without  resist- 
ance, and  having  thus  become  masters  of  Thurii,  they  drove  the  principal  citizens 
into  exile,  and  gave  up  the  property  of  the  city  to  be  plundered. 

The  Romans  immediately  sent  an  embassy  to  demand  satisfaction  for  all  these 
And  insult  the  nmbaiu  outrages.  L.  Postumius  was  the  principal  ambassador,29  and  the 
d^Md^tisfMt^to  instant  that  he  and  his  colleagues  landed,  they  were  beset  by  a 
the*  aggregsi<m8.  disorderly  crowd,  who  ridiculed  their  foreign  dress,  the  white  toga 
wrapped  round  the  body  like  a  plaid,  with  its  broad  scarlet  border.  At  last  they 
were  admitted  into  the  theatre,  where  the  people  were  assembled,  but  it  was 
again  a  time  of  festival,  and  the  Tarentines  were  more  disposed  to  coarse  buf- 
foonery and  riot  than  to  serious  counsel.  When  Postumius  spoke  to  them  in 
Greek,  the  assembly  broke  out  into  laughter  at  his  pronunciation,  and  at  any  mis- 
takes in  his  language  ;  but  the  Roman  delivered  his  commission  unmoved,  gravely 
and  simply,  as  though  he  had  not  so  much  as  observed  the  insults  offered  to  him. 
At  last  a  worthless  drunkard  of  known  profligacy  came  up  to  the  Roman  ambas- 
sador, and  purposely  threw  dirt  in  the  most  offensive  manner  upon  his  white 
toga.  Postumius  said,  "  We  accept  the  omen  ;  ye  shall  give  us  even  more  than 
we  ask  of  you,"  and  held  up  the  sullied  toga  before  the  multitude,  to  show  them 
the  outrage  which  he  had  received.  But  bursts  of  laughter  pealed  from  every 
part  of  the  theatre,  and  scurril  songs,  and  gestures,  and  clapping  of  hands,  were 
the  only  answer  returned  to  him.  "  Laugh  on,"  said  the  Roman,  "  laugh  on 
while  ye  may ;  ye  shall  weep  long  enough  hereafter,  and  the  stain  on  this  toga 
shall  be  washed  out  in  your  blood."  The  ambassadors  left  Tarentum,  and  Pos- 
tumius carefully  kept  his  toga  unwashed,  that  the  senate  might  witness  with  their 
own  eyes  the  insult  offered  to  the  Roman  name. 

He  returned  to  Rome  with  his  colleagues  late  in  the  spring  of  the  year  473, 
A.u.c.473.  A.c.ssi.  a^er  the  new  consuls,  L.  ^Emilius  Barbula  and  Q.  Marcius  Phi- 
wara^tTheT'aJen-  lippus,  had  already  entered  upon  their  office.  Even  now  the  Ro- 
mans were  reluctant  to  enter  on  a  war  with  Tarentum,  whilst  they 
had  so  many  enemies  still  in  arms  against  them,  and  the  debates  in  the  senate 
lasted  for  several  day.  It  was  resolved30  at  last  to  declare  war ;  but  still,  when 

27  The  Corcyrseans  agreed  to  receive  a  single  Ursin.  CXLV.    Who  this  L.  Postumius  was  is 

Athenian  or  Lacedaemonian  ship  into  their  har-  not  known.    He  may  have  been  one  of  the  Pos- 

bor,  but  if  a  greater  number  appeared,  they  tumii  Albini,  although  the  L.  Postumius  Albi- 

were  to  be  treated  as  enemies.    Thucyd.  III.  nus,  who  was  consul  in  520,  was  the  son  and 

71.  And  when  the  Athenian  expedition  coasted  grandson  of  two  Auli  Postumii.    But  it  may 

along  lapygia  on  its  way  to  Syracuse,  Tarentum  have  been  the  consul  who  had  been  fined  for 

would  neither  allow  them  to  enter  the  city,  nor  his  mad  conduct  in  464,  for  with  all  his  faults 

even  to  bring  their  vessels  to  shore  under  the  lie  was  an  able  and  resolute  man,  and  the  am- 

walls.    Thucyd.  VI.  44.    So  again  the  Cama-  bassadors  sent  to  so  great  a  city  as  Tarentum 

rinoeans,  although  they  had  been  in   alliance  were  likely  to  have  been  men  ot  consular  dig- 

with  Athens  a  few  years  before,  refused  to  ad-  nity. 

mit  more  than  a  single  ship  of  the  Athenian  ar-  *  Dipnysius,  XVII.  10.    Seiske  has  made 

mnment  within  their  harbor.     VI.  52.  Dionysius*  say  just  the  contrary  to  this,  by  al- 

w  Appian,  Samnitic.  Fragm.  VII.  tering  ovroi  into  al.     He  gives  no  reason  for  the 

*  Zonaras,  VIII.  2.     Dion  Cassius,  Fragm.  alteration,  but  merely  says,  "  »i  de  meo  dedi 


CHAP.  XXX  VII]  WAR  WITH  THE  TARENTINES.  393 

the  consuls  took  the  field  as  usual  with  their  two  consular  armies,  Q.  Mar- 
ems  was  sent  against  the  Etruscans,  and  L.  ^Emilius  was  ordered,  not  imme- 
diately to  attack  Tarentum,  but  to  invade  Samnium  and  subdue  the  revolted 
Samnites. 

But  whether  the  exhausted  state  of  Samnium  assured  uEmilius  that  no  great 
danger  was  to  be  apprehended   there,  or  whether  a  prsetorian 

,     J          .,         «  •  i         i  «          L.  jEmilius  inviules  and 

army  was  sent  to  keep  the  bammtes  m  check,  and  to  leave  the  iay«  ™gtoo  Ta.en. 
consul  at  liberty  for  a  march  into  southern  Italy,  it  appears  that  gTesofparu/s'ir.Ta^ 
instructions  were  sent  to  L.  ^Emilius  soon  after  his  arrival  in  Sam- 
nium,31 to  advance  at  once  into  the  territory  of  Tarentum,  and  after  offering  once 
again  the  same  terms  which  Postumius  had  proposed  before,  to  commence  hos- 
tilities immediately  if  satisfaction  should  still  be  refused.  The  terms  were  again 
rejected  by  the  Tarentines,  and  JEmilius  began  to  ravage  their  territory  with 
fire  and  sword.  But  knowing  that  the  aristocratical  party  in  Tarentum,  as  else- 
where, were  inclined  to  look  up  to  Rome  for  protection,  he  showed  much  tender- 
ness to  some  noble  prisoners  who  fell  into  his  hands,32  and  dismissed  them  un- 
hurt. Nor  did  the  result  disappoint  him,  for  the  presence  of  the  Roman  army 
struck  terror  into  the  democratical  party,  while  the  mildness  shown  to  those  who 
had  taken  no  part  in  the  shameful  outrages  offered  to  the  Romans,  induced  mod- 
erate men  to  hope  that  peace  with  Rome  was  a  safer  prospect  for  their  country 
than  an  alliance  with  Pyrrhus.  Agis,  one  of  the  aristocratical  party,  was  chosen 
captain-general,  and  it  was  likely  that  the  Tarentines  would  now  in  their  turn 
offer  that  satisfaction  which  hitherto  they  had  scornfully  refused. 

But  before  any  thing  could  be  concluded,  the  popular  party  regained  their  as- 
cendency. An  embassy  to  Pyrrhus,  king  of  Epirus,  had  been  pvrrhus « invited  into 
sent  off  early  in  the  summer,33  inviting  him  over  to  Italy  in  the  Ituly- 
name  of  all  the  Italian  Greeks,  to  be  their  leader  against  the  Romans.  All  the 
nations  of  southern  Italy,  he  was  assured,  were  ready  to  join  his  standard  ;  and 
he  would  find  amongst  them  a  force  of  350,000  infantry,  and  20,000  cavalry 
able  to  bear  arms  in  the  common  cause. 

Every  Greek  looked  to  foreign  conquest  only  as  a  means  of  establishing  his 
supremacy  over  Greece  itself,  the  proudest  object  of  his  ambition. 

-rT.1  ,  -.1  -r>  <u     .LI  •!  •  •     i        He  sen<ls  overMilo  to 

Victorious  over  the   Romans,34  thence  easily  passing  over  into  occupy  the  citadel  of 

rv    -I  j    f  .-I  .  .1.  «•  11       ji  Tarentum.    The  popu- 

Sicily,  and  from  thence  again  assailing  more  effectually  than  Aga-  iar  party  recovers  the 
thocles  the  insecure  dominion  of  the  Carthaginians  in  Africa,  Pyr- 
rhus hoped  to  return  home  with  an  irresistible  force  of  subject  allies,  to  expel 
Antigonus  from  Thessaly  and  Bceotia,  and  the  ruffian  Ptolemy  Ceraunus  from 
Macedonia,  and  to  reign  over  Greece  and  the  world,  as  became  the  kinsman  of 
Alexander  and  the  descendant  of  Achilles.  He  promised  to  heir  the  Taren- 
tines ;  but  the  force  needed  for  such  an  expedition  could  not  be  raised  in  an 
instant ;  and  when  the  invasion  of  the  Roman  army,  and  the  probable  ascendency 
of  their  political  adversaries,  made  the  call  of  the  popular  party  for  his  aid  more 


R 


vulg.  o&rot."     The  old  reading,  however,  at  the  extremity  of  Italy  till  measures  had  been 

quite  correct  in  grammar,  and  perfectly  in-  taken  to  secure  it  against  an  attack  of  the  Sam- 

telligible,  and  seems  to  be  recommended  by  the  nites  on  its  rear.     When  this  was  provided  for, 

general  structure  of  the  passage.^    It  may  be  the  consul  might  safely  be  ordered  to  advance 

thought  that  it  is  inconsistent  with  Appian's  upon  Tarentum. 

account,  who  says  that  the  consul  JEmihus  was  31  The  consuls  came  into  office  in  April,  and 

already  in  Samnium  when  he  received  orders  ^Emilius  was  in  the  Tarentine  territory  before 

to    march    against    the  Tarentines  (Samnitic.  the  corn  was  cut,  for  the  Fragment  of  Dionys- 

Fragm.  VII.  3),  whereas  Dionysius  makes  him  ius,  XVII.  12,  clearly  relates  to  this  invasion : 

to  have  been  present  in  the  senate  when  the  apovpas  rt  axpaiov  faq  rd  <rm»cdj>  0/pos  ixovvas 

Question  of  war  or  peace  was  debated ;  and  had  nvpl  <5«<5oi5j.    In  1818,  Mr.  Keppel  Craven  found 

immediate  war  been  then  resolved  upon,  would  the  harvest  going  on  briskly  a  little  to  the 

he  not,  it  may  be  said,  have  been  ordered  to  southwest  of  Tarentum  on  tlie  1st  of  June.— 

attack  Parentum  at  once,  instead  of  being  sent  Tour  through  the  southern  provinces  of  Naples 

into  Samnium.  and  receiving  a  subsequent  order  p.  197. 

to  march  against  Tarentum  ?    This,  however,  m  Zonaras,  VIII.  2. 

would  not  necessarily  follow ;  for  the  senate  33  Zonaras,  VIII.  2.    Plutarch,  Fyrrh.  13. 

— have  thought  it  unsafe  to  hazard  an  army  34  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  14. 


394  HISTORY  OF  ROME. 

urgent,  he  sent  over  Cineas,35  his  favorite  minister,  to  assist  his  friends  by  hia 
eloquence  and  address,  and  shortly  afterwards  Milo,  one  of  his  generals,  followed 
with  a  detachment  of  3000  men,  and  was  put  in  possession  of  the  citadel.  A 
political  revolution  immediately  followed  ;36  Agis  was  deprived  of  his  command, 
and  succeeded  by  one  of  the  popular  leaders  who  had  been  sent  on  the  embassy 
to  Pyrrhus ;  all  prospect  of  peace  was  at  an  end,  and  the  democratical  party 
held  in  their  hands  the  whole  government  of  the  commonwealth. 

The  Tarentines  were  masters  of  the  sea,  and  the  arrival  of  an  experienced 
The  Rom™  armv  re  Seneral  an(^  a  body  of  veteran  soldiers  gave  a  strength  to  their 
7reats  f0r"nntherTLrne"  land-forces,  which  in  numbers  were  in  themselves  considerable. 
Winter  was  approaching,  and  ^Emilius  proposed  to  retreat  into 
Apulia,  to  put  his  army  into  winter  quarters  in  those  mild  and  sunny  plains. 
He  was  followed  by  the  enemy,37  and  as  his  road  lay  near  the  sea,  the  Tarentine 
fleet  prepared  to  overwhelm  him  with  its  artillery,  as  his  army  wound  along  the 
narrow  road  between  the  mountain  sides  and  the  water.  ^Emilius,  it  is  said,  put 
some  of  his  Tarentine  prisoners  in  the  parts  of  his  line  of  march  most  exposed 
to  the  enemy's  shot,  and  as  the  Tarentines  would  not  butcher  their  helpless 
countrymen,  they  allowed  the  Romans  to  pass  by  unmolested.  The  Roman 
army  wintered  in  Apulia,  and  both  parties  had  leisure  to  prepare  their  best 
efforts  for  the  struggle  of  the  corning  spring. 

It  was  still  the  depth  of  winter33  when  Pyrrhus  himself  arrived  at  Tarentum. 
Pyrrhus  amv*8  at  Ta-  His  fleet  had  been  dispersed  by  a  storm  on  the  passage,  and  he 
djto£fefauc£^tto  himself  had  been  obliged  to  disembark  on  the  Messapian  coast 
Turentmes.  vritla.  on]y  a  sman  part  of  ^jg  army>  and  to  proceed  to  Tarentum 

by  land.  After  a  time,  however,  his  scattered  ships  reached  their  destination 
safely,  and  he  found  himself  powerful  enough  to  act  as  the  master  rather  than 
the  ally  of  the  Tarentines.  He  shut  up  the  theatre,  the  public  walks,  and  the 
gymnasia,  obliged  the  citizens  to  be  under  arms  all  day,  either  on  the  walls  or 
in  the  market-place,  and  stopped  the  feasts  of  their  several  clubs  or  brother- 
hoods, and  all  revelry,  and  all  riotous  entertainments  throughout  the  city. 
Many  of  the  citizens,  as  impatient  of  this  discipline  as  the  lonians  of  old  when 
Dionysius  of  Phocaea  tried  in  vain  to  train  them  to  a  soldier's  duties,  left  the 
city  in  disgust ;  but  Pyrrhus,  to  prevent  this  for  the  future,  placed  a  guard  at 
the  gates,  and  allowed  no  one  to  go  out  without  his  permission.  It  is  further 
said  that  his  soldiers  were  guilty  of  great  excesses  towards  the  inhabitants,  and 
that  he  himself  put  to  deatli  some  of  the  popular  leaders,  and  sent  others  over 
to  Epirus ;  and  this  last  statement  is  probable  enough,  for  the  idle  and  noisy 
demagogues  of  a  corrupt  democracy  would  soon  repent  of  their  invitation  to 
him,  when  they  experienced  the  rigor  of  his  discipline ;  and  if  they  indulged  in 
any  inflammatory  speeches  to  the  multitude,  Pyrrhus  would  consider  such  con- 
duct as  treasonable,  and  would  no  doubt  repress  it  with  the  most  effectual  se- 
verity. 

So  passed  the  winter  at  Tarentum.  But  the  Italian  allies,  overawed  perhaps 
Amount  of  the  forceg  of  by  the  Roman  army  in  Apulia,  were  slow  in  raising  their  promised 
contingents,39  and  Pyrrhus  did  not  wish  to  commence  offensive 
preparations  till  his  whole  force  was  assembled.  What  number  of  men  he  had 
brought  with  him  or  received  since  his  landing  from  Greece  itself,  it  is  not  easy 
to  estimate :  3000  men  crossed  at  first  under  Milo ;  the  king  himself  embarked 
with  20,000  foot,  3000  horse,40  2000  archers,  500  slingers,  and  20  elephants, 
and  Ptolemy  Ceraunus  is  said  to  have  lent  him  for  two  years  the  services  of 
5000  Macedonian  foot,  4000  horse,  and  50  elephants.41  The  Macedonian  foot 

35  *  Zonaras,  VIII.  2.  "  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  16. 

17  Zonaras,  VIII.  2.    Frontinus,  Strategcm.  *°  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  15.    Zonaras  agrees  as  to 
I.  4,  §  1.  the  number  of  elephants ;  of  the  numbers  o!  tho 

18  Zonaras,  VIII.  2.    Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  15,  16.  infantry  and  cavalry  he  gives  no  account. 
Appian,  Samnitic.  Fragm.  VIII.  41  Justin,  XVII.  2. 


CHAP.  XXXVII]  AMOUNT  OF  THE  ROMAN  FORCES.  395 

may  have  been  included  in  the  20,000  men  whom  he  himself  brought  into  Italy ; 
the  cavalry  and  elephants  of  course  cannot  have  been  so,  if  the  numbers  are  cor- 
rectly gwen ;  but  we  find  his  cavalry  afterwards  spoken  of  as  amounting  only  to 
3000,  and  we  can  hardly  think  that  he  had  at  any  time  so  many  as  70  elephants. 
Some  deductions  must  also  be  made,  in  all  probability,  for  losses  sustained  by 
shipwreck,  when  the  armament  was  dispersed  by  a  storm  in  its  passage.  Yet 
still  the  Greek  army  with  which  Pyrrhus  was  ready  to  take  the  field  from  Taren- 
tum  in  the  spring  of  the  year  474,  must  have  been  more  numerous,  both  in  foot, 
horse,  and  elephants,  than  that  with  which  Hannibal,  about  sixty  years  later,  is- 
sued from  the  Alps  upon  the  plain  of  Cisalpine  Gaul. 

The  Romans,  on  their  part,  finding  that  not  Tarentum  only,  buv  so  great  a  king 
and  good  a  soldier  as  Pyrrhus  was  added  to  their  numerous  enemies,  And  of  the  Romnn.. 
made  extraordinary  exertions  to  meet  the  danger.  Even  the  pro-  A.u.c.4i4.A.c.28o. 
letarians,42  or  the  poorest  class  of  citizens,  who  were  usually  exempt  from  the 
military  service,  were  now  called  out  and  embodied,  and  these  probably  formed 
a  great  part  of  the  reserve  army  kept  near  Rome  for  the  defence  of  the  city. 
The  new  consuls  were  P.  Valerius  Laevinus  and  Ti.  Coruncanius,  of  whom  the 
latter  was  to  command  one  consular  army  against  the  Etruscans,  while  the 
former  was  to  oppose  Pyrrhus  in  the  south.  No  mention  is  made  of  the  army  of 
L.  JEmilius,  which  had  wintered  in  Apulia,  so  that  we  do  not  know  whether  it 
joined  that  of  Laevinus,  or  was  employed  to  watch  the  doubtful  fidelity  of  the 
Apulians,  and  to  prevent  the  Samnites  from  joining  the  enemy's  army.  We 
learn  accidentally,43  that  a  Campanian  legion  was  placed  in  garrison  at  Rhcgium, 
and  other  important  towns  were  no  doubt  secured  also  with  a  sufficient  force ; 
but  the  whole  disposition  of  the  Roman  armies  in  this  great  campaign  cannot  be 
known,  from  the  scantiness  of  our  remaining  information  respecting  it. 

It  is  briefly  stated  in  the  narrative  of  Zonaras44  that  the  Romans  chastised 
some  of  their  allies  who  were  meditating  a  revolt,  and  that  some  stnte  of  the  alUei  9i 
citizens  of  Prseneste  were  suddenly  arrested  and  sent  to  Rome,  Rome> 
where  they  were  imprisoned  in  the  vaults  of  the  aerarium  on  the  Capitol,  and 
afterwards  put  to  death.  If  even  the  Latin  city  of  Prseneste  could  waver  in  its 
fidelity,  what  was  to  be  expected  from  the  more  remote  and  more  recent  allies 
of  Rome,  from  the  Vestinians,  Marsians,  Pelignians,  Sabines,  and  even  from  the 
Campanians,  whose  faith  in  the  second  Samnite  war,  little  more  than  thirty  years 
before,  had  been  found  so  unstable  ?  Yet  one  of  the  consuls  for  this  year,  Ti. 
Coruncanius,  was  a  native  of  Tusculum,  and  those  Latin,  Volscian,  and  JEquian 
towns  which  had  received  the  full  rights  of  Roman  citizenship  were  incorporated 
thereby  so  thoroughly  into  the  Roman  nation,  that  no  circumstances  could  rend 
them  asunder.  Still  the  senate  thought  it  best  on  every  ground  to  keep  the 
war,  if  possible,  at  a  distance  from  their  own  territory,  and  Laevinus  therefore 
marched  into  Lucania,  to  separate  Pyrrhus  from  his  allies,  and  to  force  him  to  a 
battle  whilst  he  had  only  his  own  troops  and  the  Tarentines  to  bring  into  the 
field. 

"  Laevinus,"  says  Zonaras,45  "  took  a  strong  fortress  in  Lucania,  and  having  left 
a  part  of  his  amy  to  overawe  the  Lucanians,  he  advanced  with  L0^u*;ar^g  J *2!S 
the  remainder  against  Pyrrhus."  Yet  Pyrrhus,  after  all,  fought,  BStf"? 
we  are  told,  with  an  inferior  army  ;46  nor  indeed  can  we  conceive  that  so  able  a 
general  would  have  exposed  himself  to  the  unavoidable  disadvantage  of  seem- 
ing to  dread  an  encounter  with  the  enemy,  had  the  number  of  his  troops  been  equal 
to  theirs.  But  a  Roman  consular  army  never  contained  more  than  20,000  foot 
soldiers,  and  2400  horse ;  and  the  army  which  Pyrrhus  brought  with  him  from 
Epirus  was  more  numerous  than  this,  without  reckoning  the  Tarentines, 
and  allowing  that  Milo  and  his  detachment  of  3000  men  still  garrisoned  the 

«  Orosius,  IV.  1.  *»  VIII.  3. 

*•  Orosius,  IV.  3.    Tolybius,  I.  7.  *  Justin,  XVIII.  1. 

44  Zouuraa,  VIII.  8. 


396  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXVII 

citadel  of  Tarentum.  It  is  clear,  then,  either  that  Laevinus  had  taken  wii.li  him 
the  whole  or  the  greater  part  of  the  consular  army  which  had  wintered  in  Apulia,  or 
that  a  praetorian  army  had  marched  under  his  command  from  the  neighborhood 
of  Rome,  so  that  his  force  cannot  be  estimated  at  less  than  30,000  foot  and 
3600  horse. 

PyrrhiLS  not  thinking  himself  strong  enough  to  meet  the  enemy  with  the  army 
actually  at  his  disposal,  endeavored  to  gain  time  bv  negotiation. 

Fyrrhua   e*vV-tT>?8   to    «.T  _.  *  AT       /*•     •  t  •  i»       »  « 

gain  time  MI  t.i>,  allies  He  wrote  to  Lfflvmus,    offering  his  mediation  between  the  Ro- 

thould  ha\»  p  c<sd  him.  i     i   •        i       -••  11*  •  ,1  i  11 

mans  and  his  Italian  allies,  and  saying  that  he  would  wait  ten 
days  for  the  consul's  answer.  But  his  offer  was  scornfully  rejected  ;  and  in  the 
same  spirit,  when  one  of  his  spies  was  detected  in  the  Roman  camp,  Lsevinus  is 
said  to  have  allowed  the  spy  to  observe  his  whole  army  on  their  usual  parade,48 
and  then  to  have  sent  him  back  unharmed,  with  a  taunting  message,  that  if 
Pyrrhus  wished  to  know  the  nature  of  the  Roman  army,  he  had  better  not  send 
others  to  spy  it  out  secretly,  but  he  should  come  himself  in  open  day,  and  see 
it  and  prove  it. 

Thus  provoked,  or  more  probably  fearing  to  lose  the  confidence  of  his  allies 
Th«  Ronm.g  Rt^ci  ^  ke  s^ou^  seem  to  have  crossed  the  sea  only  to  lie  inactive  in. 
hmi.  B*U*  <*  Hm-  Tarentum,  Pyrrhus  with  his  own  army  and  with  the  T,arentines 
took  the  field  and  advanced  towards  the  enemy.  The  Romans 
lay  encamped  on  the  right  or  southern  bank  of  the  Siris  not  far  from  the  sea, 
and  Pyrrhus  having  crossed  the  Aciris  between  the  towns  of  Pandosia  and  Hera- 
clea,  encamped  in  the  plain49  which  lies  between  the  two  rivers,  and  which  was 
favorable  at  once  for  the  operations  of  his  heavy  infantry,  and  for  his  cavalry  and 
elephants.  A  nearer  view  of  the  strength  of  the  Roman  army  determined  him 
still  to  delay  the  battle,  and  he  stationed  a  detachment  of  troops  on  the  bank  of  the 
Siris,  to  obstruct,  if  possible,  the  passage  of  the  stream.  But  the  river,  though 
wide,  is  shallow,50  and  while  the  legions  prepared  to  cross  directly  in  front  of  the 
enemy,  the  cavalry51  passed  above  and  below,  so  that  the  Greeks,  afraid  of  being 
surrounded,  were  obliged  to  fall  back  towards  their  main  body.  Pyrrhus  then 
gave  orders  to  his  infantry  to  form  in  order  of  battle  in  the  middle  of  the  plain, 
while  he  himself  rode  forward  with  his  cavalry,  in  hopes  of  attacking  the  Romans 
before  they  should  have  had  time  to  form  after  their  passage  of  the  river.  But 
he  found  the  long  shields  of  the  legionary  soldiers  advancing  in  an  even  line  from 
the  stream,  and  their  cavalry  in  front  ready  to  receive  his  attack.  He  charged 
instantly,  but  the  Romans  and  their  allies,  although  their  arms  were  very  unequal 
to  those  of  the  Greek  horsemen,  maintained  the  fight  most  valiantly,  and  a  Fren- 
tanian  captain62  was  seen  to  mark  Pyrrhus  himself  so  eagerly,  that  one  of  his 
officers  noticed  it,  and  advised  the  king  to  beware  of  that  barbarian  on  the  black 
horse  with  white  feet.  Pyrrhus,  whose  personal  prowess  was  not  unworthy  of 
his  hero-ancestry,  replied,  "  What  is  fated,  Leonatus,  no  man  can  avoid ;  but 
neither  this  man  nor  the  stoutest  soldier  in  Italy  shall  encounter  with  me  for  noth- 
ing." At  that  instant,  the  Frentanian  rode  at  Pyrrhus  with  his  levelled  lance,  and 
killed  his  horse  ;  but  his  own  was  killed  at  the  same  instant,  and  while  Pyrrhus  was 
remounted  instantly  by  his  attendants,  the  brave  Italian  was  surrounded  and  slain. 

Finding  that  his  cavalry  could  not  decide  the  battle,  Pyrrhus  at  length 

41  Dionysius,  XVII.  15,  16.  Heraclea,  for  about  three  miles,  and  is  ft  r  the 

48  Dionysius,  XVIII.  1.     Zonaras,  VIII.  3.  most  part  highly  cultivated. 

4tt  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  16.    At  present  a  thick  w  Keppel  "Craven,  p.  204.    Mr.  Keppel  Cra- 

forest  covers  the  western  part  of  this  plain,  ex-  ven  forded  it  below  the  point  where  the  Ko- 

tending  along  the  left  bank  of  the  Siris  for  sev-  man  army  effected  its  passage, 

eral  miles  upwards  from  its  mouth,  as  far  as  the  "  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  16. 

point  where  the  hills  begin.  See  Keppel  Cra-  w  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  16.  Dionysius,  XVIII. 
ven,  p.  203,  and  Zannoni's  map.  But  in  ancient  2-4.  Part  of  this  story  of  the  Frentanian  cap- 
times  it  is  probable  that  the  whole  plain  be-  tain  has  been  copied  by  Plutarch  from  Dionys- 
tween  the  two  rivers  was  open,  and  mostly  corn  ius,  but  he  has  some  other  particulars  which 
land.  The  plain  rises  in  a  gradual  slope  from  are  not  to  be  found  in  Dionysius,  and  -which  ht 
Pclicoro,  supposed  to  be  the  site  of  the  ancient  got  probably  from  Hieror  yrnus. 


CHAP.  XXXVIL]  THE  ROMANS  ARE  DEFEATED.  397 

ordered  his  infantry  to  advance  and  attack  the  line  of  the  Roman  Panicoccail()nedbyth, 
legions.53  He  himself,  knowing  the  importance  of  his  own  life  to  jjpp«ed  denth  of  fy" 
an  army  in  which  his  personal  ascendency  was  all  in  all,  gave 
his  own  arms,  and  helmet,  and  scarlet  cloak  to  Megacles,  one  of  the  officers  of 
his  guard,  and  himself  put  on  those  of  the  officer  in  exchange.  But  Megacles 
bought  his  borrowed  splendor  dearly :  every  Roman  marked  him,  and  at  last  he 
was  struck  down  and  slain,  and  his  helmet  and  mantle  carried  to  Laevinus,  and 
borne  along  .the  Roman  ranks  in  triumph.  Pyrrhus  feeling  that  this  mistake  was 
most  dangerous,  rode  bareheaded  along  his  line  to  show  his  soldiers  that  he 
was  still  alive ;  and  the  battle  went  on  so  furiously  that  either  army  seven 
times,54  it  is  said,  drove  the  enemy  from  the  ground,  and  seven  times  was  driven 
from  its  own. 

Lsevinus,  true  to  the  tactic  of  his  country,  proposed  to  win  the  battle  by 
keeping  back  his  last  reserve55  till  all  the  enemy's  forces  were  in  The  Romang  are  de 
action.  His  triarii,  it  seems,  were  already  engaged,  and  their  long  £j£J»and  their »»» 
spears  might  enable  them  to  encounter,  on  something  like  equal 
terms,  the  pikes  of  the  phalanx ;  but  Lsevinus  held  back  a  chosen  body  of  his 
cavalry,  hoping  that  their  charge  might  at  last  decide  the  day.  They  did  charge, 
but  Pyrrhus  met  them  with  a  reserve  still  more  formidable,  his  elephants.  The 
Roman  horses  could  not  be  brought  to  face  monsters  strange  and  terrible  alike  to 
them  and  to  their  riders  ;  they  fell  back  in  confusion — the  infantry  were  disordered 
by  their  flight ;  and  Pyrrhus  then  charged  with  his  Thessalian  cavalry,  and  to- 
tally routed  the  whole  Roman  army.  The  vanquished  fled  over  the  Siris,56  but 
did"not  attempt  to  defend  their  camp,  which  Pyrrhus  entered  without  opposition. 
They  retreated  to  a  city  in  Apulia,51  which  Niebuhr  supposes  must  have  been 
Venusia,  with  a  loss  variously  estimated  as  usual  by  different  writers,58  but  suffi- 
cient at  any  rate  to  cripple  their  army,  and  to  leave  Pyrrhus  undisputed  master 
of  the  field. 

His  Italian  allies  now  joined  him  ;59  and  though  he  complained  of  the  tardiness 
of  their  aid,  he  distributed  to  them  a  share  of  the  spoils  of  his  vie-  Effectaofthevicto 
tory.     The  allies  of  Rome  began  to  waver ;  and  the  Roman  gar- 
risons in  distant  cities,  cut  off  from  relief,  were  placed  in  extreme  jeopardy.    The 

63  Plutarch,  Pyrrli.  17.  6B  The  destruction  of  the  Roman  army  waa 

64  Tpo:raj  fifTa  Myerai  Qevydvruv  avdxa\tv  ical  prevented,  according  to  Orosius,  by  an*  acci- 
StwKdvTwv  yei'iffdai.    Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  17.     From  dent.     One  Minucius,  a  soldier  of  the  fourth 
this  and  other  circumstances  related  of  this  bat-  legion,  cut  off  with  his  sword  the  trunk  of  one 
tie,  it  appears  certain  that  only  a  very  small  part  of  the  elephants  ;  which  made  the  animal  turn, 
of  Pyrrhus'  infantry  could  have  had  the  arms  and  run  back  upon  his  own  army.    The  confu- 
and  array  of  the  regular  phalanx.    For  as  the  sion  and  delay  thus  occasioned  enabled  the 
ground  was  open  and  level,  and  the  two  armies  Romans  to  escape  over  the  Siris  with  the  bulk 
met  front  and  front,  if  Pyrrhus'  heavy-armed  of  their  army.     Orosius,  IV.  1. 

infantry  had  been  numerous,  they  must  have        57  Zonaras,  VIII.  3. 

had  the  same  advantage  which  the  phalanx  had        58  Hieronymus,  a  contemporary,  who  in  his 

at  Cynocephala3  and  at  Pydna  as  long  as  it  kept  account  of  the  loss  sustained  in  the  battle  of 

its  line  unbroken;    and  the  Roman  infantry  Asculum,  is  known  to  have  copied  Pyrrhus' own 

could  not  have  maintained  the  contest.    While,  commentaries,  makes   the  Roman  loss  in  the 

on  the  other  hand,  if  the  phalanx  did  not  keep  first  battle  to  have  amounted  to  7000  men,  and 

its 'order,  so  that  the  Romans  were  able  to  pen-  that  of  Pyrrhus  to  less  than  4000.     Dionysiua 

etrate  it  in  several  places,  then  they  would  have  stated  the  Roman  loss  at  15,000  and  that  of  Pyr- 

obtained  an  easy  victory,  as  the  phalanx  when  rhus  at  13,000,  copying  probably  from  the  ex- 

once  broken  became  wholly  helpless.     But  it  aggerated  accounts  of  some  of  the  Roman  an- 

would  seem  that  the  Greek  infantry  in  this  bat-  nalists,  perhaps  from  Valerius  Antias  himself, 

tie  consisted  mostly  of  peltast*,  or  troops  not  See  Plutarch,  Pyrrhus,  17.     Orosius,  copying 

formed  in  the  close  array  of  the  phalanx ;  such  from  Livy,  who  in  his  turn  probably  followed 

were  the  Epirots  generally,  and  such  would  be  Fabius,  reckons  the  Roman  loss  at  11,880  killed, 

also  the  ^Etolians  and  Illyrlans,  some  of  whom,  it  and  310  prisoners;  while  of  their  cavalry  243 

is  said  [Dion  Cassius,  Fragm.Peiresc.  XXXIX.],  were  killed  and  802  taken.    He  says  also  that 

were  serving  at  this  time  in  Pyrrhus'  army,  twenty-two  standards  were  taken.  'But  what  is 

Thus  the  infantry  in  both  armies  were  armed  curious,  and  which  shows  that  neither  he  him- 

and  formed  in  a  manner  not  very  different  from  self  nor  Livy  could  have  at  all  consulted  the 

each  other;    and  this  would  account  for  the  Greek  writers  on  this  war,  he  asserts  that  of  the 

length  and  obstinacy  of  the  action,   and  the  loss  on  Pyrrhus'  side  no  record  had  been  pre- 

uuniber  of  slain  on  both  sides.  served. 

Zonaras,  VIII.  3.    Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  17.  w  Zonaras,  VIII.  3.     Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  17. 


398  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [Cn,.r.  XXXVII 

rhe  Roman  garrioon  Locrians  rose  upon  the  garrison  of  their  city,  and  opened  their 
SSL5W&JS  gates  to.  Pyrrhus.60  At  Rhegium61  the  garrison,  which  consisted 
touu-  of  the  eighth  legion,  composed  of  Campanian  soldiers,  acted  like 

the  garrison  of  Enna,  in  similar  circumstances  in  the  second  Punic  war :  they 
anticipated  the  inhabitants  by  a  general  massacre  of  all  the  male  citizens,  and 
made  slaves  of  the  women  and  children.  For  this  alone  they  might  have  received 
reward  rather  than  punishment  from  the  Roman  government;  and  the  Roman 
annalists  would  have  pleaded  necessity  as  a  sanction  for  the  act.  But  the  Cam- 
panians,  looking  to  the  example  of  their  Mamertine  countrymen  on  the  other  side 
of  the  strait,  and  thinking  that  Rome  was  in  no  condition  to  enforce  their  alle- 
giance any  more,  held  the  city  in  their  own  name,  and  refused  to  obey  the  con- 
sul's orders.  Thus  Rhegium,  no  less  than  Locri,  was  for  the  present  lost  to  the 
Romans. 

Pyrrhus,  however,  had  not  won  his  victory  cheaply.     Nearly  four  thousand  of 
his  men  had  fallen,  and  amongst  these  a  large  proportion  of  his 

Pyrrhus      retolves    to,  ^  ,  i    /•  •         i  r  1^11 

wnd^aa  embawy  to  best  officers  ana  personal  mends ;  for  the  Greek  loss  must  have 
fallen  heavily  on  the  cavalry,  and  when  the  king  exposed  his  own 
life  so  freely,  those  immediately  about  his  person  must  have  suffered  in  an  un- 
usual proportion.  The  weather  also,  if  we  may  trust  some  stories  in  Orosius,63 
was  very  unfavorable,  and  the  state  of  the  roads  may  hare  retarded  the  advance 
of  the  victorious  army,  and  particularly  of  the  elephants.  Besides,  so  complete 
a  victory,  won  by  Pyrrhus  with  his  own  army  alone,  before  the  mass  of  his  allies 
had  joined  him,  might  dispose  the  Romans  to  peace  without  the  risk  of  a  second 
battle.  Accordingly,  whilst  the  army  advanced  slowly  from  the  shores  of  the 
Ionian  sea  towards  central  Italy,  Cineas  was  sent  to  Rome  with  the  king's  terms 
of  peace  and  alliance.63 

The  conditions  offered  were  these :  peace,  friendship,  and  alliance  between 
He  proper  term,  of  Pyrrhus  and  the  Romans  ;M  but  the  Tarentines  were  to  be  included 
peHCe-  in  it,  and  all  the  Greek  states  in  Italy  were  to  be  free  and  inde- 

pendent. Further,  the  king's  Italian  allies,  the  Lucanians,  Samnites,  Apulians, 
and  Bruttians,  were  to  recover  all  towns  and  territories  which  they  had  lost  in 
war  to  the  Romans.  If  these  terms  were  agreed  to,  the  king  would  restore  to 
the  Romans  all  the  prisoners  whom  he  had  taken  without  ransom. 

Cineas,  the  ambassador  of  Pyrrhus  on  this  memorable  occasion,  was,  in  the 
cineas  sent  as  ins  am-  versatility  and  range  of  his  talents,  worthy  of  the  best  ages  of 
Greece.  He  was  a  Thessalian,65  and  in  his  early  youth  he  had 
heard  Demosthenes  speak ;  and  the  impression  made  on  his  mind  by  the  great 
orator  was  supposed  to  have  enkindled  in  him  a  kindred  spirit  of  eloquence :  the 
tongue  of  Cineas,  it  was  said,  had  won  more  cities  than  the  sword  of  Pyrrhus. 
Like  Themistocles,  he  was  gifted  with  an  extraordinary  memory ;  the  very  day 
after  his  arrival  at  Rome,  he  was  able  to  address  all  the  senators66  and  the  cit- 
izens of  the  equestrian  order  by  their  several  proper  names.  He  had  studied 
philosophy,  like  all  his  educated  countrymen,  and  appears  to  have  admired  par- 
ticularly the  new  doctrine  of  Epicurus  ;67  which  taught  that  war  and  state  affairs 
were  but  toil  and  trouble,  and  that  the.  wise  man  should  imitate  the  blissful  rest 
of  the  gods,  who,  dwelling  in  their  own  divinity,  regarded  not  the  vain  turmoil 

eo  Justin,  XVIII.  1.  showed  suffk  jcnt  respect  on  the  part  of  Pyrrh  us 

81  Appian,  Samnitic.  Fragm.  IX.    Dion  Gas-  for  the  power  and  resolution  of  the  Romans , 

sins,  Fragm.  Peiresc.  XL.  but  they  would  not  satisfy  the  Roman  vanity, 

M  Orosius,  IV.  1.     One  of  the  Roman  forag-  and  accordingly,  Plutarch  says  that  "  the  king 

ing  parties,  soon  after  the  battle,  was  overtaken  merely  asked  for  peace  for  himself  and  indem- 

by  so  dreadful  a  storm,  that  thirty-four  men  nity  for  the  Tarentines,  and  offered  to  aid  th« 

were  knocked  down,  and  twenty-two  left  nearly  Romans  in  conquering  Italy."    Pyrrh.  18. 

dead;  and  many  oxen  and  horses  were  killed  M  Plutarch.  Pyrrh.  14. 

or  maimei.  66  Pliny,  Histor.  Natur.  VII.  §  88. 

68  Appian,  Samnitic.  Fragm.  X.     Plutarch,  CT  Cicero,  de  Senectut.    13.  Plutarch.  Pyrrtu 

Pyrrh.  18.  20. 

**  Appian,  Samnitic.  Fragm.  X.  These  terms 


CHAP.  XXXVIL]      APPIUS  CLAUDIUS  SPEAKS  AGAINST  PEACE.  399 

of  this  lower  world.  Yet  his  life  was  better  than  his  philosophy ;  he  served  his 
king  actively  and  faithfully  in  peace  and  in  war,  and  he  wrote  a  military  work,6' 
for  which  he  neither  wanted  ability  nor  practical  knowledge.  He  excited  no 
small  attention  as  he  went  to  Rome,  and  his  sayings  at  the  places  through  which 
he  passed  were  remembered  and  recorded.69  Some  stories  said  that  he  was  the 
bearer  of  presents  to  the  influential  senators,  and  of  splendid  dresses70  to  win  the 
favor  of  their  wives ;  all  which,  as  the  Roman  traditions  related,  were  steadily 
refused.  But  his  proposals  required  grave  consideration,  and  there  were  many 
in  the  senate  who  thought  that  the  state  of  affairs  made  it  necessary  to  accept 
them. 

Appius  Claudius,  the  famous  censor,  the  greatest  of  his  countrymen  in  the 
works  of  peace,  and  no  mean  soldier  in  time  of  need,  was  now,  in  Appius  aaudius  u 
the  thirtieth  year  after  his  censorship,  in  extreme  old  age,  and  had  {£B£  ^g^6'  S 
been  for  many  years  blind.  But  his  active  mind  triumphed  over  P8*66' 
age  and  infirmity ;  and  although  he  no  longer  took  part  in  public  business,  yet 
he  was  ready71  in  his  own  house  to  give  answers  to  those  who  consulted  him  on 
points  of  law,  and  his  name  was  fresh  in  all  men's  minds,  though  his  person  was 
not  seen  in  the  Forum.  The  old  man  heard  that  the  senate  was  listening  to  the 
proposals  of  Cineas,  and  was  likely  to  accept  the  king's  terms  of  peace.  He  im- 
mediately desired  to  be  carried  to  the  senate-house,  and  was  borne  in  a  litter  by 
his  slaves  through  the  Forum.  When  it  was  known  that  Appius  Claudius  was 
coming,  his  sons  and  sons-in-law72  went  out  to  the  steps  of  the  senate-house  to 
receive  him,  and  he  was  by  them  led  into  his  place.  The  whole  senate  kept  the 
deepest  silence  as  the  old  man  arose  to  speak. 

No  Englishman  can  have  read  thus  far  without  remembering  the  scene,  in  all 
points  so  similar,  which  took  place  within  our  fathers'  memory  in  similnr  gcene  -m  Eog. 
our  own  house  of  parliament.  We  recollect  how  the  greatest  of  lish  Listory> 
English  statesmen,  bowed  down  by  years  and  infirmity  like  Appius,  but  roused, 
like  him,  by  the  dread  of  approaching  dishonor  to  the  English  name,  was  led  by 
his  son  and  son-in-law  into  the  house  of  lords,  and  all  the  peers,  with  one  im- 
pulse, arose  to  receive  him.  We  know  the  expiring  words  of  that  mighty  voice, 
when  he  protested  against  the  dismemberment  of  this  ancient  monarchy,  and 
prayevd  that  if  England  must  fall,  she  might  fall  with  honor.  The  real  speech  of 
Lord  Chatham  against  yielding  to  the  coalition  of  France  and  America,  will  give 
a  far  more  lively  image  of  what  was  said  by  the  blind  Appius  in  the  Roman 
senate,  than  any  fictitious  oration  which  I  could  either  copy  from  other  writers, 
or  endeavor  myself  to  invent ;  and  those  who  would  wish  to  know  how  Appius 
spoke  should  read  the  dying  words  of  the  great  orator  of  England. 

When  he  had  finished  his  speech,  the  senate  voted  that  the  proposals  of  Pyr- 
rhus  should  be  rejected,  that  no  peace73  should  be  concluded  with  The  gonate  rejecta  ^ 
him  so  long  as  he  remained  in  Italy,  and  that  Cineas  should  be  ^"^P'op03^- 
ordered  to  leave  Rome  on  that  very  day. 

Even  whilst  the  senate  had  been  considering  the  king's  proposals,  there  had 
en  no  abatement  of  the  vigor  of  their  preparations  for  war.  Two  ^nd  prepare  vigorous 
w  legions,74  which  must  have  been  at  least  the  ninth  and  tenth  for  wur- 


At  least  Cicero,  in  writing  to  Psetus,  says,  ™  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  18. 

"  Plane  nesciebam  te  tarn  peritum  esse  rei  m'ili-  71  Cicero,  de  Senectut.  6, 11.    Tusculan.  Disp, 

taris.    Pyrrhi  te  libros  et  Cinero  video  lectitas-  V.  38. 

Be."     Ad  Familiar.  IX.   25.     Now  the  com-  72  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  18.    He  had  four  sons  and 

mentaries  of  Pyrrhus  are  referred  to  by  Plutarch,  five  daughters,  but  how  many  of  his  daughters 

and  it  would  seem  therefore  that  the  allusion  to  were  married,  we  know  not.     Sec  Cicero  de 

the  writings  of  Cineas  is  also  to  be  taken  literally.  Senect.  11.     A  speech  was  extant  in  Cicero's 

89  At  Aricia,  on  the  Appian  Way,  Cineas  had  time  purporting  to  be  that  which  Appius  spoke 

remarked  the  luxuriance  of  the  vines,  as  they  on  this  occasion.    De  Senectut.  6.    Brutus,  16. 

festooned  on  the  very  summits  of  the  elms,  and  But  Cicero  does  not  seem  to  have  regarded  it 

at  the  same  time  complained  of  the  harshness  as  genuine. 

of  the  wine.     "  The  mother  which  bore  this  13  Plutarch,  Tyrrh.  19.     Appian,  Samnitic. 

wine  well  deserves,"  he  said,  "  to  be  hung  on  so  X.  2.    Zouaras,'  VIII.  4. 

1  igh  n  gibbet."    Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.  XIV.  §  12.  7«  Appian,  Samnitic.  X.  3.    The  Campanian 


400  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHA?.  XXXVH 

in  number,  were  raised  while  Cineas  was  at  Rome  by  voluntary  enlistment,  procla- 
mation being  made,  that  whoever  wished  to  offer  his  services  to  supply  the  place 
of  the  soldiers  who  had  fallen  in  battle,  should  enrol  himself  immediately.  Nie- 
buhr  supposes  that  this  was  the  period  of  P.  Cornelius  Rufinus'  dictatorship,  and 
that  he  superintended  the  recruiting  of  the  armies.  The  new  legions  were  sent 
to  reinforce  Loevinus,  who,  as  Pyrrhus  began  to  advance  northwards,  followed 
him  hanging  upon  his  rear,  but  not  venturing  to  engage  in  a  second  battle. 

Cineas  returned  to  the  king,  to  tell  him  that  he  must  hope  for  nothing  from 
advances  bio  negotiation.  He  expressed,  according  to  the  writers15  whom  we 
are  obliged  to  follow,  the  highest  admiration  of  all  that  he  had 
seen.  "  To  fight  with  the  Roman  people  was  like  fighting  with  the  hydra,  so 
inexhaustible  were  their  numbers  and  their  spirit."  "  Rome  was  a  city  of  gen- 
erals, nay,  rather  of  kings,"  or,  according  to  another  and  more  famous  version  of 
the  story,  "The  city  was  like  a  temple,  the  senate  was  an  assembly  of  kings." 
Did  we  find  these  expressions  recorded  by  Hieronymus  of  Cardia,  who  wrote 
before  Rome  was  the  object  of  universal  flattery,  we  might  believe  them;  but 
from  the  later  Greek  writers  they  deserve  no  more  credit  than  if  reported  merely 
by  the  Romans  themselves ;  and  nothing  is  more  suspicious  than  such  statements 
of  the  language  of  admiration  proceeding  from  the  mouth  of  an  enemy.  But  be 
this  as  it  may,  Pyrrhus  now  resolved  to  prosecute  the  war  with  vigor.  At  the 
head  of  a  large  arn^,76  for  the  Italian  allies  had  now  joined  him,  he  advanced 
through  Lucania  and  Samnium  into  Campania.  The  territory  of  the  allies  of 
Rome  had  now  for  some  years  been  free  from  the  ravages  of  war,17  and  its  scat- 
tered houses,  its  flourishing  cultivation,  and  luxuriant  fruit-trees,  were  a  striking 
contrast  to  the  wasted  appearance  of  Samnium  and  Lucania.  All  was  ravaged 
and  plundered  without  mercy,  by  the  Italians  in  revenge,  by  the  Greeks  to  enrich 
themselves  and  force  their  enemy  to  submission,  but  in  some  instances  it  only 
provoked  a  firmer  resistance,  and  Keapolis  and  Capua88  were  attacked,  but  re- 
fused to  surrender,  nor  could  Pyrrhus  make  himself  master  of  either  of  them. 

From  Campania  he  ascended  the  valley  of  the  Liris,  and  followed  the  Latin 

road  towards  Rome.     Fregellse,79  wrested  formerly  from  the  Vol- 

nican1  'cmLrJ-.6   iTe  scians  by  the  Samnites,  and  the  occupation  of  which  by  the  Ro- 

takes     Prseneste,    and  iiii  i  10  •.  •    u     J     A      'A! 

advances  within  eigh-  mans  had  led  to  the  second  Samnite  war,  now  yielded  to  the 
Greek  conqueror.  The  Hernicans,  who,  under  the  name  of  Ro- 
man citizens,  without  the  right  of  suffrage,  were  in  fact  no  better  than  Roman 
subjects,  received  Pyrrhus  readily,  and  Anagnia,80  their  principal  city,  opened  its 
gates  to  him.  Still  advancing,  he  at  last  looked  out  upon  the  plain  of  Rome 
from  the  opening  in  the  mountains  under  Preeneste ;  and  Prseneste  itself,81  with 
its  almost  impregnable  citadel,  fell  into  his  hands,  for  the  Prcenestines  remem- 
bered the  execution  of  their  principal  citizens  a  few  months  before,  and  longed 
for  vengeance.  Prseneste  is  barely  twenty-four  miles  distant  from  Rome,  but 
Pyrrhus  advanced  yet  six  miles  further,82  and  from  the  spot  where  the  road 

legion  which  garrisoned  Rhegium  had  been  the  Siris,  for  it  would  have  been  very  hard  to  have 

eighth.     Orosius,  IV.  3.     But  perhaps  the  pro-  involved  in  their  sentence  the  newly  raised  sol- 

letarians  raised  to  form  the  army  of  reserve  had  diers  who  had  no  share  in  the  defeat. 

already  formed  a  ninth  and  tenth  legion,  in  75  Plutarch,  in  Pyrrh.  19.    Appian,  Samnit. 

which  case  those   now  raised  would  be  the  X.  3.    Florus,  1. 18.    Dion  Cassius  apud  Maiuru, 

eleventh  and  twelfth.     We  cannot  account  for  Script.  Veter.  Collect,  torn.  II.  p.  538. 

four  legions  in  the  two  consular  armies,  two  7ii  Zonaras,  VIII.  4.    Eutropius,  II.    Floras, 

more  under  the  proconsul,  L.  ^Emilius;  one  or  I.  18. 

two,  we  know  not  which,  forming  the  reserve  77  Dion  Cassius,  Fragm.  50.     Script.  Veter. 

army  tinder  the  walls  of  Home,  and  one  in  gar-  Collect. 

rison  at  Rhegium.    The  legions  of  Lsevinus  had  78  Zonaras,  VIII.  4. 

suffered  so  greatly  in  the  battle  that  their  num.-  '9  Florus,  I.  18. 

bers  were  no  doubt  very  incomplete;  but  the  *°  Appian,  Samnitic.  X.  3. 

reinforcements  formed  two  fresh  legions,  and  81  Florus,  I.  18.     Eutropius,  II. 

did  not  merely  serve  to  reeruit  the  old  ones,  as  ^  "  Milliario  ab  urbe  octavodecimo."    Eutro- 

appears  both  by  Appian's  express  language,  and  plus.     If  this  statement  is   conect,   Pyrrhus 

Also  by  what  is  afterwards  said  of  the  punish-  must  have  passed  beyond  Zagarolo,  and  reached 

ment  of  the  legions  which  had  fought  on  the  the  spot  where  the  road  descends  to  the  ICVP' 


CHAP.  XXXVII]  EMBASSY  SENT  TO  PYRRHUS.  401 

descsnds  from  the  last  roots  of  the  mountains  to  the  wide  level  of  the  Campagna 
he  cast  his  eyes  upon  the  very  towers  of  the  city. 

One  march  more  would  have  brought  him  under  the  walls  of  Rome,  where, 
as  he  hoped,  there  was  nothing  to  oppose  him  but  the  two  lemons, 

,.,  ...  /•     i  •  111  IP         The  Etruscans  sudden. 

which,  at  the  beginning  of  the  campaign,  had  been  reserved  for  iy  ™»ke  peace  with 

-,°  •      t          rt  i  •  •/.  i     Rome,  and  the  second 

the  defence  of  the  capital.  But  at  this  moment  he  was  informed  consular  army  u  em. 
that  the  whole  Etruscan  nation  had  concluded  a  peace83  with  Rome,  &?«."  H+T*H*L* 
and  Ti.  Coruncanius,  with  his  consular  army,  was  returned  from 
Etruria,  and  had  joined  the  army  of  reserve.  At  the  same  time  Lfsvinus  was 
hanging  on  his  rear,  and  before  he  could  enter  Rome,  both  consuls  would 
be  able  to  combine  their  forces,  and  he  would  have  to  deal  with  an  army  of 
eight  or  nine  Roman  legions,  and  an  equal  number  of  their  Latin  and  other 
allies.  Besides,  his  own  army  was  feeling  the  usual  evils  of  a  force  composed 
of  the  soldiers  of  different  nations;  the  Italians  complained  of  the  Greeks,84 
and  charged  them  with  plundering  the  territory  of  friends  and  foes  alike ;  the 
Greeks  treated  the  Italians  with  arrogance,  as  if  in  themselves  alone  lay  the 
whole  strength  of  the  confederacy.  Pyrrhus  retreated,  loaded  with  plunder, 
and  returned  to  Campania ;  Lsevinus  fell  back  before  him,  but  it  is  said  that 
when  Pyrrhus85  was  going  to  attack  him,  and  ordered  his  soldiers  to  raise  their 
battle-cry,  and  the  Greeks  to  strike  their  spears  against  their  brazen  shields,  an*1 
when  the  elephants,  excited  by  their  drivers,  uttered  at  the  same  time  their  fear- 
ful roarings,  the  Roman  army  answered  with  a  shout  so  loud  and  cheerful,  tha> 
he  did  not  venture  to  bring  on  an  action.  Neither  party  made  any  further  at- 
tempts at  active  operations ;  the  Samnites  and  Lucanians  wintered  in  their  own 
countries,  Pyrrhus  himself  returned  to  Tarentum,  and  the  Rom?ns  remained 
within  their  own  frontiers,86  excepting  only  the  legions  which  had  been  beaten  in 
the  first  battle,  and  which  were  ordered  to  remain  in  the  field  during  the  wintei 
in  the  enemy's  country,  with  no  other  supplies  than  such  as  they  could  win  bj 
their  own  swords. 

As  soon  as  the  campaign  was  over,  the  senate  dispatched  en  embassy  te 
Pyrrhus  to  request  that  he  would  either  allow  them  to  ransom  his 
Roman  prisoners,  or  that  he  would  exchange  them  for  an  equal  to  py™"s!m^Tnte?l 

•  »  m  •  i          i  e    t  •         if  -i  •  view  with  Fabriciu*. 

number  or  larentmes  and  others  of  his  allies  who  were  prisoners 
at  Rome.87  The  ambassadors  sent  to  Pyrrhus  were  C.  Fabricius,  Q.  JEmilius, 
and  P.  Dolabella,  all  of  them  men  of  the  highest  distinction ;  but  Fabricius  was 
the  favorite  hero  of  Roman  tradition,  and  the  stories  of  this  embassy  spoke  of 
him  alone.  That  Pyrrhus  was  struck  with  the  circumstance  of  his  being  at  once 
BO  eminent  among  his  countrymen,  and  yet  so  simple  in  his  habits,  and  even,  ac- 
cording to  a  king's  standard  of  wealth,  so  poor,  is  perfectly  probable :  he  may 
have  asked  him  to  enter  into  his  service,  for  the  Greeks  of  that  age  thought  it 
no  shame  to  serve  a  foreign  king ;  and  if  the  Thessalian  Cineas  was  his  minister, 
he  could  not  suppose  that  a  similar  office  would  be  refused  by  the  barbarian  Fa- 
bricius. It  was  the  misfortune  of  Pyrrhus  to  live  in  a  state  of  society  where 

of  the  Campagna,  close  by  what  is  called  the  Hernican  town,  had  revolted,  and  that  these  le- 
lake  of  Eegillns,  and  just  at  the  junction  of  the  gions  were  employed  in  reducing  it.  But  no- 
modern  roacl  from  La  Colonna.  (Labici.)  thing  can  be  decided  with  certainty. 

63  Zonaras,  VIII.  4.     See  also  Appian,  X.  3,  87  "Appian.  Samnitic.  Fragm.  X.  4,  5.    The 

although  his  statement  is  not  quite  accurate  as  names  of  the  Roman  ambassadors,  and  long 

to  time.  speeches  put  into  the  moutlis  of  Pyrrhus  and  of 

84  Dion  Cassius,  Fragm.   50.   Script.  Voter.  Fabricius,  are  to  be  found  in  the  fragments  of 
Collect.  Dionysius,   XVIII.   5-26.     The  famous  aiwc- 

85  Zonaras,  VIII.  4.    Dion  Cassius,  Fragm.  dotes,  how  Fabricius  was  neither  to  be  bribed 

by  the  king's  money,  nor  frightened  by  the 

M  Frontinus,  Strategem.  IV.  1.  §  24.    The  sudden  si«;ht  of  one  of  his  elephants,  which  at 

name  of  the  place  to  which  Laavinus'  army  was  a  signal  given  stretched  out  its  trunk  imme- 

sent  is  corrupt.     Oudendorp  and  the  Bipont  diatcly  over  his  head,  are  given  by  Plutarch, 

edition  read  "  Firmum,"  which,  of  course,  must  Pyrrh.  20.     Speeches  of  Pyrrhus  and  of  Fabri- 

bo  wrong,  as  Firmum  was  far  away  from  the  cius  in  answer,  declining  the  king's  offers,  are 

seat  of  war.     Niebuhr  conjectures  Samnium  or  also  preserved  in    the  Vatican  Fragments  oi 

Ferentinum,  supposing  that  Ferentinum,  the  Dion  Cassius,  LI1I.  L1V. 
20 


402  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXVII 

patriotism  was  become  impossible ;  the  Greek  commonwealths  were  so  fallen, 
and  their  inner  life  so  exhausted,  that  they  could  inspire  their  citizens  neither 
with  respect  nor  with  attachment,  and  the  military  monarchies  founded  by  Alex- 
ander's successors  could  know  no  deeper  feeling  than  personal  regard  for  the 
reigning  monarch  ;  loyalty  to  his  line  could  not  yet  have  existed,  and  love  for  the 
nation  under  a  foreign  despotism  is  almost  a  contradiction.  In  Rome,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  state  and  its  institutions  were  in  their  first  freshness  and  vigor, 
and  so  surpassed  any  individual  distinction,  that  no  private  citizen  could  have 
thought  of  setting  his  own  greatness  on  a  level  with  that  of  his  country,  and  the 
world  could  offer  to  him  nothing  so  happy  and  so  glorious  as  to  live  and  die  a 
Roman.  But  the  particular  anecdotes  recorded  of  the  king  and  Fabricius  are  so 
ill  attested  and  so  suspicious,  and  the  speeches  ascribed  to  them  both  are  so 
manifestly  the  mere  invention  of  the  writers  of  a  later  age,  that  I  have  thought 
it  best  to  exclude  them  from  this  history,  and  merely  to  give  a  slight  mention  of 
them  in  a  note,  on  account  of  their  great  celebrity. 

Pyrrhus  would  neither  ransom  nor  exchange  his  prisoners,  unless  the  Romans 
H»  generous  treatment  would  accept  the  terms  of  peace  proposed  to  them  by  Cineas.88 
of  the  Rom™  prisons.  But  to  show  how  little  hewishedto  treat  them  with  harshness, 
he  allowed  Fabricius  to  take  them  all  back  with  him  to  Rome  to  pass  the  Satur- 
nalia, their  winter  holydays,  at  their  several  homes,  on  a  solemn  promise  that  they 
would  return  to  him  when  the  holydays  were  over,  if  the  senate  still  persisted  in 
refusing  peace.  The  senate  did  persist  in  its  refusal,  and  the  prisoners  returned 
to  Pyrrhus ;  the  punishment  of  death  having  been  denounced  by  the  Roman 
government  against  any  prisoner  who  should  linger  in  Rome  beyond  the  day 
fixed  for  their  return.  And  thus  both  parties  prepared  to  try  the  fortune  of 
war  once  again. 

The  new  consuls  were  P.  Sulpicius  Saverrio,  whose  father  had  been  consul  in 
the  last  year  of  the  second  Samnite  war,  and  P.  Decius  Mus,  the 
179.  second  campaign!  son  of  the  Decius  who  had  devoted  himself  at  Sentinum,  and  the 
M»d  to  pyn*L"&i  grandson  of  him  who  had  devoted  himself  in  the  great  battle  with 
the  Latins.  The  legions  required  for  the  campaign  were  easily 
raised,89  every  citizen  being  eager  to  serve  in  such  a  season  of  danger,  and  C. 
Fabricius  acted  as  lieutenant  to  one  of  the  consuls ;  but  beyond  this  we  know 
nothing  of  the  number  or  disposition  of  the  Roman  armies,  nor  of  their  plan  of 
operations,  nor  of  the  several  generals  employed  in  different  quarters.  Nor  do 
we  know  whether  any  of  the  places  which  had  revolted  to  Pyrrhus  during  his 
advance  upon  Rome  continued  still  to  adhere  to  him  after  his  retreat ;  nor,  if 
they  did,  how  much  time  and  what  forces  were  required  to  subdue  them.  We  are 
only  told  that  Pyrrhus  took  the  field  in  Apulia,  and  reduced  several  places  in  that 
quarter  ;90  and  that  he  was  employed  in  besieging  Asculum  when  both  consuls, 
with  their  two  consular  armies,  advanced  to  relieve  it  and  to  offer  him  battle. 

The  ancient  Asculum,  if  its  site  was  exactly  the  same  with  that  of  the  modern 
preparation,  for  battle  Ascoli,  stood  on  a.  hill  of  inconsiderable  size91  on  the  edge  of  the 
«  both  .idei.  plains  of  Apulia;  but,  geologically  speaking,  it  belongs  to  the 

plains,  for  the  hill  is  composed  only  of  beds  of  sand  and  clay,  and  the  range  of 
the  limestone  mountains  sweeps  round  it  at  some  distance  on  the  west  and  south. 
The  country  is,  for  the  most  part,  open,  and  must  have  been  favorable  for  the 
operations  of  the  king's  phalanx  and  elephants,  as  the  soil,  which  after  the  winter 
rains  is  stiff  and  heavy,  must,  later  in  the  year,  have  recovered  its  hardness. 

88  Appian,  Samnitic.  Fragm.  X.  4,  5.    Zona-  _  w  Dion  Cassius.  Fragm.  Vatic.  LV.      Oro- 

ras,  following  Dion  Cassius,  and  Dionysius  also,  sius,  IV.  1. 

place  v.t  this  period  the  free  release  of  all  the  M  Zonaras,  VIII.  4. 

Roman  prisoners  by  Pyrrhus  without  ransom.  M  See  Dr.  Daubeny's  Excursion  to  Amsane- 

And  so  also  does  the  epitome  of  Livy,  XIII.  tus,  p.  30.    Ascoli  is  a  poor  town,  though  it 

Plutarch  agrees  with  Appian,  and  their  account  contained  in  1797,  according   to  Giustiniani, 

is  so  much  the  more  probable  of  the  two  that  5270  souls.      It  has  suffered  repeatedly  from 

I  have  not  hesitated  to  follow  it.  earthquakes. 


CHAP.  XXXVII.J  BATTLE  OF  ASCULUM.  403 

When  the  armies  were  opposed  to  each  other,  a  rumor  spread  among;  Pyrrhus' 
soldiers92  that  the  consul  Decius  intended  to  follow  the'example  of  his  father 
and  grandfather,  and  to  devote  himself,  together  with  the  enemy's  army,  to  the 
powers  of  death,  whenever  they  should  join  battle.  The  men  were  uneasy  at 
this  report,  so  that  Pyrrhus  thought  it  expedient  to  warn  them  against  yielding 
to  superstitious  fears,  and  to  describe  minutely  the  dress  worn  by  any  person  so 
devoting  himself.  "  If  they  saw  any  one  so  arrayed,"  he  said,  "  they  shouldnojt 
kill  him,  but  by  all  means  take  him  alive ;"  and  he  sent  a  message  to  the  con- 
suls, warning  them  that  if  he  should  take  any  Roman  practising  such  a  trick, 
he  would  put  him  to  an  ignominious  death  as  a  common  impostor.  The  consuls 
replied,  that  they  needed  no  such  resources,  and  trusted  to  the  courage  of  Ro- 
man soldiers  for  victory. 

The  first  encounter  took  place  on  rough  ground,93  and  near  the  swampy  banks 
of  a  river :  and  Pyrrhus  having  assailed  the  Romans  in  such  a  posi- 

i       J        -j.1      i  T>     j.   1  J  L      1     •  Battle  of  Aeculum. 

tion,  was  repulsed  with  loss.  But  he  manoauvred  so  as  to  bring 
them  fairly  into  the  plain,  and  there  the  two  armies  engaged.  He  kept  his 
cavalry  and  elephants  to  act  as  a  reserve  ;  the  Tarentines  formed  the  centre  oi 
his  line ;  the  Lucanians,  Bruttians,  and  Sallentines94  were  on  the  left,  and  the 
Greeks  and  Samnites  on  the  right.  The  Romans,  as  usual,  had  their  cavalry  on 
the  wings,  and  their  own  legions  formed  the  first  line,  and  also  the  reserve  ;  the 
troops  of  their  allies  forming  a  second  line  between  them.  If  this  be  true,  the 
Romans  must  have  suspected  the  fidelity  of  their  allies ;  for  their  courage  had 
been  proved  in  a  hundred  battles  ;  and  the  Marsians  and  Pelignians  now,  as  at 
Pydna,  would  have  thrown  themselves  on  the  pikes  of  the  phalanx  as  fearlessly 
as  the  bravest  Roman.  On  the  other  hand,  Pyrrhus  intermingled  the  Samnites 
with  his  Greek  infantry,  on  purpose  to  combine  the  advantages  of  the  Italian 
tactic95  with  those  of  the  Macedonian ;  that  if  his  line  should  be  attacked  in  flank, 
or  if  the  enemy  should  penetrate  it  in  any  quarter,  the  Samnites  might  meet  the 
Romans  with  their  own  weapons,  and  allow  the  Greeks  time  to  recover  the  posi- 
tion and  close  order  which,  to  their  mode  of  fighting,  were  indispensable. 

But  he  had  no  occasion  to  try  the  effect  of  this  disposition  ;  for  his  phalanx 
kept  its  advantage,  and  as  the  nature  of  the  ground  obliged  the  The  Ron)an8  are  6e. 
Romans  to  attack  it  in  front,  they  hewed  in  vain  with  their  swords96  feated< 
at  the  invincible  mass  of  the  Macedonian  pikes,  or  tried  to  grapple  them  with 
their  hands  and  break  them.  The  Greeks  kept  an  even  line,  and  the  Romans, 
finding  it  impossible  to  get  within  the  hedge  of  spears,  were  slaughtered  without 
returning  a  wound.  At  last  they  gave  way,  and  then  the  elephants  charged,  and 
completed  the  rout.  The  other  parts  of  the  line  opposed  to  the  Tarentines  and 
Lucanians  were  obliged  to  follow  the  example,  and  the  Roman  army  fled  to  its 
camp.  This  was  so  close  at  hand  that  the  loss  did  not  exceed  six  thousand 
men,  while  in  the  army  of  Pyrrhus  there  had  fallen  3505  according  to  the  state- 
ment copied  by  Hieronymus  from  the  commentaries  of  the  king  himself.  This 
loss  must  again  have  fallen  on  the  cavalry,  light  troops,  and  peltastae  of  Pyrrhus' 
army,  unless  it  was  sustained  chiefly  by  his  allies  on  the  centre  and  left  wing ; 
for  the  circumstances  of  the  battle  make  it  certain  that  the  victory  of  his  heavy- 
armed  Greek  infantry  must  have  been  almost  bloodless. 

In  this  account  of  the  actual  battle  of  Asculum,  Plutarch  luckily  chose  to  copy 
Hieronymus ;  but  immediately  after  it  he  follows  Dionysius,  arid  Exaggerated  *nd  f«iM 
we  have  nothing  but  the  usual  exaggerations  of  Roman  vanity,  RCCOUnt  of  thu battle- 
which  leave  the  real  facts  of  the  campaign  in  utter  darkness.  The  victory  of 
Asculum  was  not  improved,  and  at  the  end  of  the  season  the  Romans  wintered 
in  Apulia,  and  Pyrrhus  again  returned  to  Tarentum.  A  victory  followed  by  no 

"Zonnras,  VIII.  5.     Dion  Cassias,  Fragm.        96  Polybius,  XVIII.  11. 
Vatican.  LV.  U6  Plutarch,  Pvrrk.  21.  copying  apparently 

1  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  21.  from  Hieronymus. 

M  Frontinus,  Stratagem.  II.  3,  §  21. 


404  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXVII 

results  is  easily  believed  to  be  a  defeat  ;  and  where  there  is  no  other  memorial 
of  events  than  unchecked  popular  report  and  unsifted  stories,  facts  which  have 
no  witness  in  their  permanent  consequences  are  soon  hopelessly  perverted. 
Niebuhr  declares  from  his  own  personal  observation,  that  within  a  few  days  after  the 
battle  of  Bautzen  every  Prussian  who  had  not  been  actually  engaged  in  the  action, 
maintained  that  the  allies  had  been  victorious  ;  and  we  can  remember  the  extra- 
ordinary misrepresentation  which  for  a  moment  persuaded  the  English  public 
that  Napoleon  had  been  defeated  at  Borodino.  The  successive  steps  of  Roman 
invention  with  respect  to  the  battle  of  Asculum  are  so  curious,  that  I  have  given 
a  view  of  them  in  a  note  :97  but  it  is  not  so  easy  to  determine  what  were  the 
real  causes  which  neutralized  to  Pyrrhus  the  result  of  his  victory,  and  made  the 
issue  of  the  campaign,  as  a  whole,  decidedly  unfavorable  to  him. 

Both  Zonaras  and  Dionysius  relate  that  the  baggage  of  Pyrrhus  was  plundered 
H  is  attended  with  no  during  the  battle  by  his  Italian  allies  ;  by  the  Apulians  according 


the  Ro  ™d  to  Zonaras,  or  according  to  Dionysius  by  the  Samnites.  If  this 
were  so,  not  only  did  it  imply  such  bad  discipline  and  bad  feeling 
on  the  part  of  his  allies  as  to  make  it  impossible  for  Pyrrhus  to  depend  on  their 
co-operation  for  the  future  ;  but  the  loss  of  their  plunder  and  baggage  would 
greatly  discourage  his  own  soldiers,  and  indispose  them  to  the  continuance  of  the 
war.  Besides,  it  was  manifest  that  the  brunt  of  every  battle  must  fall  on  the 
Greeks  ;  already  Pyrrhus  had  lost  many  of  his  best  officers,  and  as  he  never  lost 
sight  of  his  schemes  of  conquest  in  Greece,  he  would  not  be  willing  to  sacrifice 
his  bravest  soldiers  in  a  series  of  hard-won  battles  in  Italy,  for  the  sake  of  allies 
on  whom  he  could  place  no  reliance.  It  is  likely  also  that  the  Apulian  cities 
which  he  had  taken,  overawed  by  the  Roman  power,  and  disgusted  with  the 
arrogance  and  indiscriminate  plundering  of  the  Greeks,  were  ready  to  return  to 
their  alliance  with  Rome  ;  and  as  the  Roman  army  was  certain  to  be  speedily 
reinforced,  whilst  Pyrrhus  could  look  for  no  additional  soldiers  from  Epirus,  it 
might  be  absolutely  impossible  for  him  to  keep  the  field.  Finally,  the  Romans 
had  concluded  a  defensive  alliance98  with  the  Carthaginians,  for  their  mutual 
support  against  Pyrrhus  ;  and  towards  the  autumn  of  the  year  Ptolemy  Cerau- 
nus,  king  of  Macedon,  was  defeated  and  killed  by  the  Gauls,99  and  the  presence 
of  these  barbarians  in  Macedonia  made  it  certain  that  no  more  soldiers  could  be 
spared  from  Epirus  for  foreign  warfare,  when  their  own  frontier  was  in  hourly 
danger  of  invasion. 

Thus  left  with  no  prospect  of  further  conquests  in  Italy,  Pyrrhus  eagerly  lis- 
tened during  the  winter  to  offers  from  other  quarters,  inviting  him  to  a  new  field 

The  account  in  the  text  is  Plutarch's,  copied,  actually  devote  himself  in  this  battle  as  his 

as  I  have  said,  from  Hieronymus  of  Cardia,  a  father  and  grandfather  had  done  before  him. 

contemporary   historian.    And    Justin  agrees  De  Finib.  II.  19.     Tusculan.  Disp.  I.  37.    No 

with  it:  "The  issue  of  the  second  battle,"  he  other  existing    account    notices  this  circum- 

says,  "  was  similar  to  that  of  the  first,"  XVIII.  stance  ;  and  according  to  the  author  "  de  Viris 

1.     Livy,  if  we  may  trust  the  epitome  of  his  Illustribus,"  Decius  was  alive  some  years  after- 

13th  book,  describes  the  action  as  a  drawn  bat-  wards,  and  was  engaged  in  the  last  war  with 

tie:  "  dubio  eventu  pugnatum  est."    But  Flo-  Volsinii.  Probably  it  was  either  a  forgetfulness  in 

rus  calls  it  a  victory  on  the  part  of  the  Romans  ;  Cicero  himself,  or  he  followed  some  exaggerated 

and  Eutropius  and'Orosius,  copying  apparently  account,  which,  as  he  was  not  writing  a  history 

from  the  same  source,  says  that  Pyrrhus  was  of  the  period,  he  did  not  criticise,  but  adoptee) 

wounded,   many  of  his  elephants  destroyed,  it  without  inquiry.    But  such  enormous  dis- 

and  20,000  of  his  men  killed,  the  Roman  loss  crepancies  in  the  several  accounts  show  what  is. 

not  exceeding    5000.    Zonaras,   copying  from  the  character  of  the  Roman  history  of  this 

Dion  Cassius,  says  that  Pyrrhus  was  wounded,  period,  that,  except  in  particular  cases,  it  is 

and  that  his  army  was  defeated  ;  owing  chiefly  merely  made  up  of  traditional  stories  and  pane- 

to  an  attack  made  on  his  camp  during  the  bat-  gyrical  orations,  and  can  scarcely  be  called  his- 

tle  by  a  party  of  Apulians,  which  spread  a  panic  tory  at  all.    How  different  is  the  account  given 

among  his  soldiers.    According  to  Dionysius,  of  the  battle  by  the  contemporary  historian 

as  quoted  by  Plutarch,  Pyrrhus  was  wounded,  Hieronymus,  who  was  writing  from  really  good 

the  Samnites,  and  not  the  Apulians,  assaulted  materials,  not  from  guess  or  fancy,  but  from 

his  camp  during  the  action,  and  the  loss  on  knowledge  ! 

both  sides  was  equal,  amounting  to  15,000  men  "8  Livy,  Epitome,  XIII.     Polybius,  III.  25 

in  each  army.    It  is  no  less  remarkable  that.  Justin,  XV11I.  2. 

according  to  Cicero,  the  consul  P.  Decius  dia  "  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  22. 


CHAP.  XXX VII.]  PYRRHUS  IS  INVITED  TO  SICILY  405 

of  action.  The  death  of  Ptolemy  Ceraunus  and  the  anarchy  pynhn8  croiW8  OVCT 
which  followed  tempted  him  to  win  back  his  old  dominion  in  intoSiciIy- 
Macedonia,  while  envoys  from  some  of  the  principal  cities  of  Sicily  called  upon 
him  to  aid  them  against  Carthage,  and  promised  to  make  him  master  of  the 
whole  island.  He  was  thus  eager  to  seize  the  first  pretext  for  abandoning  Italy, 
and  early  in  the  following  spring  such  an  occasion  was  afforded  him.  The  new 
consuls,  C.  Fabricius  and  Q.  JEmilius,  were  sent  against  him  :100  A>  U4  c.  476.  ^  Ct 
and  he  soon  received  a  message  from  them  to  say  that  one  of  his  218> 
servants  had  offered  to  poison  him,  and  had  applied  to  the  Romans  to  reward  his 
crime,  but  that  the  consuls,  abhorring  a  victory  gained  by  treason,  wished  to  give  the 
king  timely  notice  of  his  danger.  Pyrrhus  upon  this  expressed  his  gratitude  in 
the  warmest  terms,  furnished  all  his  prisoners  with  new  clothing,  and  sent  them 
back  to  their  own  country,  without  ransom  and  without  conditions.101  Immedi- 
ately afterwards,  without  paying  any  regard  to  the  remonstrances  of  his  allies, 
he  left  Milo  still  in  possession  of  the  citadel  of  Tarentum,103  and  his  second  son 
Alexander  at  Locri,  and  set  sail  with  the  rest  of  his  army  for  Sicily. 

It  was  apparently  soon  after  the  battle  of  Asculum,  that  a  Carthaginian  fleet 
of  120  ships103  was  sent  to  Ostia  to  offer  aid  to  the  Romans,  and 

.,  r    ,       v     .  ,   .  ,,  ~        .,          .     .  ,          A  Cnrthajrinian  fleet  il 

the  senate  declining  this  succor,  the  Carthaginian  commander  sent  to  the  aid  of  the 
sailed  away  to  the  south  of  Italy,  and  there  it  is  said  proposed  to 
Pyrrhus  that  Carthage  should  mediate  between  him  and  the  Romans,  his 
real  object  being  to  discover  what  were  the  king's  views  with  respect  to  Sicily. 
Was  then  the  Tarentine  fleet  wasting  the  coasts  of  Latium,  so  that  Rome  stood 
in  need  of  naval  aid  ?  Or  did  so  large  a  fleet  contain  a  Carthaginian  army,  and 
was  Rome  wisely  unwilling  to  see  an  African  general  making  war  in  Italy,  and 
carrying  off  the  plunder  of  Italian  cities  ?  The  insinuation  against  the  good  faith 
of  the  Carthaginian  commander  seems  quite  unfounded;  this  very  armament 
helped  the  Romans104  in  attempting  to  recover  Rhegium,  and  though  the  seige 
did  not  succeed,  yet  a  large  supply  of  timber,  which  the  Campanians  had  col- 
lected for  building  ships,  was  destroyed,  and  the  Carthaginians  having  made  a 
league  with  the  Mamertines  of  Messana,  watched  the  strait  with  their  fleet  to 
intercept  Pyrrhus  on  his  passage.  But  it  seems  that  their  fleet  was  called  off  in 
the  next  year  to  be  employed  in  the  siege  of  Syracuse,  so  that  Pyrrhus,  avoiding 
Messana,  crossed  from  Locri  to  Tauromenia105  without  opposition,  and  being  wel- 
comed there  by  the  tyrant  Tyndarion,  landed  his  army,  and  marched  to  the 
deliverance  of  Syracuse.  His  operations  in  Sicily  lasted  more  than  two  years  ;1M 
his  fortune,  which  at  first  favored  him  in  every  enterprise,  was  wrecked  in  a 
fruitless  siege  of  Lilybaeum  ;107  disgusts  arose,  as  in  Italy,  between  him  and  his 
allies ;  they  were  unmanageable  and  he  was  tyrannical,  so  that  when  at  length 
his  Italian  allies  implored  him  to  come  once  again  to  their  aid,  he  was  as  ready 
to  leave  Sicily  as  he  had  before  been  anxious  to  invade  it. 

During  his  absence  the  Samnites,  Lucanians,  Bruttians,  and  Tarentines  still 

100  Claudius    Quadrigarius,    quoted   by    A.  tained  no  triumph  over  Tarentum,  and  the 
Gcllius,  III.  8.    Appian,  Samnitic.  Fragm.  XI.  success  for  which  Fabricius  triumphed   "de 
Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  21.  Tarentinis"  (Fasti  Capitol.)  may  have  been  ob- 

101  Plutarch  and  Appian  say  that  the  senate  tained  in  the  early  part  of  his  consulship,  before 
released  an  equal  number  of  Tarentine  and  Sam-  the  truce  with  Pyrrhus  was  concluded. 

nite  prisoners,  and  that  Cineas  was  again  sent  loa  Justin,  XVIII.  2.    Zonaras,  VIII.  5. 
to  Koine  to  negotiate  a  peace,  but  that  the  Romans  10S  Justin,  XVIII.  2. 
refused  to  treat,  while  Pyrrtius  remained  in  10*  Diodorus,  Fragm.  Hoeschel.  XXII.  9. 
Italy.    Yet  Appian,  in  another  fragment,  says  °6  Diod.,  Fragm.  Hoeschel.  XXII.  11. 
that  Pyrrhus,  "after  his  treaty  with  the  Ro-  J06  From  the  middle  of  476  to  the  latter  end 
mans,"  pcrU  rag  irpd?  'Pvpaiovs  ffwQrjKas,  went  of  478.    2r«  rp/rw  is  Apjiian's  expression,  Sam- 
over  to  Sicily.    Probably  a  truce  for  a  certain  nitic.  Fragm.  XII.,  which  Mr.  Fynes  Clinton 
period  was  agreed  to,  and  with  it  a  general  ex-  wrongly  understands  of  the  year  479,  for  that, 
change  of  prisoners.    Whether  Pyrrhus  stipu-  according  to  the  Greek  mode  of  reckoning, 
lated  any  thing  for  the  Tarentines  we  cannot  would  not  have  been  Irti  ro/r^,  but  rtrdor^. 
tell;   but  the  consuls  of  the   two  succeeding  107  Diodorus,   Fragm.   Hoeschel.    XXII.  14. 
years,  although  they  triumphed  over  the  Sam-  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  22,  23. 
iiitefr  and  Lucanians,  yet  appeared  to  have  ol 


406  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXVII 

A.u.c.476,477.  A.  c.  continued  the  war.  They  ventured  no  battles  in  the  field,  but 
ffi'JIi'in  n™ydurin°g  resolutely  defended  their  towns  and  fastnesses,108  and  sometimes, 
*e  absence  of  pyrrhus.  as  aiwayS  happens  in  such  warfare,  inflicted  some  partial  loss  on 
the  enemy,  without  being  able  to  change  in  any  degree  the  general  fortune  of  the 
contest.  The  consuls  employed  against  them  enjoyed  a  triumph  at  the  end  of 
each  campaign  ;  Fabricius  at  the  end  of  the  year  476,109  C.  Junius  Brutus  at  the 
end  of  477,  and  Q.  Fabius  Gurges  at  the  end  of  478.  '  In  the  mean  time  P.  Cor- 
nelius Rufinus,  the  colleague  of  C.  Junius  in  477,  had  recovered  Croton  and  Lo- 
cri ;  but  as  he  was  considered  the  principal  cause  of  a  severe  repulse  sustained 
by  himself110  and  his  colleague  from  the  Samnites  at  the  beginning  of  the  year, 
he  was  not  thought  deserving  of  a  triumph. 

It  seems  to  have  been  in  the  autumn  of  478  that  Pyrrhus  returned  to  Italy.111 
A  u  c  478  AC  ^ut  ki§  return  was  beset  with  enemies,  for  a  Carthaginian  fleet 
276.  'pyrrhu*  returni  attacked  him  on  his  passage,  and  sunk  seventy  of  his  ships  of 
war,112  and  when  he  landed  on  the  Italian  coast  he  found  that  the 
Mamertines  had  crossed  over  from  Messana  to  beset  his  road  by  land,  and  he 
had  to  cut  his  way  through  them  with  much  loss.  Yet  he  reached  Tarentum 
with  a  force  nearly  as  large  as  that  which  he  had  first  brought  over  from  Epirus  ; 
as  large  in  numbers,  but  of  a  very  different  quality,  consisting  principally  of  mer- 
cenaries raised  in  his  Sicilian  wars,  men  of  all  countries,  Greek  and  Barbarian, 
and  whose  fidelity  would  last  no  longer  than  their  general  was  victorious. 

No  sooner  had  he  arrived  at  Tarentum  than  he  commenced  active  operations. 
He  plunders  the  temph  The  Roman  consuls  were  employed  in  Lucania  and  in  Samnium,113 
•r  Proserpine  at  Locri.  j^j.  ^Q  YQCe[VQ^  no  interruption  from  them,  and  recovered  Locri. 
He  next  made  an  attempt  upon  Rhegium,  a  place  so  important  from  its  position 
to  the  success  of  any  new  expedition  to  Sicily,  but  the  Campanian  garrison  re- 
sisted Pyrrhus114  as  stoutly  as  they  had  resisted  the  Romans,  and  the  king  was 
obliged  to  retire  with  loss.  His  old  allies,  the  Samnites  and  Lucnnians,  re- 
ceived him  coldly,  and,  however  anxious  to  obtain  his  aid,  they  had  not,  ex- 
hausted as  they  were,  the  means  of  supplying  him  with  money,  even  if  they 
had  been  disposed  to  rely  on  his  constancy  in  their  cause.  Thus  embarrassed, 
as  he  passed  by  Locri  on  his  return  from  Rhegium  to  Tarentum,  he  listened  to 
the  advice  of  some  of  his  followers,116  and  plundered  the  temple  of  Proserpine. 
In  the  vaults  underneath  this  temple  was  a  large  treasure,  which  had  been  buried 
for  unknown  generations,  and  no  mortal  eye  had  been  allowed  to  look  on  it. 
This  he  carried  off,  and  embarked  his  spoil  on  board  of  his  ships,  to  transport  it 
by  sea  to  Tarentum.  A  storm,  however,  arose  and  wrecked  the  ships,  and  cast 
ashore  the  plundered  treasure  on  the  coast  of  Locri.  Pyrrhus  was  moved,  and 
ordered  it  to  be  replaced  in  the  temple  of  the  goddess,  and  offered  sacrifices  to 
propitiate  her  anger.  But  when  there  were  no  signs  given  that  she  accepted  his 
offering,  he  put  to  death  the  three  men  who  had  advised  him  to  commit  the 
sacrilege,  and  even  yet  his  mind  was  haunted  by  a  dread  of  divine  vengeance, 
and  his  own  commentaries117  recorded  his  belief  that  Proserpine's  wrath  was  still 

108  Zonaras,  VIII.  6.  ginians  employed  in  their  engagement  with 

109  Fabricius  triumphed  in  December,  Brutus  Duilius  in  the  first  Punic  war  a  large  ship, 
in  January,  thirteen  months  afterwards,  and  Fa-  which  they  took  from  Pyrrhus  probably  on  his 
bius  in  the  February  of  the  year  following,  when  retreat  from  Sicily.      (Polybius,  I.   23.)    We 
Pyrrhus  in  all  probability  was  already  returned  must  suppose  that  the  ships  of  war  were  con- 
to  Italy.  voying  the  transports  on  which  Pyrrhus  had 

110  Zonaras,  VIII.  6.  embarked  his  army ;  and  that  their  resistance 

111  Zonaras  expressly  says  that  Pyrrhus  re-  enabled  the  transports  to  escape, 
turned  in  the  year  after  the  consulship  of  P.  J13  Zonaras,  VIII.  6. 
Rufinus,  that  is,  in  478.     VIII.  6.  1M  Zonaras,  VIII.  6. 

10  Appian,  Samnitic.  Fragm.  XII.  Plutarch,  m  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  25.  Dion.  Cassius,  Fragm. 

Pyrrh.  24.     Pyrrhus  had  obtained  this  fleet  Peiresc.  XLII. 

chiefly  from  the  Syracusans,  who,  on  his  first  118  Dionysius,   XIX.   9.     Appian,    Samnitic 

arrival  in  Sicily,  gave  up  to  him  their  whole  Fragm.  XII. 

navy,  amounting  to  140  ships  of  war.     Diorlo-  in  Dionysius,  XIX.,  u>?  ril  aurbs  b  ntpfios  iv  r»Ii 

rus,  Fragm.  Hoe.schel.  XXII.  11.    The  Cartha-  Wots  fa 


CHAP.  XXX  VII.]  PREPARATIONS  OF  THE  ROMANS.  407 

pursuing  him,  and  bringing  on  his  arms  defeat  and  ruin.  If  Pyrrhus  nimself,  after 
his  long  intercourse  with  the  Epicurean  Cineas,  entertained  such  fears,  they  weighed 
far  more  heavily  doubtless  on  the  minds  of  many  of  his  soldiers  and  his  allies  ; 
and  the  sense  of  being  pursued  by  the  wrath  of  heaven  may  have  well  chilled 
the  hearts  of  the  bravest,  and  affected  in  no  small  degree  the  issue  of  the  war. 

This  was  fast  approaching.     The  consuls  chosen  for  the  year  479  were  M*. 
Curius  Dentatus  and  L.  Cornelius  Lentulus.    The  Romans  on  their 

...  ..,,  i'     •  i  t  Religious      terroTt    ftl 

side  also  were  visited  by  religious  terrors  ;  during  the  year  478  a  Rome.  ^A.  u.  c-m. 
fatal  pestilence  had  raged  amongst  them,118  and  now  the  clay 
statue  of  Jupiter  on  the  summit  of  the  Capitoline  temple  was  struck  by  light- 
ning, and  shattered  to  pieces.  The  head  of  the  image  was  nowhere  to  be  found, 
and  the  augurs  declared  that  the  storm  had  blown  it  into  the  Tiber,  and  com- 
manded that  it  should  be  searched  for  in  the  bed  cf  the  river.  It  was  found 
in  the  very  place  in  which  the  augurs  had  commanded  the  search  to  be  made. 

Fears  of  the  anger  of  the  gods,  together  with  the  dread  of  the  arms  of  Pyr- 
rhus, made  the  Romans  backward  to  enlist  in  the  legions.     Those 

,      ,  .  ,  ,      .  1.1       Severity  of  the  conwl 

who  were  summoned  did  not  answer  to  their  names,  upon  which  in  tj^  eoiiitment  <* 
the  consul,  M'.  Curius,119  commanded  that  the  goods  of  the  first  de- 
faulter should  be  publicly  sold.  A  public  sale  of  a  man's  property  by  the  sen- 
tence of  a  magistrate  rendered  him  incapable  of  exercising  afterwards  any  politi- 
cal rights  ;  but  the  necessity  of  a  severe  example  was  so  felt  that  no  tribune  in- 
terposed in  behalf  of  the  offender,  and  the  consul's  order  was  carried  into  execu- 
tion. The  usual  number  of  legions  was  then  raised  ;  Lentulus120  marched  into 
Lucania,  Curius  into  Samnium. 

Pyrrhus  took  the  field  against  Curius  with  his  own  army,  and  the  flower  of  the 
force  of  Tarentum,  and  a  division  of  Samnites;  the  rest  of  the 
Samnite  army  was  sent  into  Lucania  to  prevent  Lentulus  from 

.•;•,.  n  /-*       •  f    f  t  T-»         t 

coming  to  join  his  colleague.  Curius,  nndmg  that  Pyrrhus  was 
marching  against  him,  sent  to  call  his  colleague  to  his  aid  ;  and  in  the  mean 
while  the  omens  would  not  allow  him  to  attack  the  enemy,121  and  he  lay  en- 
camped in  a  strong  position  near  Beneventum.  There  is  much  rugged  and  diffi- 
cult country  behind  the  town  on  the  road  towards  Apulia,  and  there  is  a  con- 
siderable extent  of  level  ground  in  the  valley  of  the  Galore  below  it,  which  was 
the  scene  of  the  decisive  battle  between  Manfred  and  Charles  of  Anjou.  But 
whether  they  fought  on  the  same  ground  which  had  witnessed  the  last  encounter 
between  Pyrrhus  and  the  Romans,  it  is  not  possible  to  determine. 

Pyrrhus  resolved  to  attack  Curius  before  his  colleague  joined  him,  and  he 
planned  an  attack  upon  his  camp  by  night.122  He  set  out  by  un«,cceMfui  night- 
torchlight,  with  the  flower  of  his  soldiers  and  the  best  of  his  ele-  SSL°*t£rnJiS 
phants  ;  but  the  way  was  long,  and  the  country  overgrown  with  CHmp- 
wood,  and  intersected  with  steep  ravines  ;  so  that  his  progress  was  slow,  and  at 
last  the  lights  were  burnt  out,  and  the  men  were  continually  missing  their  way. 
Day  broke  before  they  reached  their  destination  ;  but  still  the  enemy  were  not 
aware  of  their  approach  till  they  had  surmounted  the  heights  above  the  Roman 
camp,  and  were  descending  to  attack  it  from  the  vantage-ground.  Then  Curius 
led  out  his  troops  to  oppose  them  ;  and  the  nature  of  the  ground  gave  the  Ro- 
mans a  great  advantage  over  the  heavy-armed  Greek  infantry,  as  soon  as  the 
attempt  to  surprise  them  had  failed.  But  the  action  seems  to  have  been  decided 

118  Orosius,  IV.  2.  Livy,  Epitom.  XIV.  Cicero,  most  tolerant  even  of  the  greatest  severity  when 

de  Divinat.  I.  10.  the  public  service  seemed  to  require  it.    But 

IW  Livy,  Epitom.  XIV.    Valerius  Maximus.  the  authority  of  a  collector  of  anecdotes  is  so 

VI.  3,  §  4,  adds  to  this  story  that  Curius  sold  small,  that  Valerius'  addition  to  the  story  must 

not  only  the  property  of  the  defaulter,  but  the  be  considered  very  doubtful. 

man  himself,  saying  "  that  the  commonwealth  m  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  25. 

wanted  no  citizen  who  did  not  know  how  to  M1  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  25. 

obey."    If  the  tribunes  did  not  interfere,  the  122  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.   25.      Dionysius,   XIX. 

consul's  power  might  indeed  extend  to   any  12-14. 
thing  ;  and  we  know  that  the  Romans  were 


t  each  <> 

near  Beneventum. 


408  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXVHl 

by  an  accident ;  for  one  of  Pyrrhus'  elephants  was  wounded,  and  running  wild 
among  its  own  men,  threw  them  into  disorder ;  nor  could  they  offer  a  long  resist- 
ance, being  almost  exhausted  with  the  fatigue  of  their  night-march.  They  were 
repulsed  with  great  loss  ;123  two  elephants  were  killed,  and  eight  being  forced 
into  impracticable  ground  from  which  there  was  no  outlet,  were  surrendered  to 
the  Romans  by  their  drivers. 

Thus  encouraged,  Curius  no  longer  declined  a  decisive  action  on  equal  ground  ; 
Bam*  of  Beneventum.  he  descended  into  the  plain,124  and  met  Pyrrhus  in  the  open  field. 
Pyrrhus  i» defeated.  Qn  ^  one  wjjig  the  Romans  were  victorious  ;  on  the  other,  op- 
pressed by  the  weight  of  the  elephants'  charge,  they  were  driven  back  to  their 
camp.125  But  their  retreat  was  covered  by  a  shower  of  missiles  from  the  guards 
on  the  rampart,  and  these  so  annoyed  the  elephants  that  they  turned  about,  and 
fled  through  their  own  ranks,  bearing  down  all  before  them.  When  the  phalanx 
was  thus  disordered  the  Romans  attacked  it  vigorously,  and  made  their  way  into 
the  mass  ;  and  then  their  swords  had  an  immense  advantage  over  the  long  spears 
of  the  enemy,  and  their  victory  was  speedy  and  complete. 

What  number  of  men  were  killed  or  taken  is  variously  reported  ;  but  the  over- 
He  finally  leave,  iteiy  throw  was  decisive ;  and  Pyrrhus,  retreating  to  Tarentum,  resolved 
and  re*™  to  Epi™,.  immediately  to  evacuate  Italy.  Yet,  as  if  he  still  clung  to  the 
hope  of  returning  hereafter,  he  left  Milo  with  his  garrison  in  the  citadel  of  Taren- 
tum, and  then  embarked  for  Epirus.126  He  landed  in  his  native  kingdom  with  no 
more  than  eight  thousand  foot  and  five  hundred  horse,127  and  without  money  to 
maintain  even  these.  Thus  he  was  forced  to  engage  in  new  enterprises ;  and 
often  victorious  in  battle,  but  never  successful  in  war,  he  perished  two  or  three 
years  afterwards,  as  is  well  known,  by  a  woman's  hand,  in  his  attack  upon  Argos, 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII, 

GENERAL  HISTORY  FROM  THE  DEPARTURE  OF  PYRRHUS  FROM  ITALY  TO  THE 
BEGINNING  OF  THE  FIRST  PUNIC  WAR— FINAL  SUBMISSION  OF  SAMNIUM— 
CONQUEST  OF  TARENTUM— PICENTIAN  AND  VOLSINIAN  WARS— ROME 
ACQUIRES  THE  SOVEREIGNTY  OF  ALL  ITALY— DETACHED  EVENTS  AND 
ANECDOTES  RELATING  TO  THIS  PERIOD.-479  TO  489  A.  U.  C.,  275  TO  265  A.  C. 


"  France  was  now  consolidated  into  a  great  kingdom.  .  .  .  And  thus  having  conquered  her- 
eelf,  if  I  may  use  the  phrase,  and  no  longer  apprehensive  of  any  foreign  enemv,  she  was  pre- 
pared to  carry  her  arms  into  other  countries." — HALLAM,  Middle  Ages,  Chap.  I.  tart  11. 


WE  have  seen  that  a  Carthaginian  fleet  appeared  on  the  coasts  of  Latium  in 
between  the  heat  of  the  war  with  Pyrrlius,  to  offer  its  assistance  to  the 
ROB.  and  Carthage.     Romans.     The  offer  was  then  refused,  but  very  soon  afterwards  a 


178 


Dionysius,  XIX.  14.  mother,  and  so  excited  her,  that  she,  too,  be- 

124  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  25.  The  scene  of  the  came  ungovernable,  and  threw  the  Greek  army 

battle  is  placed  by  Orosius  and  Florus   "in  into  disorder,  and  that  this  accident  first  turned 

campis  Arusinis,"  or  "sub  campis  Arusinis,"  the  fortune  of  the  day. 

but  this  name  is  unknown  to  us,  and  does  not  126  It  is  said  that  a  report  was  purposely  cir- 

enable  us  to  determine  the  place  exactly.  culated  by  Pyrrhus,  of  the  speedy  arrival  of  re- 

126  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  25.  The  story  which  info  rcements  from  the  kings  of  Macedonia  and 

ZMonysius  and  Plutarch  relate  of  the  first  action  Syria,  and  that  the  Romans  therefore  did  not 

is  by  Zonaras  and  Florus  referred  to  the  last  venture  to  advance  upon  Tarentum.  Pausanias. 

and  decisive  battle  ;  namely,  that  a  young  ele-  I.  13  ;  compare  Niebuhr,  Vol.  HI.  p.  610,  ai:o 

phant   having  been    wounded,   and    running  note  927. 

tbout  screaming,  its  cries  were  heard  by  its  *"  Plutarch,  Pyrrh.  26. 


£ 


CHAP.  XXXVIIL]  PREPARATORY  EVENTS.  4Q9 

treaty  was  concluded  between  Rome  and  Carthage,1  in  which  both  nations  en- 
gaged to  reserve  to  themselves  the  right  of  assisting  one  another,  even  if  either 
should  conclude  an  alliance  with  Pyrrhus  ;  that  is  to  say,  their  alliance  with 
him  was  to  be  subordinate  to  their  alliance  with  each  other,  and  instead  of  aiding 
him  in  his  attacks  against  the  other,  they  were  in  such  a  case  to  aid  one  another, 
even  against  him.  Such  were  the  relations  subsisting  between  Rome  and  Car- 
thage in  the  year  479 ;  eleven  years  afterwards  these  friendly  ties  were  broken 
to  pieces,  and  the  two  nations  were  engaged  in  the  first  Punic  war. 

In  fact,  from  the  moment  that  Pyrrhus  embarked  at  Tarentum  to  return  to 
Epirus,  the  whole  stream  of  our  history  begins  to  set  towards  that  preparBtion  of  event. 
great  period  when  Rome  and  Carthage  first  became  enemies.  The  for  th8  fim  Punic  war- 
relics  of  wars  in  Italy,  which  still  remain  to  be  noticed,  are  only  like  a  clearing 
of  the  ground  for  that  mightier  contest ;  and  the  union  of  all  Italy  under  one 
dominion  is  rather  to  be  regarded  for  the  present  as  the  forging  of  that  iron 
power  by  which  Carthage  was  to  be  crushed,  and  the  whole  civilized  world 
bowed  into  subjection,  than  as  the  completion  of  the  magnificent  and  complicated 
fabric  in  which  law  and  polity  were  to  abide  as  in  their  appointed  temple.  The 
very  barrenness  of  the  political  history  of  Rome  during  the  half  century  which 
followed  the  war  with  Pyrrhus,  is  in  itself  a  presumption  that  the  energies  of  the 
Roman  people  at  this  time  were  employed  abroad  rather  than  at  home.  I  shall 
therefore  defer  all  notice  of  the  internal  state  of  Italy  under  the  Roman  sov- 
ereignty, till  we  come  to  the  period  of  the  second  Punic  war.  Then,  when  Han- 
nibal's sword  was  probing  so  deeply  every  unsound  part  in  the  Roman  dominion, 
and  when  he  was  laboring  to  array  Campania  and  Samnium  and  Lucania  and 
Bruttium  in  a  fifth  coalition  against  Rome,  the  internal  relations  of  the  Italian 
states  towards  the  Romans  and  towards  each  other  will  necessarily  demand  our 
attention.  But  for  the  present  I  shall  merely  regard  them  as  blended  into  one 

reat  mass,  which  was  presently  to  be  engaged  in  deadly  conflict  with  the  do- 

inion  of  Carthage. 

After  Pyrrhus  left  Italy,  his  general,  Milo,  retained  the  citadel  of  Tarentum  for 
nearly  four  years.     The  aristocratical  party,  which  had  been  from 
the  beo-innine;  opposed  to  the  Epirot  alliance,  now  endeavored  to  272.  siege  of  Turen- 

.  ,      ,,   °  -i  f    •,     i         f  f  mi  e   -1     J      l  •        inm-     Mi'"  retires  to 

rid  themselves  of  it  by  force  of  arms.  They  failed,  however,  in  EPin».  surrender  oi 
their  attempt  to  recover  the  citadel,  and  then  leaving  Tarentum, 
they  occupied  a  fort  in  the  neighborhood,2  from  whence  they  carried  on  a  plun- 
dering warfare  against  the  city,  and  were  able  to  make  their  own  peace  with  the 
Romans.  Even  the  popular  party  were  tired  of  the  foreign  garrison  and  its  gov- 
rnor,  but,  feeling  that  they  never  could  be  forgiven  by  the  Romans,  they  looked 
Isewhere  for  aid,  and  sent  to  the  Carthaginian  commanders3  in  Sicily  to  deliver 
1  ern  from  Milo's  dominion.  A  Carthaginian  fleet  appeared  accordingly  before 
e  harbor,  while  L.  Papirius  Cursor,  the  Roman  consul,  was  besieging  the  town 
y  land.  But  Papirius,  dreading  the  interference  of  Carthage,  treated  secretly 
nth  Milo,4  and  persuaded  him  to  deliver  up  the  citadel  to  the  Romans,  on  con- 
ition  of  being  allowed  to  retire  in  safety  to  Epirus  with  his  garrison  and  all  their 
Baggage.  Thus  Tarentum  was  given  up  into  the  hands  of  the  Romans,  and  the 
Carthaginian  fleet  returned  to  Sicily.  The  Roman  government  complained  of  its 
appearance  on  the  coast  of  Italy,5  when  its  assistance  had  not  been  requested  by 

1  Polybius,  III.  25.  between  the  Eoman  and  Carthaginian  forces,  in 

a  Zoriaras,  VIII.  6.  This  was  like  the  aristo-  which  the  Romans  were  victorious. 

cratical  party  in  Corcyra,  who,  after  their  expul-  *  Zonaras,  VIII.  6.     Froutinus,  Strategcrn. 

sion  from  the  city,  built  a  fort  in  the  mountains,  III.  3,  §  1. 

from  whence  they  plundered  the  lands  of  their  6  Orosius,  IV.  5.    That  the  interference  of  the 

opponents.  Tliucyd.  III.  85.  Carthaginians  on  this  occasion  was  complained 

*  Zouaras,  VIII.  6.  Orosius,  IV.  3.  But  the  of  by  the  Romans  appears  also  from  Livy, 

account  in  Orosius  is  greatly  distorted  and  ex-  Ej/itom.  XIV.  and  from  Dion  Cassius,  Fragm. 

aggerated,  for  he  makes  the  Tarentines  call  in  Vatican.  LVII.    Yet  as  Pyrrhus  was  the  enemy 

the  aid  of  Carthage  not  against  Milo,  but  against  of  Carthage,  the  Carthaginians  might  lawful)? 

Borne,  and  says  that  a  regular  action  took  place  aid  the  Tarentines  against  his  officer ;  the  <?  r- 


410  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXX  VIE 

Rome ;  and  the  Carthaginians,  now  that  Tarentum  was  actually  in  the  Roman 
power,  disavowed  the  expedition  as  an  unauthorized  act  of  their  officers  in  Sicily. 

The  death  or  banishment  of  the  leaders  of  the  democratical  party  at  Tarentum 
subjugation  of  Taren-  atoned,  no  doubt,  for  the  insult  offered  to  the  Roman  ambassadors, 
tum-  and  for  the  zealous  enmity  which  had  organized  against  Rome  the 

fourth  Samnite  war.  When  vengeance  was  satisfied,  policy  demanded  the  com- 
plete humiliation  of  a  city  which  had  shown  both  the  will  and  the  power  to  in- 
jure.6 Tarentum  was  dismantled,  its  fleet  and  all  its  stores  of  arms  were  sur- 
rendered, it  was  made  to  pay  a  yearly  tribute,  and  a  Roman  garrison,7  it  seems, 
was  quartered  in  the  citadel.  When  thus  effectually  disarmed  and  fettered,  the 
Tarentines  were  allowed  to  retain  their  municipal  freedom,  as  the  allies,  and  not 
the  subjects  of  Rome. 

In  the  same  year,  immediately  before  the  fall  of  Tarentum,  Samnium,  Lucania, 
anc^  Bruttium  had  made  their  final  and  absolute  submission.  L. 
and  Papirius  Cursor  and  Sp.  Carvilius  Maximus,  who  had  been  consuls 
together  one-and-twenty  years  earlier  in  the  great  campaign  which 
decided  the  third  Samnite  war,  were  elected  consuls  together  for  the  second  time, 
to  put  the  last  stroke  to  the  present  contest.  Carvilius  invaded  Samnium,8  and 
received  the  submission  of  the  Samnites ;  Papirius  received  that  of  the  Lucanians 
and  Bruttians.  The  three  nations  all  retained  their  municipal  freedom,  or  rather 
their  several  towns  or  districts  were  left  free  individually,  but  their  national  union 
was  dissolved ;  and  they  were,  probably,  not  even  allowed  to  intermarry  with  or 
to  inherit  property  from  each  other.  Besides  this,  they  made,  undoubtedly,  large 
cessions  of  territory,  and  were  obliged  to  give  hostages9  for  their  future  good 
behavior.  It  is  mentioned  in  particular  that  the  Bruttians  ceded  the  half  of  their 
mountain  and  forest  district,  called  Sila,10  or  the  Weald ;  a  tract  rich  to  this  day 
in  all  varieties  of  timber  trees,  and  in  wide  ranges  of  well-watered  pastures,  and 
famous  for  yielding  the  best  vegetable  pitch  known  to  the  ancients.  The  right 
of  preparing  this  pitch  was  let  as  usual  by  the  censors,  and  brought  into  the  re- 
public a  large  revenue. 

Thus  the  Romans  had  put  down  all  their  enemies  in  the  south  of  Italy,  except 
A.  u.  c.  484.  A.  c.  the  rebellious  soldiers  of  the  eighth  legion,  who  had  taken  posses- 
re7ioiterisgarin.^thi  sion  of  Rhegium.  Those,  however,  were  reduced  two  years  later 
Rhegium.  by  tjje  consu^  c  Genucius.11  A  separate  treaty  concluded  with 

the  Mamertines  of  Messana12  had  cut  them  off  from  their  most  natural  succor, 
and  Hiero,  who  since  Pyrrhus  had  left  Sicily  had  been  raised  by  his  merit  and 
services13  to  the  throne  of  Syracuse,  took  an  active  part  against  them,  and  sup- 
plied the  Roman  besieging  army  not  with  corn  only,  but  with  an  auxiliary  force 
of  soldiers.  Thus  the  town  of  Rhegium  was  at  last  stormed,  and  most  of  the 
garrison  put  to  the  sword  in  the  assault.  Of  the  survivors,  all  except  the  sol- 
diers of  the  original  legion  were  executed14  by  the  consul  on  the  spot ;  but  these, 
as  Campanian  citizens,15  and,  therefore,  having  all  the  private  rights  of  citizens  of 
Rome,  were  reserved  for  the  judgment  of  the  senate  and  people.  When  they 
were  Drought  to  Rome,  one  of  the  tribunes  pleaded  in  their  behalf  that  they 

fence  complained  of,  however,  was,  in  all  prob-  Lollius,  a  Samnite  hostage,  is  said  to  have  es- 

ability,  the  appearance  of  a  foreign  fleet,  unin-  caped  from  Rome. 

vited*  by  the  Romans,  on  the  coasts  of  what  ™  Dionysius,  XX.  5.    Sila  is,  doubtless,  tho 

they  would  consider  the  Roman  dominion.  But  same  word  as  Silva  and  as  Oij.    For  the  aotud 

the  Carthaginians  might  answer  that  the  coast  state  of  this  forest  country,  see  Mr.   Keppel 

of  lapygia  was  not  yet  to  be  regarded  as  belong-  Craven,  Tour  in  the  Southern  Provinces  oi 

ing  to  Rome.  Naples,  p.  242. 

8  Zonaras,  VIII.  6.  J*  Dionysius,  XX.  7. 

T  In  the  interval  between  the  first  and  second  "  Zonaras,  VIII.  6. 

Punic  wars,  a  legion  was  regularly  stationed  at  "  Polybius,  I.  8,  9.    Justin,  XXIII.  4.    Zona- 

Tarentum.    Polybius,  II.  24.    Niebuhr  thinks  ras,  VIII.  6. 

that  this  had  been  the  case  ever  since  the  sur-  "  Orosius,  IV.  3. 

Tender  of  the  city.  1B  See  Niebuhr,  Rom.  Hist.  Vcl.  II.  p.  57, 

•  Zonaras,  VIII.  6.  Eng.  Transl. 
This  appears  from  Zonaras,  VIII.  7,  where 


A  U  C  484   A   C  268 

' 


ue 

! 


CHAP.  XXXVIIL]  CONQUEST  OF  THE  PICENTIANS.  41  J 

were  Roman  citizens,16  and  ought  not  to  be  put  to  death,  except  by  the  judgment 
of  the  people  ;  but  the  people  were  as  little  disposed  to  mercy  as  the  senate,  and 
the  thirty-three  tribes17  condemned  them  unanimously.  They  were  thus  all 
scourged  and  beheaded,  to  the  number  of  more  than  three  hundred,  and  their 
bodies  were  cast  out  unburied.  Rhegium  and  its  territory  were  restored  to  the 
survivors  of  the  old  inhabitants. 

In  the  next  year  one  of  the  Samnite18  hostages  escaped  from  Rome,  and  re- 
vived a  guerilla  warfare  in  the  country  of  the  Caracenians  in  north- 

ci  •  T\       i  i  i  i    i  i  A.  U.  C.  485.    A.  C. 

ern  Samnium.     Both  consuls  were  employed  to  crush  at  once  an  m  short  gueriiiawu 
enemy  who  might  soon  have  become  formidable,  and  the  bands 
which  had  taken  up  arms  were  soon  dispersed,  and  their  strongholds  taken, 
although  not  without  some  loss  and  danger  on  the  part  of  the  conquerors. 

A  war  followed  with  a  people  whose  name  has  only  once  before  been  heard 
of  in  Roman  history,  the  Picentians,  on  the  coast  of  the  Adriatic. 
The  Picentians  had  become  the  allies  of  Rome19  thirty-one  years  war  'with  »nd 
before  this  period,  at  the  beginning  of  the  third  Saranite  war,  and 
they  had  ever  since  observed  the  alliance  faithfully.  But  in  the  year  486  we 
find  two  consular  armies20  employed  against  them,  and  after  a  short  struggle  they 
submitted  at  discretion.  A  portion  of  them  was  removed  to  the  coast  of  the 
Tuscan  sea,  and  settled  in  the  country  which  had  formerly  belonged  to  the  Sam- 
nites,  on  the  shores  of  the  gulf  of  Salernum.21  It  may  have  been  that  this  mi- 
gration had  been  commanded  by  the  Roman  government  as  a  measure  of  state 
policy,  in  order  to  people  the  old  Samnite  coast  with  less  suspected  inhabitants, 
and  to  acquire  as  Roman  domain  the  lands  which  the  Picentians  had  left  in  their 
old  country  ;  and  the  Picentians,  perhaps,  like  the  Carthaginians  in  the  third 
Punic  war,  unwilling  to  be  torn  from  their  native  land,  rose  against  Rome  in  mere 
despair.  But  whatever  was  the  cause  of  the  war,  it  ended  in  the  speedy  and 

mplete  conquest28  of  the  Picentian  people. 

The  last  gleanings  of  Italian  independence  were  gathered  in  during  the  two 
ears  which  next  followed.     The  Sallentines  and  Messapians  had  A  n  c  487  B  d  488 
at  one  time  taken  part  in  the  confederacy23  of  southern  Italy  against     ''  ' 


Rome,  but  they  had  withdrawn  from  the  cause  before  its  over-  jpV° 
throw.  Their  repentance,  however,  availed  them  nothing,  for  the 
port  of  Brundisium,  in  the  Sallentine  territory,  was  a  position  which  the  Romans 
were  very  anxious  to  secure  ;24  the  more  so  as  Alexander,  the  son  of  Pyrrhus, 
was  reigning  in  Epirus,  and  had  inherited  much  of  the  warlike  temper  of  his 


Valerius  Maximus,  II.  7,  §  15.    The  same        »  See  page  331. 
'   e  reduction  of  Capua  in 
The  Campanians  being 


thing  happened  after  the  reduction  of  Capua  in  M  The  "Fasti  Capitolini  record  that  both  the 
the  second  Punic  war.  The  Campanians  being  consuls  of  the  year,  P.  Sempronius  and  Appius 
Roman  citizens,  the  senate  could  not  determine  Claudius,  triumphed  over  the  Picentiaus. 


their  fate  without  being  empowered  by  the        21  Strabo,  V.  p.  251. 

people  to  do  so;   and  accordingly  the  tribes        w  The  Picentian  war  is  briefly  noticed  by 

voted  that  whatever  sentence  the  senate  might    Florus,  I.  19,  by  Eutropius,  and  by  Orosius,  IV. 


s  should  have  their  authority  for  its  full  ex-  4.  A  great  earthquake  happened  just  as  the 
tion.  Livy,  XXVI.  33.  It  is  remarkable  Roman  and  Picentian  armies  were  going  to  en- 
t  the  power  of  taking  up  the  Roman  fran-  gage,  upon  which  P.  Sempronius,  the  consul, 
ise  at  pleasure  should  be  considered  as  so  vowed  to  build  a  temple  to  the  earth.  The 
completely  equivalent  to  the  possession  of  the  population  of  the  Picentians,  when  they  sub- 
franchise  actually,  which  is  Niebuhr's  explana-  mitted  to  the  Romans,  amounted,  according  to 
tion  of  the  condition  of  the  Campanians.  Vol.  Pliny  (Hist.  Natur.  III.  §  110),  to  300,000  souls, 
II.  note  136.  Eng.  Transl.  It  rather  appears  23  They  had  fought  under  Pyrrhus  at  Ascu- 
froin  the  definition  of  the  term  municeps,  given  lum ;  see  Frontinus  Strategem.  II.  3,  §  21 ;  and 
by  Festus  from  Ser.  Sulpicius  the  younger,  that  they  are  not  mentioned  as  conquered  by  Papir- 
the  Campanians,  and  others  in  the  same  rela-  ius  and  Carvilius,  when  the  Samnites,  Luca- 
tion  to  Rome,  enjoyed  actually  all  the  private  nians,  and  Bruttians  submitted,  so  that  they 
rights  of  Roman  citizens,  without  forfeiting  had  probably  left  the  confederacy  at  an  earlier 
their  own  Campanian  franchise;  and  this  too  period. 

seems  implied  by  the  fact  of  their  forming  a  ^  Zonaras,  copying  from  Dion  Cassius,  ac- 

regular  legion  in  war,  instead  of  being  reckoned  cuses  the  Romans  of  making  war  on  the  Sallen- 

rly  as  auxiliaries.  tines  because  they  wished  to  get  possession  ol 

Dionysius,  XX.  7.    Polybius,  I.  7.  Brundisium.    VIII.  7. 
Zonaraa,  VIII.  7.    Dionysius,  XX.  9. 


War 

mans 

A.  C.  265. 


4]  2  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [Cnxr.  XXXVIII 

father ;  and  whether  for  attack  or  defence,  the  possession  of  Brundisium,  the 
favorite  point  of  communication  in  later  times  with  Greece  and  the  East,  appeared 
therefore  to  the  Romans  very  desirable.  Accordingly,  the  Sallentines  and  Mes- 
sapians  were  reduced  to  submission,  and  Brundisium  was  ceded  to  the  Romans. 
They  did  not  send  a  colony  thither  till  some  years25  afterwards,  but  the  land 
must,  in  the  mean  while,  have  formed  a  part  of  their  domain,  and  the  port  in  all 
probability  was  occupied  by  a  Roman  garrison. 

In  the  midst  of  the  Sallentine  war,  the  consuls  of  the  year  488  triumphed  over 
cdnquesi  of  the  Sar-  the  Sarsmatians,26  a  people  of  Umbria,  and  the  countrymen  of  the 
unauans.  comic  poet  Plautus.  Livy's  epitome"  speaks  of  the  Umbrians 

generally,  and  says  that  they,  as  well  as  the  Sallentines,  submitted  to  the  Romans 
at  discretion. 

One  more  conquest  still  remained  to  be  achieved,  a  conquest  called  for  by  po- 
litical jealousy  no  less  than  by  national  ambition.  The  aristocracy 

ar  with    the    Volsi-        ,.  ,r    ,J .     ..28      J      ,.     ,  -p,  J  f  .,  .  .          .          ,          ,.  J 

ns.  A.  u.  c.  489.  ot  Volsinir8  applied  to  Home  tor  aid  against  the  intolerable  tyr- 
anny of  their  former  serfs  or  vassals,  who  were  now  in  possession 
of  the  government.  As  the  necessity  of  keeping  up  a  large  navy  in  the  Persian 
invasions  first  led  to  the  ascendency  of  the  poorer  classes  at  Athens,  and  as  wars 
with  foreign  states  had  favored  the  liberties  of  the  Roman  commons,  so  the  long 
wars  in  which  Volsinii  had  been  engaged  with  Rome  had  obliged  the  aristocracy 
to  arm  and  train  their  vassals,  till  they,  feeling  their  importance  and  power,  had 
risen  against  their  old  lords,  and  had  established  their  own  complete  ascendency. 
But  in  proportion  as  they  had  been  more  degraded  and  oppressed  than  the  Ro- 
man commons,  so  was  their  triumph  far  less  happy.  Slaves  let  loose  knew  not 
how  to  become  citizens ;  two  only  social  relations  had  they  ever  known,  those  of 
oppressor  and  oppressed  ;  and  having  ceased  to  be  the  one,  they  became  imme- 
diately the  other.  They  retaliated  on  their  former  masters  the  worst  atrocities 
which  they  had  themselves  been  made  to  suffer  ;29  and  when  they  found  that  some 
of  the  oppressed  party  had  applied  to  Rome  for  aid,  they  put  many  of  them  to 
death,30  as  for  an  act  of  treason.  This  was  more  than  sufficient  to  excite  the  Ro- 
mans to  interfere,  and,  as  the  present  ruling  party  in  Volsinii  were  regarded  as 
little  better  than  revolted  slaves,  the  majority  of  the  Roman  commons  would  be 
ready  to  put  them  down  no  less  than  the  senate.  National  ambition,  no  doubt, 
made  the  enterprise  doubly  welcome ;  perhaps  too  the  accusation  of  Metrodorus31 
was  not  without  foundation,  when  he  ascribed  the  war  to  a  baser  passion,  and 
said  that  the  two  thousand  statues  with  which  Volsinii  was  ornamented,  tempted 
the  Romans  to  attack  it.  Q.  Fabius  Gurges,  one  of  the  consuls  of  the  year  489, 

86  In  the  latter  part  of  the  first  Punic  war.  there  is  a  hill  that  runs  up  thirty  stadia  in 

See  Livy,  Epitpm.  XIX.     But  Florus  says  [I.  height;  and  beneath  there  is  a  forest  of  all  sorts 

20]  that  Brundisium,  with  its  famous  port,  was  of  trees,  and  much  water.    So  the  people  of  the 

reduced  by  M.  Atilius,  who  was  one  ot  the  con-  city,  fearing  lest  any  of  them  should  become  a 

suls  of  the  year  487.    And  so  also  does  Eutro-  tyrant,  set  up  their  freedmen  to  be  their  ma- 

pius.  g'istrates ;  and  these  freedmen  rule  over  them, 

20  Fasti  Capitolini.  and  others  of  the  same  sort  are  appointed  in 

27  Epitom.  XV.     "  Umbri  et  Sallentini  victi  their  place  at  the  end  of  the  year." 

in  deditionem  accepti  Bunt."  M  Valerius  Maximus,  IX.  1.    The  worst  of 

38  Zonaras,  VIII.  7.  Auct.  de  Viris  Illustrib.  all  the  outrages  there  described  was  practised 
"Decius  Mas."  Florus,  I.  21.  Valerius  Maxi-  in  some  instances  by  the  feudal  aristocracy  in 
mus,  IX.  1,  Extern.  §  2.  Orosius,  IV.  5.  All  modern  Europe;  and  it  is  far  more  likely  that 
these  writers  call  the  revolution  at  Volsinii  a  the  Volsinian  serfs  retaliated  it  upon  their  mas- 
rising  of  slaves  against  their  masters  ;  just  as  ters  than  that  they  should  have  been  the  first 
Herodotus  represents  a  similar  revolution  at  inventors  of  it. 
Argos,  after  the  old  citizens  had  been  greatly  ^  Zonaras,  VIII.  7. 

weakened  by  their  wars  with  Sparta.  VI.  83.  31  Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.  XXXIV.  §  34.  Metro- 
The  story  told  in  the  work  "  de  Mirabil.  Aus-  dorus  of  Scepsis  lived  in  the  seventh  century 
cultatipnibus,"  94,  Ed.  Bekker,  wrongly  ascribed  of  Rome,  and  was  intimate  with  Mithridates, 
to  Aristotle,  relates  undoubtedly  to  Volsinii,  whose  hatred  against  the  Romans  lie  shared  to 
and  shows  the  vague  and  exaggerated  form  in  such  a  degree,  that  he  was  called  b  /ua-optfyaio?. 
which  even  contemporary  events  in  distant  His  charge,  whether  true  or  false,  is  at  least  con- 
countries  are  related,  when  there  is  no  real  his-  sistent  with  those  other  representations  which 
koriau  to  sift  them.  According  to  this  story,  speak  of  the  growing  wealth  and  increased  lov« 
14  the  city  is  very  strong ;  for  in  the  midst  of  it  of  wealth  among  the  Romans  at  this  pericd. 


CHAP.  XXXVIIL]  SOVEREIGNTY  OF  ALL  ITALY.  413 

laid  siege  to  Volsinii  with  a  consular  army  ;32  but  having  been  mortally  wounded 
in  one  of  the  sallies  of  the  besieged,  he  left  the  completion  of  his  work  to  his 
successors.33  In  the  following  year  Volsinii  was  taken  ;  bloody  executions  took 
place,  and  the  remnant  of  the  new  Volsinian  citizens,  who  were  not  put  to  death, 
were  given  up  as  serfs  once  again  to  their  former  masters.  But  the  old  Vol- 
sinian aristocracy  were  not  allowed  to  return  to  the  city  of  their  fathers.  Vol- 
sinii was  destroyed,  its  statues,  no  doubt,  were  carried  to  Rome,  and  its  old  citi- 
zens were  settled  in  a  new  spot34  on  the  lower  ground  near  the  shores  of  the  lake^ 
apparently  on  or  near  the  site  of  the  modern  town  of  Bolsena. 

Thus  the  whole  extent  of  Italy  from  the  Macra  and  the  Rubicon  to  Rhegium 
and  Brundisium  was  become  more  or  less  subject  to  Rome.  But  Then.*™™ sovereign. 
it  was  not  merely  that  the  several  Italian  nations  were  to  follow  ofallltlly- 
in  war  where  Rome  might  choose  to  lead  them  ;  nor  yet  that  they  paid  a  certain 
tribute  to  the  sovereign  state,  such  as  Athens  received  from  her  subject  allies. 
The  Roman  dominion  in  Italy  had  wrested  large  tracts  of  land  from  the  con- 
quered nations  in  every  part  of  the  peninsula ;  forests,  mines,  and  harbors  had 
become  the  property  of  the  Roman  people,  from  which  a  large  revenue  was  de- 
rived ;  so  that  all  classes  of  Roman  citizens  were  enriched  by  their  victories ;  the 
rich  acquired  a  great  extent  of  land  to  hold  in  occupation ;  the  poor  obtained 
grants  of  land  in  freehold  by  an  agrarian  law ;  while  the  great  increase  of  revenue 
required  a  greater  number  of  persons  to  collect  it,  and  thus  from  the  quaestors  to 
the  lowest  collectors  or  clerks  employed  under  them,  all  the  officers  of  govern- 
ment became  suddenly  multiplied. 

The  changes,  indeed,  which  were  wrought  in  the  course  of  ten  years,  from  the 
retreat  of  Pyrrhus  to  the  conquest  of  Volsinii,  must  have  affected  Great  changes  wbidl 
the  whole  life  and  character  of  the  Roman  people.  Even  the  igft£d&»pS 
mere  fragmentary  notices,  which  are  all  that  we  possess  of  this  the  Roman8- 
period,  record,  first,  the  increase  of  the  number  of  quaestors  from  four  to  eight  :35 
secondly,  a  distribution  of  land,  in  portions  of  seven  jugera36  to  each  citizen,  to 
the  Roman  commons  generally :  thirdly,  a  distribution  of  money  amongst  the 
citizens,37  probably  amongst  those  of  the  city  tribes  who  did  not  wish  to  become 
possessors  of  land ;  the  money  so  distributeid  having  arisen  from  the  sale  of  con- 
quered  territory :  fourthly,  the  first  adoption  of  a  silver  coinage,  copper  having 
been  hitherto  the  only  currency  of  the  state  :3S  fifthly,  the  appointment  of  several 
new  magistrates  or  commissioners,  such  as  the  decemviri  litibus  judicandis,39  or 

82  Zonaras,  VIII.  7.  for  their  own  profit,  but  sanctioned  by  the  state, 

83  The  author  "  de  Viris  Illustrib."  ascribes  and  controlled    by  the  triumviri    monetales. 
the  conquest  of  Volsinii  to  Deems  Mus,  who  Quaestors  are  known  to  have  coined   money 
was  consul  in  475,  and  fought  with  Pyrrhus  at  when  employed  under  a  proconsul  as  his  pay- 
Asculum.    But  whether  Decius  was  employed  master,  but  these  coins  are  equally  without  any 
as  praetor,  or  as  dictator,  we  know  not.     The  peculiar  national  device,  and  relate  to  some- 
same  writer  also  says  that  Appius  Claudius,  the  thing  in  the  qufestor's  own  family  or  in  the  cir- 
consul  of  the  year  490,  obtained  the  surname  cumstances  of  his  general.     Thus  on  the  gold 
of  Canclex,  after  his  conquests  of  the  Volsinians;  coins  struck  by  P.  Lentulus  Spinther,  when 
but  the  Fasti  Capitolini  give  the  honor  of  the  he  was  quaestor  to  Cassius  in  Asia,  we  see  the 
conquest  to  his  colleague,   M.  Fulvius  Flac-  device  ot  a  cap  of  liberty  and  a  dagger,  in  inani- 
cus,  who  triumphed  "  de  Vulsiniensibus,  An.  -  fest  allusion  to  the  assassination  of  Caesar.    Yet 
CDXXCIX.  K.  Nov."  the  two-horsed  and  four-horsed  chariots  which 

4  Zonaras,  VIII.  7.  appear  so  often  on  the  denarii  are  noticed  by 

J6  Livy,  Epitom.  XV.  Plmy  as  a  general  device,  from  which  the  old- 

3fl  Coluinella,  Prrefat.  est  silver  coins  received  their  name.     It  seems 

'  Dionysius,  XX.  ad  finem.  probable  that  there  was  no  fixed  rule  with  re- 

38  Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.  XXXIII.  §  44.   The  sil-  spcct  to  the  right  of  coining  ;  that  sometimes 

ver  coinage  was  first  introduced  in  the  year  485  ;  the  state  issued  a  coinage,  that  sometimes  mon- 

and  the  coins  struck  were  denarii,  quinarii,  and  ey  was  struck  by  particular  magistrates  for  the 

sestertii.    It  is  still  a  great  question  in  whose  immediate  use  of  their  own  department  of  the 

hands  the  right  of  coining  money  was  placed,  public  service;  and  that  sometimes  also  it  was 

The  devices  on  the  consular  denarii  are  so  va-  struck  by  individuals  for  their  own  profit,  just 

rious,  and  refer  so  peculiarly  to  the  house  of  as  a  large  part  of  our  own  circulation  at  this  day 

the  individual  who  coined  them,  that  Niebuhr  consists  in  the  notes  issued  by  private  bankers. 

supposes  them  to  have  been  really  a  private  su  "  Pomponius  de  origine  juris,"  29.     Se« 

coinage,  like  the  tokens  occasionally  issued  in  Niebuhr.  Eom.  Gesch.  III.  p.  649. 

England,  a  coinage  issued  by  private  persons 


414  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXVIIL 

the  board  of  ten,  who  presided  over  the  court  of  the  centumviri  or  hundred 
judges  ;  the  board  of  four,40  who  had  the  care  of  the  streets  and  roads ;  the  board 
of  live,  who  acted  for  the  magistrates  during  the  night/1  the  consuls'  ordinary 
responsibility  ceasing  with  the  going  down  of  the  sun ;  and  the  board  of  three, 
who  had  the  care  of  the  coinage.  All  these  things  are  recorded  as  having  been 
introduced  for  the  first  time  about  the  period  between  the  war  with  Pyrrhus  and 
the  first  war  with  Carthage,  and  they  clearly  show  what  manifold  changes  the 
Roman  people  were  then  undergoing. 

The  conquest  of  Italy  was,  indeed,  to  Rome  what  the  overthrow  of  the  Athe- 
Effects  of  these  on  mar*  empire  was  to  Sparta :  the  larger  scale  of  all  public  transac- 
A^SrScSS*  tions,  the  vast  influx  of  wealth  into  the  state,  and  the  means  of 
acquiring  wealth  unjustly  which  were  put  within  the  reach  of 
many  private  individuals,  were  a  severe  shock  to  the  national  character.  Many 
other  Romans,  no  doubt,  besides  P.  Cornelius  Rufinus,  were  as  corrupt  and  tyran- 
nical as  Gylippus  and  Lysander ;  and  it  was  this  very  corruption  which  made 
men  dwell  so  fondly  on  those  who  were  untainted  by  it  :'12  the  virtue  of  Fabri- 
cius  and  Curius,  like  that  of  Callicratidas,  shone  the  brighter,  because  the  tempta- 
tions which  they  resisted  were  so  often  yielded  to  by  others.  In  the  present 
state  of  Italy  any  eminent  Roman  might  seriously  affect  the  condition  of  any  of 
the  subject  people  either  for  good  or  for  evil :  hence  the  principal  citizens  of 
Rome  were  earnestly  courted  with  compliments,  and  often,  no  doubt,  propitiated 
with  presents,  and  it  was  for  refusing  such  presents  when  offered  to  them  by  the 
Ramnites,  that  Fabricius  and  Curius  became  so  famous.  All  know  how  deputies 
from  Samnium  came  to  Curius43  at  his  Sabine  farm  to  offer  him  a  present  of  gold. 
They  found  him  seated  by  the  fireside,  with  a  wooden  platter  before  him,  and 
roasting  turnips  in  the  ashes.  "I  count  it  my  glory,"  he  said,  "not  to  possess 
gold  myself,  but  to  have  power  over  those  who  do."  So,  again,  other  Samnite 
deputies  came  to  bring  a  present44  of  ten  pounds  of  copper,  five  of  silver,  and  five 
slaves,  to  Fabricius  as  the  patron  of  their  nation.  Fabricius  drew  his  hands  over 
his  ears,  eyes,  nose,  and  mouth,  and  then  along  his  neck  and  down  his  body ; 
and  said  that  whilst  he  was  the  master  of  his  five  senses  and  sound  in  body  and 
limb,  he  needed  nothing  more  than  he  had  already.  Thus,  whether  refusing  to 
have  clients,  or  to  accept  from  them  their  customary  dues,  Curius  and  Fabricius 
lived  in  such  poverty  as  to  be  unable  to  give  a  dowry  to  their  daughters  ;45  and 
in  both  cases  the  senate  paid  it  for  them.  Men  of  this  sort,  so  indifferent  to 
money,  and  at  the  same  time  not  without  a  roughness  of  nature  which  would 
delight  in  vexing  the  luxury  and  rapacity  of  others,  were  likely  to  struggle  hard 
against  the  prevailing  spirit  of  covetousness  and  expense.  When  Fabricius  was 
censor  in  479,  he  expelled  P.  Rufinus46  from  the  senate  because  he  had  returned 
amongst  his  taxable  possessions  ten  pounds  weight  of  silver  plate ;  for  there  is 
often  a  jealousy  against  any  new  mode  of  displaying  wealth,  when  the  greatest 
expenditure  in  old  and  accustomed  ways  excites  no  displeasure.  Silver  plate 
was  a  new  luxury  in  the  fifth  century  of  Rome,  and  therefore  attracted  the 
censor's  notice ;  three  hundred  years  later,  the  possession  of  silver  plate  to  any 

40  «  Pomponius,  §  30,  31.  government  of  his  province,  the  same  spotless 

4a  Pope  has  said,  that  integrity  which  lie  proved  actually  in  sitting  by 

,,T        „          ,       f        ,.,          ,,    ,  his  cottage  fire,  and  refusing  the  humble  pres- 

"  Lucullus,  when  frugality  could  charm,  entg    f  tj>0  satnnites 

Had  roasted  turnips  in  the  Sabine  farm ;"  48  Cicer0j  ^e  Seneotat  16.    Valerius  Maxim, 

as  if  the  virtue  of  Curius  had  belonged  to  his  IV.  3,  §  5. 

age  and  not  to  himself.    But  this  is  the  mistake  *4  Julius  Hyginus,  apud  Gellium,  I.  14.    Va- 

of  a  satirist  and  fatalist,  whose  tendency  it  lerius  Maximus,  IV.  3,  §  6. 

always  is  to  depreciate  human  virtue.    Had'Lu-  45  I  borrow  this  from  Niebuhr,  who  refers 

cullus  lived  in  Curius'  day,   he  would  have  for  the  story  to  Apulcius. 

shown  in  the  possession  of  ten  pounds  of  silver  8  Livy,  Epitom.  XIV.     Niebuhr  supposes 

plate,  the  same  spirit  which,  in  his  own  days,  that  Fabricius  may  have  suspected  this  plate  tc 

ttas  shown  in  the  splendor  of  his  feasts  in  the  have  been  a  part  of  the  spoils  won  by  Rufinus 

Apoilo  :  had  Curius  lived  in  the  days  of  Cicero,  at,  Crotori,  and  have  thought  that  he  ought  to 

he  would  have  displayed,  like  Cicero  in  the  have  accounted  for  it  to  the  treasury. 


CHAP.  XXXVIIL]          FIRST  EXHIBITION  OF  GLADIATORS.  4  [ft 

amount  was  fully  allowed,47  but  gold  plate  was  still  unusual,  and  the  senate,  even 
in  the  reign  of  Tiberius,  denounced  it  as  an  unbecoming  extravagance.  But  Fa- 
bricius,  no  doubt,  disliked  the  large  domain  lands  held  in  occupation  by  Rufinus 
as  much  as  his  ten  pounds  of  silver  plate,  thinking  that  great  wealth  in  the  hands 
of  private  persons,  however  employed,  was  injurious  to  the  commonwealth. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten,  amongst  the  other  changes  of  this  period,  that  the 
consulship  of  Appius  Claudius  and  M.  Fulvius,48  the  year  which  . 
witnessed  the  final  reduction  of  Volsinii,  was  marked  by  the  first  dp°£  '  A.10u.cJw^ 
exhibition  of  gladiators  ever  known  at  Rome.  Two  sons  of  D. 
Junius  Brutus  exhibited  them,  it  is  recorded,  at  the  funeral  of  their  father.  The 
principle  of  this,  as  a  part  of  the  funeral  solemnity,  was  very  ancient  and  very 
universal  ;49  that  the  dead  should  not  go  on  his  dark  journey  alone,  but  that  a 
train  of  other  departed  souls,  whether  of  enemies  slain  to  avenge  him,  or  of  fol- 
lowers to  do  him  honor,  should  accompany  him  to  the  unseen  world.  But  the 
Romans,  it  is  said,60  borrowed  the  practice  of  substituting  a  combat  for  a  sacri- 
fice, that  the  victims  might  die  by  each  other's  swords,  immediately  from  the 
Etruscans ;  and  when  we  recollect  that  the  capture  of  Volsinii  took  place  in  this 
very  year,  we  may  conjecture  that  the  gladiators  of  M.  and  D.  Brutus  were 
Volsinian  prisoners,  perhaps  slaves,  who  had  been  accustomed  to  fight  before 
under  the  service  of  their  former  masters.  The  spectacle,  from  the  very  begin- 
ning, excited  the  liveliest  interest  at  Rome ;  but  for  many  years  it  was  exhibited 
only  at  funerals,  as  an  offering  in  honor  of  the  dead ;  the  still  deeper  wickedness 
of  making  it  a  mere  sport,  and  introducing  the  sufferings  and  death  of  human 
beings  as  a  luxury  for  the  spectators  in  their  seasons  of  the  greatest  enjoyment, 
was  reserved  for  a  later  period. 

The  ten  years  preceding  the  first  Punic  war  were  probably  a  time  of  the  great- 
est physical  prosperity  which  the  mass  of  the  Roman  people  ever 

•tXTVi  •  -i  iii  i     Great  prosperity  of  the 

knew.  Within  twenty  years  two  agrarian  laws  had  been  passed  Roman  people  at  th« 
on  a  most  extensive  scale ;  and  the  poorer  citizens  had  received  p 
besides  what  may  be  called  a  large  dividend  in  money  out  of  the  lands  which 
the  state  had  conquered.  In  addition  to  this,  the  farming  of  the  state  domains,51 
or  of  their  produce,  furnished  those  who  had.  money  with  abundant  opportuni- 
ties of  profitable  adventure,  while  the  accumulation  of  public  business  increased 
the  demand  for  clerks  and  collectors  in  every  branch  of  the  service  of  the  reve- 
nue. And  the  power  of  obtaining  like  advantages  in  all  future  wars  seemed 
secured  to  the  people  by  the  Hortensian  laws,  which  enabled  them  to  pass  an 
agrarian  law  whenever  they  pleased,  in  spite  of  the  opposition  in  the  senate.  No 
wonder  then  that  war  was  at  this  time  popular,  and  that  the  tribes,  more  than 
once,  resolved  on  taking  up  arms,  when  the  senate  would  have  preferred  peace 
from  considerations  of  prudence,  and,  we  may  hope,  of  national  faith  and  justice. 
But  our  "  pleasant  vices"  are  ever  made  "instruments  to  scourge  us:"  and  the 
first  Punic  war,  into  which  the  Roman  people  forced  the  senate  to  enter,  not  only 
in  its  own  long  course  bore  most  heavily  upon  the  poorer  citizens,  but  from  the 
feelings  of  enmity  which  it  excited  in  the  breast  of  Hamilcar,  led  most  surely  to 

47  Tacitus,  Annal.  II.  33.  rydice  at  their  funeral  at  JEgns.    Diyllus,  apud 

18  Valerius  Maximus,  II.  4,  §  7.  Athenaeum,  IV.  p.  155.    Diodorns,  'XIX.  52. 
*'  Every  one  remembers   the  slaughter  of       M  Nicolaus  Damascenus,  apud  Athenaeum, 

twelve  Trojan  prisoners  over  the  funeral  pile  of  IV.  p.  153. 

Patroclus.     When  the  Scythian  kings  died,        61  See  the  well-known  passage  in  Polybius, 

Borne  of  all  their  servants  were  slain  and  were  where  he  notices  the  extent  of  patronage  pos- 

buricd  with  them.     (Herodotus,  IV.  71.)    In  sessed  by  the  senate.    IIoAAaii/  yap  tpywi/  SVTUV 

Thrace  single  combats  took  place  at  the  funerals  T&V  iKbibonivuv  i™  T&V  n/if/rwi/  fua  irdffw  'IraAcaj 

of  the  chiefs ;  and  there  also,  as  in  India,  the  eis  raf  ixioKtvas  nai  KaraaKcviis  r&v  <5^o(nW,  a  n$ 

best  beloved  of  the  wives  of  the  deceased  was  OVK  uv  f^apiG^aaiTo  jiabius,   s-oAAwj/  6t  rora^v, 

killed^  and  buried  with  her  husband.     (Herodo-  Ai/imov,  xtiviuv,  ptTd\iuv,  xwpi?,  av\\fi^rjv  &<ra 

tus,  V.  5,  8.)     In  Spain,  too,  whe'n  Viriathus  -ni-xTuKtv     {urd     rrfv    "Piapaitav    fivvaardav,     xavTa. 

was  barnt  on  his  funeral  pile,  there  were  single  \eipi^cadai     avjipaivci    rd    irpo£ipr?/uvtt    Aid     ro8 

•*ombats  fought  around  in  honor  of  him.     Ap-  irAiyflou?,  KOI  vx^ov,  wseiro?  tlirtiv.  irdvras  tvkthiaQcn 

plan,  do  Eebus  Ilispan.  75.     Cassander  paid  T««J  wca?;  KOI  ruts  ipy*r(atf  ratj  «  rouruv. — IV. 

Uie  same  honor  to  Philip  Arrhidacus  and  Eu-  17. 


Aqued 

T.IC, 


416  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXVIII 

that  fearful  visitation  of  Hannibal's  sixteen  years'  invasion  of  Italy,  which  de- 
stroyed forever,  not  indeed  the  pride  of  the  Roman  dominions,  but  the  well- 
being  of  the  Roman  people. 

But  that  calamitous  period  was  only  to  come  upon  the  children  of  the  existing 
generation,  and  in  the  mean  time  all  was  going  on  prosperously. 

uct    of     Curing.    T     '    ..»  j  ,11         tit     fi       •         w        i  -i 

used  for  roofing  Another  aqueduct  was  constructed  by  M  .  Curms,  2  when  he  was 
censor  soon  after  the  retreat  of  Pyrrhus,  by  which  a  supply  of 
water  was  conveyed  to  the  northern  parts  of  the  city  from  the  Anio  above  Tibur  : 
and  tiles53  at  this  time  began  to  supersede  wood  as  the  roofing  material  for  the 
common  houses  of  Rome. 

Their  victories  over  Pyrrhus  spread  the  fame  of  the  Romans  far  and  wide  ; 
and  immediately  after  his  return  to  Greece,  when  he  was  again  be- 

Emb.iwy    to     Ptolemy  .  ,,  .  .  •>    .       .  .          .  .  '       .  ° 

Philadelphia,  king  of  coming  lormidable  by  his  victories  over  Antigonus  in  Macedonia, 
Ptolemy  Philadelphia,**  king  of  Egypt,  sent  an  embassy  to  Rome 
to  conclude  an  alliance  with  the  Romans.  The  senate,  delighted  at  such  a  com- 
pliment from  so  great  a  king,  sent  in  return  an  embassy  to  Alexandria,  consisting 
of  three  of  the  most  eminent  citizens  in  the  commonwealth,  Q.  Fabius  Gurges, 
who  was  then  first  senator  (princeps  senatus),  Q.  Ogulnius,  who  had  gone  to 
Epidaurus  to  invite  ^Esculapius  to  Rome,  and  Num.  Fabius  Pictor,  the  son  of 
that  Fabius  who  had  painted  the  frescoes  in  the  temple  of  Deliverance  from 
Danger.  The  ambassadors  found  Alexandria  at  the  height  of  its  splendor,  for 
these  were  the  most  brilliant  days  of  the  Greek-Egyptian  kingdom  ;  and  Ptolemy 
Philadelphia,55  with  a  fleet  of  1500  ships  of  war,  and  a  revenue  of  nearly  15,000 
talents,  reigned  over  the  whole  coast  of  the  Mediterranean,  from  Gyrene  to  the 
Nile,  and  from  the  Nile  to  the  Triopian  headland  at  the  southwestern  extremity 
of  Asia  Minor,  opposite  to  Rhodes  ;  while  to  the  south  his  power  extended  to 
the  heart  of  Ethiopia  or  Abyssinia,  and  along  both  shores  of  the  Red  Sea.  In 
his  capital  there  met  together  the  wisdom  of  Greece  and  of  the  east  and  of 
Egypt  itself:  Theocritus,  Callimachus,  and  the  seven  tragedians  of  the  Pleias  ;K 
the  Jews  who  at  this  time  began  at  Alexandria  the  translation  of  the  Bible  ;  and 
Manetho,  the  famous  historian  of  the  ancient  dynasties  of  Egypt.  The  Roman 
ambassadors  were  honorably  entertained  and  received  valuable  presents  ;  which 
on  their  return  home  they  laid  before  the  senate,  but  which  the  senate  imme- 
diately gave  back  to  them,  with  permission  to  do  with  them  as  they  thought 
proper. 

In  the  year  488,57  the  people  of  Apollonia,  a  Greek  city  on  the  coast  of  Epi- 
outrage  to  the  ambns-  rus>  S6nt  an  embassy  to  Rome,  with  what  object  we  know  not,  but 
The0offemiersAgivenniup  possibly  to  complain  of  some  of  the  officers  of  the  Roman  govern- 
to  the  Apoiiomans.  ment.  Two  Romans  of  rank,  one  of  them  a  senator  of  the  house 
of  Fabius,  insulted  and  beat  the  ambassadors,  and  were,  in  consequence  of  the 
outrage,  given  up  to  the  Apollonians  ;  one  of  the  quaBstors  also  was  sent  to  escort 

w  Frontinus,  de  Aquseductibus,  6.  The  aque-  copleustes,  in  the  reign  of  Justin,  the  father  of 

duct  of  Curius  was  known  by  the  name  of  Justinian.    Cosmas  copied  the  inscription  into 

"  Anio  vetus  ;"  its  whole  length  was  forty-three  his  work,  which  is  to  be  found  in  Montfaucon's 

miles  ;  but,  like  the  older  aqueduct  of  Appius  Collectio  Nova,  &c.    Vol.  II.  p.  142.     Some  re- 

Claudius,  it  consisted  mostly  of  pipes  under  markable  particulars  as  to  the  amount  of  Ptol- 

ground,  and  was  onl,y  conducted  on  an  embank-  emy's  revenue  are  preserved  by  Jerome  in  his 

ment  above  ground  for  a  distance  of  something  Commentary  on  Daniel,  XI.  5. 

less  than  a  quarter  of  a  mile.  6t5  They  were  called  the  Pleias  from  their  num- 

53  See  Cornelius  Nepos  quoted  by  Pliny,  as  ber,  in  allusion  to  the  constellation.    Different 
already  noticed,  Hist.  Natur.  XVI.  §  36.     '  lists  of  them  are  given  (see  Fynes  Clinton,  Fasti 

54  L'ivy,   Epitom.    XIV.     Zonaras,   VIII.   6.  Hellen.  Vol.  III.  year  B.  c.  259),  but  none  of 
Dionysius,  XX.  4.    Valerius  Maximus,  IV.  3,  them  are  known  to  us  by  any  existing  works, 
§  9.  if,  as  Mr.  Fox  and  Niebuhr  seem  most  justly  to 

65  The  extent  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphia'  do-  think,  the  Lycophron  who  wrote  the  Alexandra 

minion,  and  the  nourishing  condition  of  Egypt  is  a  very  different  person  from  the  Lycophron 

during  his  reign,  are  described  by  Theocritus,  of  the  Pleias,  and  belongs  to  a  later  age.    See 

»n  eye-witness,  in  his  17th  Idyll,  and  in  that  Niebuhr's  Kleinc  Schrift.  p.  438-450. 

remarkable  inscription  found  at  Adulis,  on  the  B7  Zonaras,  VIII.    7.      Livy,    Epitom.   XV. 

western  shore  of  the  Eed  Sea,  by  Cosmas  Indi-  Valer.  Max.  VI.  6,  §  5. 


CHAP.  XXXVIII J        DEATHS  OF  CURIUS  AND  FABRICIUS.  417 

the  ambassadors  and  their  prisoners  to  Brundisium,  lest  any  attempt  should  be 
made  to  rescue  them.  But  the  Apollonians,  measuring  rightly  their  own  utter 
inability  to  cope  with  so  great  a  nation  as  the  Romans,  and  judging  that  it  would 
be  unwise58  to  interpret  too  closely  the  sentence  of  the  senate,  restored  both 
offenders  unhurt. 

Our  notices  of  the  physical  history  of  these  times  are  very  scanty.  The  win- 
ter of  484  was  one  of  unusual  severity  ;59  the  Tiber  was  frozen  over  ny*ie*i  history.  se- 
to  a  great  depth,  the  snow  lay  in  the  Forum  for  nearly  six  weeks,  ™«winter»f454- 
the  olives  and  fig-trees  were  generally  killed,  and  many  of  the  cattle  perished 
for  want  of  pasture,  as  they  were  dependent,  even  in  winter,  on  such  food  as 
they  could  find  in  the  fields.  This  great  frost  happened  about  one  hundred  and 
thirty  years  after  the  frost  of  355,  and  seems  to  have  equalled  it  in  severity. 
Volcanic  phenomena60  are  recorded  during  the  two  following  years,  and  in  488 
we  hear  of  a  very  destructive  pestilence,  which  lasted  for  more  than  two  years 
more,  and  is  described  as  exceedingly  fatal  ;61  but  the  language  of  Augustine  is 
indefinite,  and  that  of  Orosius  clearly  exaggerated,  so  that  we  can  neither  dis- 
cover the  nature  and  causes  of  the  disease,  nor  estimate  the  amount  of  the  mor- 
tality. 

Ten  years,  as  they  bring  forward  into  active  life  a  new  generation,  so  they 
always   sweep  away  some  of  the  last  survivors  of  former  times. 

,    r     .  ,      A  ^  ,  •      i     i  p  v     •  A  A  new  generation  com- 

and  bnnp;  down  to  a  later  period  the  ran^e  ot  living  memory.    Ap-  mg  forward.  Death»0( 

~,  °   ,.  J  -vr   i'    •          «*i  i      .LI         v  1  CurhiB  and  Fabriciu*. 

pms  Claudius  and  Valerius  Corvus,  who  were  both  alive  when 
Pyrrhus  was  in  Italy,  died  soon  after  his  return  to  Epirus.  L.  Papirius  Cursor, 
if  he  were  still  living,  had  yet  appeared  for  the  last  time  in  a  public  station  ; 
neither  he  nor  his  colleague,  Sp.  Carvilius,  are  heard  of  again  after  their  second 
censorship  in  the  year  482.  M'.  Curius  had  obtained  the  censorship  in  that 
same  year,  three  years  after  his  victory  at  Beneventum ;  he  employed  the  mon- 
ey arising  from  the  spoils  of  his  triumph  in  constructing,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
second  oldest  of  the  Roman  aqueducts ;  and  after  his  censorship  he  was  named 
by  the  senate  one62  of  two  commissioners  for  completing  the  work,  but  he  died 
within  a  few  days  after  his  appointment.  Thus  one  of  the  most  honest  and  ener- 
getic men  known  to  us  in  the  Roman  history,  a  man  whose  name  is  associated  so 
closely  with  the  uncorrupted  period  of  the  Roman  character,  was  carried  off 
apparently  before  he  had  arrived  at  old  age.  When  Fabricius  died  we  know 
not ;  but  he  was  not  heard  of  again  after  his  censorship  in  479,  nor  do  we  know 
any  further  particulars  of  him  than  that  he  was  buried,  by  a  special  dispensation, 
within  the  city  walls  ;63  a  rare  honor,  which  strongly  marks  the  general  sense 
entertained  of  the  purity  of  his  virtue  ;  "  as  if,"  says  Niebuhr,  "  his  bones  could 
be  no  defilement  to  the  temples  of  the  heavenly  gods,  nor  his  spirit  disturb  the 
peace  of  the  K"ing." 

So  passes  away  what  may  be  called  the  spring-time  of  the  Roman  people. 
Wealth,  and  power,  and  dominion  have  brought  on  the  ripened 
summer,  with  more  of  vigor  indeed,  but  less  of  freshness.     Be- 
ginning her  career  of  conquest  beyond  the  limits  of  Italy,  Rome  was  now  enter- 
ing upon  her  appointed  work,  and  that  work  was  undoubtedly  fraught  with  good. 
The  conqueror  and  the  martyr  are  alike  God's  instruments ;  but  it  is  the  priv- 

68  They  may  have  remembered  the  wisdom  60  Orosius,  IV.  4.      The  earthquake  which 

of  the  j£ginetans  in  like  circumstances,  when  happened  in  the  Picentian  war,  just  as  the  Ro- 

the  Spartan  king,  Leutychidas,  was  given  up  mans  and  Picentians  were  going   to  engage, 

to  them  by  his  countrymen,  as  an  atonement  belongs  to  the  volcanic  phenomena  of  this  pe- 

for  some  wrong  which  he  had  done  to  them.  riod. 

A  Spartan  had  warned  them  not  to  take  the  el  Augustine,  III.  17.     Orosius,  IV.  5. 

Spartan  government  at  its  word,  nor  to  believe  G2  Frontinus,  de  Aquseduct,  6. 

that  they  might  really  carry  the  king  of  Sparta  63  Cicero,  do  Legibus,  II.  23.    Thus  Brasidab 

away  as  their  prisoner,  and  punish  him  at  their  was  buried  within  the  walls  of  Amphipolis,  aa 

discretion.    See  Herodotus,  VI.  85.  having  been  the  deliverer  of  the  city.    Thucyd 

9  Zonaras,  VIII.  G.      Augustine,  de  Civit.  V.  11. 
Dei,  III.  17. 

27 


418  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXIX 

ilege  of  his  conscious  and  willing  instruments  to  be  doubly  and  merely  blessed ; 
the  benefits  of  their  work  to  others  are  unalloyed  by  evil,  while  to  themselves  it 
is  the  perfecting  and  not  the  corrupting  of  their  moral  being  ;  when  it  is  done, 
they  are  not  cast  away  as  instruments  spoiled  and  worthless,  but  partake  of  the 
good  which  they  have  given,  and  enjoy  forever  the  love  of  men,  and  the  bless 
ing  of  God. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX, 

CONSTITUTION  AND  POWER  OF  CARTHAGE. 


oiiai  Kai  Kaf^dviot  iraXSf. — ARISTOTLE,  Politic.  II. 


THE  name  of  Carthage  has  already  occurred  more  than  once  in  the  course  of 
dition  of  t^8  history ;  and  I  have  already  noticed  the  extent  of  her  do- 
minion,  and  the  inherent  causes  of  its  unsoundness,  inasmuch  as 
the  Carthaginians  and  their  African  subjects  were  separated  from  one  another 
by  broad  differences  of  race,  language,  and  institutions ;  so  that  they  could  not 
blend  together  into  one  nation.  The  isolation  of  Carthage  from  all  the  surround- 
ing people  offers  a  striking  contrast  to  the  position  of  Rome  in  Italy,  where  the 
allies  and  the  Latin  name  were  bound  to  the  Romans  and  to  each  other  by  mani- 
fold ties,  and  the  communication  of  the  Roman  franchise,  or  at  least  the  prospect 
of  obtaining  it  hereafter,  was  every  year  effacing  the  painful  memory  of  the  first 
conquest,  and  effecting  that  consolidation  of  various  elements  into  one  great  and 
united  people,  in  which  alone  conquest  can  find  its  justification.  But  as  the 
Carthaginians  will  now  occupy  no  small  share  of  our  attention,  from  the  impor- 
tance and  long  duration  of  their  contest  with  the  Romans,  so  it  becomes  desirable 
to  look  at  them  more  closely,  and  see  what  was  their  internal  state,  and  with 
what  excellences  and  defects  in  their  national  character  and  institutions  they  en- 
countered the  iron  strength  of  Rome. 

The  constitution  of  Carthage  was  compared  to  that  of  Sparta,  as  containing  in 
it  the  elements  of  monarchy  and  of  aristocracy,  and  of  democracy. 

Its     government     wns    T>          .  ,  .         ,  J  i  •         i  3          • 

mixed,  but  predomi-  Jjut  in  such  mixed  governments,  one  element  is  always  predomi- 
nant: first,  in  the  natural  course  of  things,  the  monarchical,  next 
the  aristocratical,  and,  lastly,  the  democratical  or  popular.  The  predominance 
of  one  element  by  no  means  implies,  however,  the  total  inactivity  of  the  others  ; 
and  in  their  common,  although  not  equal  action,  consists  the  excellence  of  such 
constitutions ;  not  simply  that  the  working  of  the  principal  power  is  checked  by 
the  direct  legal  rights  of  the  other  two,  but  much  more  because  the  nation  retains 
by  their  means  those  ideas  and  those  points  of  character  which  they  peculiarly 
suggest  and  encourage,  and  is  thus  saved  from  that  narrow-minded  uniformity  of 
views  and  of  tastes  which  the  exclusive  influence  of  any  single  element  must 
necessarily  occasion.  In  Carthage  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  monarchical 
part  of  the  constitution  had  once  the  ascendency,1  but  during  those  times  in 
which  she  is  best  known  to  us,  the  aristocratical  element  was  predominant ;  the 

1  Aristotle  says  that  Carthage  had  never  suf-  by  an  aristocracy.  V.  12.    It  seems,  then,  that 

fered  in  any  serious  degree  either  from  faction  this  tyranny  must  be  understood  of  the  earlier 

or  from  a  tyrant.    Politic.  II.  11.     Yet  in  an-  times  of  the  Carthaginian  history,  before  that 

other  place  lie  gives  Carthage  as  an  instance  of  constitution  existed  on  which  Aristotle  coin- 

*  country  where  a  tyranny  had  been  succeeded  ments. 


CHAP.  XXXIX.]  THE  COMMISSIONS  OF  FIVE.  419 

full  development  of  the  democratical  was  prevented  by  the  premature  destruc- 
tion of  the  whole  nation. 

The  Carthaginian  aristocracy  was  partly  one  of  birth,  but  chiefly,  as  it  should 
seem,  of  wealth.     Indeed,  the  older  form  of  a  pure  aristocracy  of  „. 

...  .  ,r.  ..'•:«•  The  «uffete»  or  judges. 

birth  must  necessarily  be  rare  m  a  colony,  where  the  original  set- 
tlers must  almost  always  be  a  mixed  body,  and  yet  in  their  new  settlement  find 
themselves  on  an  equality  with  each  other.  It  appears,  however,  that  nobility 
of  birth  was  acknowledged  in  Carthage,  and  that  their  two  chief  magistrates,  or 
judges,2  suffetes,  whom  the  Greeks  called  kings,  were  elected  only  from  a  certain 
number  of  families.  How  many  these  were,  and  what  was  the  Origin  of  their 
nobility,  we  are  not  informed.  But  wealth,  contrary  to  the  practice  of  the  Ro- 
man government,  was  an  indispensable  qualification  for  all  the  highest  offices.  Nay, 
we  are  told  that  the  very  suffetes  and  captains-general  of  the  commonwealth 
bought  their  high  dignities  :3  whether  this  is  to  be  understood  of  paying  money 
to  obtain  votes,  or,  as  is  much  more  probable,  that  the  fees  or  expenses  of  entering 
on  an  office  were  purposely  made  very  heavy,  to  render  it  inaccessible  to  any 
but  the  rich. 

The  great  council,  tfJ^xX^ro?,  was  probably  an  assembly  as  numerous  as  the 
Roman  senate,  and,  like  the  senate,  was  a  mixed  body,  containing  na  ^  councili  and 
members  of  different  ages,  who,  in  whatever  manner  appointed,  «">  council  Ofeider§. 
were  a  sort  of  representation  of  the  general  feelings  of  the  aristocracy.  But  from 
this  great  council  there  were  chosen  one  hundred  members,4  who  formed  what 
was  called  the  council  of  elders,  and  who  in  fact  were  the  supreme  authority  in 
the  state.  The}''  were  originally  appointed  as  a  check  upon  the  power  of  the 
captains-general,  and  were  a  court  before  which  every  general,  on  his  return 
from  a  foreign  command,  had  to  render  an  account  of  his  conduct.  But  by  de- 
grees they  became  not  only  supreme  criminal  judges  in  all  cases,  bat  also  a  su- 
preme executive  council,  of  which  the  two  suffetes  or  kings  were  the  presidents. 
In  this  capacity  they  were  legally,  we  may  presume,  no  more  than  a  managing 
committee  for  the  great  council,  so  they  became  in  ordinary  cases  its  substitute, 
and  in  all  cases  exercised  such  a  control  over  it,  that  they  are  called  a  power  for 
governing  the  general  council  itself.5 

The  hundred,  or  the  elders,  were  chosen  for  life  from  members  of  the  great 
council,  but  not  by  the  votes  of  the  great  council  at  large.  On  the  Tho  commission  0, 
contrary,  they  were  chosen  by  certain  bodies  which  Aristotle  calls  bottrd«offlve- 
tfevra^i'a/,  or  commissions  of  five,  and  which  formed  so  many  close  corporations, 
filling  up  their  own  vacancies.  This  is  nearly  all  the  information  which  we  possess 
on  the  subject  ;  for  Aristotle  only  adds,  that  these  commissions  had  great  and 
various  powers,  and  that  their  members  remained  longer  in  office  than  the  ordi- 
nary magistrates,  inasmuch  as  they  exercised  an  authority  both  before  and  after 
their  regular  term  of  magistracy.  The  most  probable  conjecture  is,  that  the 
more  important  branches  of  the  public  administration  were,  as  we  should  say, 
put  in  commission,  and  vested  in  boards  of  five  members  ;  that  thus  the  treasury 

2  Aristotle,  Politic.  IT.  11.  BArtov  tie  row?  fta-  *  "Centum  ex  numero  senatorum  juclices1 
mXcTs  «4r£  K«T«  ri  alrb  clvai  yivos  uq&f  TOVTO  TO  TV-  deliguntur,"  says  Justin,  giving  an  account  of 
•X6v.  It  is  obvious  that  "  suffes,  or  "  sufes,"  is  the  origin  of  this  council  of  elders,  XIX.  2.  The 


the  same  word  with  the  Hebrew  BBTO.  which  council  of  elders,  or  yipovala,  is  distinguished 

,,     ....      ...                                                  .,  expressly  from  the  larger  council,  or  senate, 

was  the  title  of  those  magistrates  whom  we  call  ^y^roV.  Sec  Polybius?  X.  18,  and  XXXVI.  2. 

the  judges.   Now  as  the  judges  m  the  Scripture  For  the  whole  ittbjeo«  of  the  Carthaginian  con- 

history  are  distinguished  from  the  kings,  and  stitution  I  have  been  largely  indebted  to  Hee- 

was  a  great  change  when  the  Israelites,  tired  ren's  Historical  Researches  on  the  African  Na- 

tlieir  judges,  or  suifetes,  desired  to  have  a  tions  Vol.  I.    I  have  also  derived  some  assist- 

so  it  is  probable  that  the  suffetes  at  ance  from  KlugeV  Commentary  on  Aristotle's 

Carthage  also  were  so  named  to  show  that  they  account  of  the  Carthaginian  constitution,  pub- 

re  not  kings,  and  that  the  Greek  writers,  in  lishe<i  jn  1504 

'^y*    X*X'    16'      "Sanctius    consilium,. 

p*  i  *i  :,,0    TTT   ra                                   ,.  •  maxima'q  ue  ad  ipsum  senatum  regenduui  vis."  ' 
roryluus,  VI.  56.    Aristotle's  account  im- 
plies the  same  thin"1. 


120  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XXXIX 

would  be  intrusted  to  one  commission  of  five,  the  care  of  public  manners  and 
morals,  the  censor's  office  at  Rome,  would  be  given  to  another  commission ;  the 
police,  perhaps,  to  another ;  the  navy  to  another  ;  and  so  on.  Nothing  would 
hinder  these  commissioners  from  being  members  of  the  great  council,  and  nothing 
would  hinder  them,  therefore,  from  electing  themselves  to  fill  up  vacancies  in 
the  council  of  elders ;  in  fact,  we  are  expressly  told6  that  the  treasurer's  or  quaes- 
tor's office  led  regularly  to  a  seat  amongst  the  hundred ;  and  thus  the  same  men 
being  often  members  at  one  and  the  same  time  of  one  or  perhaps  more  of  these 
administrative  commissions,  and  of  the  great  council,  and  also  of  the  council  of 
elders,  we  can  understand  what  Aristotle  means  when  he  says  that  it  was  a 
favorite  practice  with  the  Carthaginians  to  invest  the  same  person  with  several 
offices  together. 

All  this  was  sufficiently  aristocratical,  or  rather  in  the  spirit  of  that  worst  form 
of  aristocracy  which  the  Greeks  called  oligarchy.      And  what 

The  aristocratical  clubs.  -  lj~ui  i  •     .     •         i     -i         /•      v  ,-\ 

was  thus  ordered  by  law,  was  to  be  maintained  by  feeling ;  the 
members  of  the  aristocracy  had  their  clubs,7  where  they  habitually  met  at  a  com- 
mon mess  or  public  table,  with  the  very  object  of  binding  them  more  closely  to 
each  other,  and  imbuing  them  entirely  with  the  spirit  of  their  order. 

Under  such  a  constitution  the  power  of  the  suffetes  had  been  reduced  from  its 
Diminution  of  the  pow-  originally  almost  kingly  prerogatives  to  the  state  of  the  doge 
erofthesuffete..  under  the  late  constitution  of  Venice.  In  earlier  times  they  had 
been  invested  with  the  two  great  characters  of  ancient  royalty,  those  of  general 
and  of  priest  ;8  but  now  the  first  of  these  was  commonly  taken  from  him,  and  the 
office  of  general -in-chief  is  spoken  of  by  Aristotle  as  distinct ;  nor  was  it  even 
left  in  the  suffetes'  appointment.  Still  the  two  kings,  as  the  Greek  writers  call 
them,  were  recognized  as  an  essential  branch  of  the  government,  and  if  they  dif- 
fered upon  any  proposed  measure  from  the  council  of  elders,  then  the  question 
was  referred  to  the  assembly  of  the  people.9  It  was  thus,  no  doubt,  that  an 
opening  was  afforded  for  weakening  the  power  of  the  aristocracy  ;  for  either  of 
the  suffetes  was  thus  enabled  to  introduce  the  decision  of  the  popular  branch  on 
points  of  government ;  and  it  is  of  the  essence  of  a  popular  assembly,  if  called 
into  activity,  to  become  predominant :  it  may  exist  and  yet  be  powerless,  but 
only  so  long  as  few  points  are  in  practice  submitted  to  its  decision. 

But  so  long  as  the  suffetes  and  council  were  agreed,  the  power  of  the  Car- 
judiciai  power.  Court  thaginian  people  was  exceedingly  small.  Nothing,  it  seems,  could 
of  the  hundred  ana  four.  orjginate  with  the  popular  assembly ;  so  that  the  exercise  of  its 
functions  did  not  depend  on  its  own  will,  but  on  the  accidental  disagreement  of 
the  other  branches  of  the  legislature.  And  as  the  mass  of  the  people  had  so 
small  a  share  practically  in  the  legislation  or  in  the  administration  of  affairs,  so 
they  were  destitute  of  judicial  power :  there  were  no  juries  as  in  England,  nor 
any  large  popular  courts  where  hundreds  or  even  thousands  of  the  poorest  citi- 
zens sat  in  judgment  as  at  Athens.  All  causes,  civil  and  criminal,  were  tried  by 
certain  magistrates  ;10  the  highest  matters,  as  we  have  seen,  by  the  council  of 

8  Livy,  XXXIII.  46.— What  is  here  said  of  •  At  least  Hamilcar,  who  commanded  the 
the  multiplication  of  offices  in  the  hands  of  the  Carthaginians  at  the  battle  of  Himera,  and  who 
same  persons  at  Carthage,  was  also  the  case  at  was  one  of  the  suffetes,  is  described  by  Hero- 
Venice.  Every  member  of  the  supreme  criminal  dotus  as  sacrificing  daring  the  battle,  and  pour- 
tribunal  of  forty  had  a  scat  ex-officio  in  the  sen-  ing  libations  with  his  own  hand  on  the  victims, 
ate;  and  the  three  presidents  of  the  Forty  sat  VII.  167.  And  although  the  expression  in 
also  in  the  council  of  the  doge.  "L'autorite  Herodotus  is  lOiero,  and  not  ffdw,  yet  the  same 
du  legislateur,"  says  paru,  "celle  du  juge,  expression  is  applied  to  the  prophet  Tisamenus, 
^influence  de  1'administration  et  le  pouvoir  who  was  with  the  Greek  army  at  Platsea;  and, 
discretionnaire  de  la  police,  setrouvaient  reunis  unless  Hamilcar  had  been  personally  engaged 
dans  les  memcs  mains." — Histoire  de  Venise,  in  the  sacrifice,  w_e  can  scarcely  suppose  that  he 
Livre  XXXIX.  Vol.  VI.  p.  68,  and  146.  would  have  remained  in  the  camp  while  it  waa 

7  Ta  avaalria  rS>v  traipiGiv.     Aristotle,  Politic,  going  forward,  instead  of  being  present  with 

II.  11.    It  may  be  mentioned,  as  a  mark  of  the  his  soldiers  in  the  action, 

aristocratical  spirit  of  the  Carthaginian  govern-  9  Aristotle,  Politic.  II.  11. 

ment,  that  the  senate  and  people  had  different  10  'A-ptcTOKpariicbv,  rb  r«?  6tKas  Lnb  ru>v  dpxekj* 

baths. — Valer.  Max.  IX.  5.  Ext.  §  4.  StKa&eOai  irdaas,  KUI  pn  aAAasin-'  a'AAwv,  KaQditep  ft 


CHAP.  XXXIX.]  SYSTEM  OF  COLONIZATION.  421 

elders  ;  but  every  magistracy  seems  to  have  had  a  judicial  power  attached  to  it, 
and  only  one  court  had  a  popular  constitution.  This  was  the  court  of  the  hun- 
dred and  four,11  the  members  of  which  were  elected  by  the  people  at  large  ;  but 
public  opinion  required  that  they  should  be  men  of  irreproachable  characters  ; 
and  therefore  the  election  was  conducted  with  care,  and  no  one  without  merit 
was  likely  to  be  appointed.  This  court  probably  exercised  jurisdiction  especially 
in  civil  and  mercantile  causes  ;  such  as  would  be  exceedingly  numerous  in  so 
great  a  commercial  country  as  Carthage. 

Thus  excluded  in  the  ordinary  course  of  things  from  the  government,  the  legis- 
lature, and  the  courts  of  justice,  the  Carthaginian  commons  were  RepruiBr  .ygtem  of  coi. 
kept  for  centuries  in  a  state  of  contented  acquiescence  with  their  ouization- 
country's  constitution,  because  provision  was  happily  and  wisely  made  for  their 
physical  wants.  Colonization,  as  a  provision  for  the  poorer  citizens,  was  an 
habitual  resource  of  the  Carthaginian  government.  And  not  only  did  their  nu- 
merous settlements  along  the  coast  of  Africa  enable  them  to  make  grants  of  land 
to  whole  bodies  of  their  people,  but  individuals12  were  employed  in  various  offices 
under  the  government,  as  clerks,  or  as  custom-house  officers,  where  opportuni- 
ties of  acquiring  money  would  not  be  wanting.  With  such  means  of  relief, 
largely  offered  by  fortune  and  wisely  used,  the  Carthaginian  people  were 
saved  from  that  worst  cause  of  revolutions,  general  distress  ;  and  the  mass  of 
mankind  are  so  constituted,  that  so  long  as  their  physical  wants  are  satisfied,  the 
cravings  of  their  intellectual  and  moral  nature  are  rarely  vehement. 

Every  one  who  is  accustomed  to  make  history  a  reality  must  feel  how  unsatis- 
factory are  these  accounts  of  mere  institutions,  which,  at  the  best,  Meagre™*  of  <mrac- 
can  offer  us  only  a  plan,  and  not  a  living  picture.  Was  the  Cartha-  thentot°afiCwln?Soffr»Ti 
ginian  aristocracy,  with  its  merchant-nobles,  its  jealous  tribunals,  Carthaginian  literature. 
its  power  abroad  and  its  weakness  at  home,  an  older  sister  of  that  Venetian  re^- 
public,  whose  fall,  less  shameful  than  the  long  stagnation  of  its  half  existence, 
Nemesis  has  in  our  own  days  rejoiced  in  ?  Or  did  the  common  voice  in  France 
speak  truly,  when  it  called  England  the  modern  Carthage  ?  Or  is  Holland  the 
truer  parallel  ;  and  do  the  contests  of  the  house  of  Nassau  with  the  Dutch 
aristocracy  represent  the  ambition  of  the  house  of  Barca,  and  the  triumph  of  the 
populai  i  arty  over  the  old  aristocratical  constitution?  We  cannot  answer  these 
questions  certainly,  because  Carthage  on  the  stage  of  history  is  to  us  a  dumb 
actor;  no  poet,  orator,  historian,  or  philosopher,  has  esciped  the  wreck  of  time, 
to  show  us  how  men  thought  and  felt  at  Carthage.  There  were  Carthaginian 


i.  Aristot.  Politic.  II.  11.  Udvas  <if>xaf  practice  of  submitting  different  causes  to  diifer- 

nvts  Kpivovvi  raj  Micas,  III.  1.    For  the  statement  ent  magistrates,  but  of  a  more  democratical  sys- 

in  the  text  these  passages  are  a  sufficient  war-  tern  by  which  not  all  causes  were  tried  bymagis- 

rant;   but  the  first  offers,  as  is  well  known,  tratcs,  as  at  Carthage,  but  some  by  magistrates, 

much  difficulty  in  itself;  and  Kluge's  explana-  and  others  by  juries;  "some  by  one  authority, 

tion  is  not  satisfactory.     In  the  latter  passage  and  others  by  another?" 

Carthage  and  Lacedaitnon  are  said  to  resemble  "  The  number  of  this  court  is  supposed  by 

each    o'ther  in  the  aristocratical   principle  of  Niebuhr  (Vol.  I.  note  851)  to  have  reference  to 

vesting  the  judicial  power  in  magistrates,  and  the  number  of  weeks  in  the  solar  year,  as  ii 

not  in  juries  taken  from  the  people  at  large,  there  were  two  judges  for  each  week.    The 

This  is  perfectly  clear;  but  one  does  not  see  numbers  were  elected,  says  Aristotle,  OVK  IK  r&r 

why  it  should  be  more  aristocratical  to  give  Tvxtvrwv  a\\'  apitmnfyi/.  This  can  only  mean  that 

all  these  magistrates  a  universal  jurisdiction,  public  opinion  required  for  the  office  so  high  a 

rather  than,  as  at  Sparta,  to  assign  civil  causes  qualification  in  point  of  character,  that  the  ap- 

to  one  court,  and  criminal  to  another.     It  is  pointment  was  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  word 

strange,  too,  that  in  one  of  these  passages  Sparta  aristocratical  ;  whereas  at  Sparta,  a  lower  stand- 

and  Carthage  should  be  said  to  manage  their  ard  being  fixed  for  the  characters  of  the  Ephori, 

courts  of  justice  on  the  same  principle;   that  persons  of  very  ordinary  qualifications   were 

is,  on  one  of  an  antipopular  character,  rbv  avr&v  often  chosen,  if  party  feelings  recommended 

6f  rp6xov  Kal  ntpl  Kapxr]t6i>a,  if  in  the  other  pas-  them. 

sage  they  are  meant,  to  be  contrasted  with  one  u  Aristot.  Politic.  VI.  5.    'A£/  TIVOS  fW/nrov 

another.    Is  it  not  possible  therefore  to  refer  TCS  roS  fa'/pov  -pds  ras  ircptoixl^as  noiovaiv  tinrfyou?. 

the  words  KaOdvep  tv  AaKetatpovi  to  the  whole  of  Kluge  understands  this  passage  as  I  have  done  ; 

the  clause    preceding  it,  rather    than  to  the  Heeren  objects  to  this  interpretation,  and  ex- 

words  r«i  fin  aXAa?  VTT'  a'AXwv,  and  to  under-  plains  it  of  colonies  sent  out  hi  the  mass. 
stand  these  last  words  not  of  th*  Lacedaemonian 


422  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAR  XXXDl 

writers,  we  know.  Sallust  had  heard  translations  of  passages  in  their  historical 
records  ;:a  and  the  Roman  senate,  when  Carthage  was  destroyed,  ordered  Mago's 
work  on  agriculture  to  be  translated  into  Latin.14  Nor  were  geographical  accounts 
of  their  voyages  of  discovery  wanting  ;  imperfect  translations  of,  or  rather  extracts 
from,  two  of  which  into  Greek15  and  Latin,  have  descended  to  our  times.  But 
of  poets,  orators,  and  philosophers  we  hear  nothing ;  nor  probably  were  the 
writers  who  were  translated  to  Sallust  deserving  of  the  name  of  historians  ;  at 
least  all  that  he  quotes  from  them  relates  to  times  beyond  real  historical  memory, 
as  if  they  had  but  recorded  floating  popular  traditions,  without  attempting  criti- 
cal or  contemporary  history.  It  was  a  Greek  who  gave  what  may  be  looked 
upon  as  a  Carthaginian  account16  of  the  first  Punic  war ;  and  it  was  to  two 
Greeks17  that  Hannibal  committed  the  task  of  recording  his  own  immortal  expe- 
dition to  Italy.  Their  language,  indeed,  shut  the  Carthaginians  out  from  the 
prevailing  civilization  of  the  ancient  world  :  it  was  easy  for  a  Roman  to  learn 
Greek,  which  was  but  a  sister  language  to  his  own ;  but  neither  Greek  nor  Latin 
have  any  near  resemblance  to  Phoenician  ;  nor  were  there  any  Carthaginian 
names  or  stories  which  poets  and  artists  had  made  famous  amongst  all  civilized 
nations  like  those  of  Thebes  and  Troy.  Thus,  as  I  said  before,  Carthage,  not 
having  spoken  of  what  was  in  her  heart,  it  has  passed  along  with  herself  into 
destruction ;  and  we  can  now  only  know  something  of  what  she  did,  without  un- 
derstanding what  she  was. 

Polybius13  has  said  that  during  the  wars  with  the  Romans,  the  Carthaginian 
Growth  of  the  popular  constitution  became  more  democratic^!,  and  he  ascribes  the  vic- 
^caK^dKml  tory  of  the  Romans  in  some  measure  to  the  superior  wisdom  of 
their  aristocratical  government,  and  the  instability  of  popular  coun- 
sels in  Carthage.  It  is,  indeed,  evident,  that  the  family  of  Barca  rested  on  pop- 
ular support,  and  were  opposed  by  the  party  of  the  aristocracy;  and  that  they 
could  maintain  their  power  so  long  in  spite  of  such  an  opposition,  shows,  un- 
doubtedly, that  the  popular  part  of  the  constitution  must  have  gained  far  more 
strength  than  it  possessed  in  the  days  of  Aristotle.  Hamilcar  and  his  family 
seem  to  have  stood  in  the  position  of  Pericles  at  Athens ;  both  have  often  been 
taxed  with  having  injured  irreparably  the  constitution  of  their  two  countries  ;  and 
both,  perhaps,  had  the  natural  weakness  of  great  men,  that  feeling  themselves 
to  be  better  than  any  institutions,  they  removed  too  boldly  things  which  to  them 
were  hindrances,  but  to  the  mediocrity  of  ordinary  men  are  supports  or  useful 
guides ;  so  that  when  they  died,  and  no  single  men  arose  able  to  fill  their  place, 
what  they  had  undone  found  nothing  to  succeed  to  it,  and  then'  the  overthrow 
of  the  older  system  appeared  an  irreparable  mischief.  But  the  question  is 
amongst  the  most  difficult  in  political  science  ;  Venice  shows  that  no  democracy, 
no  tyranny,  can  be  so  vile  as  the  dregs  of  an  aristocracy  suffered  to  run  out  its 
full  course  ;  and  with  respect  to  the  conduct  of  a  war,  the  Roman  senate  is  no  fair 
specimen  of  aristocracies  in  general ;  the  affairs  of  Athens  and  Carthage  were 

13  Sallust,  Bell.  Jngurth.  20.  means  certain  that  all  of  what  is  there  given  is 

14  Pliny,  Histor.  Natur.  XVIII.  §  22.     It  ap-  genuine  Carthaginian.     Was  Plautus  likely  to 
pears  from  this  passage  that  on  the  destruction  have  learnt  the  language,  and  for  what  object 
of  Carthage  the  Carthaginian    libraries  were  would  pure  Carthaginian  have  been  introduced, 
given  by  the  senate  to  "  the  princes  of  Africa,"  when  apparently  the  only  purpose  answered  by 
"  regulis  Africa?. ;"  that  is  chiefly,  no  doubt,  to  Hanno's  speaking  in  a  foreign  language  is  to 
Masinissa.    And  thus  the  Carthaginian  books  cause  a  laugh  at  Milphio's  burlesque  interpreta- 
from  which  Sallust  quotes  were  said,  he  tells  tion  of  it? 

us,  to  have  belonged  to  king  Hiempsal,  Masin-  K  Such  as  a  Greek  translation  of  a  voyage 

issa's  grandson.  And  further,  Mago's  work  was  Hanno,  published  by  Hudson  in  his  Geographi 

committed  for  translation  to  persons  who  under-  Minores ;  and  Fcstus  Avienus'  Latin  version  of 

stood  Carthaginian,  of  whom  the  man  who  knew  certain  parts  of  the  voyage  of  Himilcon,  which 

it  best  was  a  member  of  the  Junian  family,  D.  Heeren  has  given  in  the  Appendix  to  his  work 

Silanus.     Still  a  knowledge  of  Carthaginian  on  Carthage. 

must  have  been  a  rare  accomplishment ;  which  Je  Philinus  of  Agrigentum. 

makes  us  wonder  at  the  introduction  of  speeches  "  Sosilus  of  Lacedoemon,  and  Silanus  or  Si- 

in  that  language  upoi  the  Koman  stage,  as  in  lenus.     Vid.  Cornel.  Nepot.  in  Hannibal,  13. 

tho  Poenulus  of  Plautus.    It  seems  to  me  by  no  1B  VI.  51. 


CHAP.  XXXIX.]  WEAKNESS  OF  THE  CARTHAGINIANS.  423 

never  conducted  so  ably  "as  when  the  popular  party  was  most  predominant;  nor 
have  any  governments  ever  shown  in  war  greater  feebleness  and  vacillation  and 
ignorance  than  those  of  Sparta,  and,  but  too  often,  of  England. 

A  great  commercial  state,  where  wealth  was  largely  gained  and  highly  valued, 
was  always  in  danger,  according  to  the  opinion  of  the  ancient  ^^  ^  _t 
philosophers,  of  losing  its  spirit  of  enterprise.  But  in  this  Car-  ^^K»WMftT. 
thage  resembled  the  government  of  British  India  ;  necessity  at  first 
made  her  merchants  soldiers ;  and  when  she  became  powerful,  then  the  mera- 
impulse  of  a  great  dominion  kept  up  her  energy ;  she  had  much  to  maintain,  and 
what  she  already  possessed  gave  her  the  power,  and  with  it  the  temptation,  of 
acquiring  more.  Besides,  it  is  a  very  important  point  in  the  state  of  society  in 
the  ancient  world,  that  the  business  of  a  soldier  was  nc  isolated  profession,  but 
mixed  up  essentially  with  the  ordinary  life  of  every  citizen.  Hence  those  who 
guided  the  counsels  of  a  state  were  ready  also  to  conduct  its  armies ;  and  mil- 
itary glory  was  a  natural  object  of  ambition  to  many  enterprising  minds  which, 
in  modern  Europe,  could  only  hope  for  distinction  in  the  cabinet  or  in  parlia- 
ment. The  great  families  of  Carthage,  holding  amongst  them  a  monopoly  of  all 
the  highest  offices,  might  safely  calculate  on  obtaining  for  all  their  members 
some  opportunity  of  distinguishing  themselves :  if  the  father  fell  in  the  service 
of  his  country,  his  son  not  unfrequently  became  his  successor,  and  the  glory 
of  finishing  what  he  had  begun  was  not  left  to  a  stranger.  'Thus  the  house 
of  Mago  for  three  generations  conducted  the  Carthaginian  invasions  of  Si- 
cily: and  thus  Hamilcar  Barca,  according  to  his  own  expression,19  reared  his 
three  sons,  Hannibal,  Hasdrubal,  and  Mago,  as  lion's  whelps  to  prey  upon  the 
Romans. 

History  can  produce  no  greater  statesmen  and  generals  than  some  of  the 
members  of  the  Carthaginian  aristocracy.     But  the  Carthaginian 

.  ,      ,,  ,V.  I'll  i  e-    T»  Inferiority  of  the  Car. 

people  were  wholly  unfit  to  contend  with  the  people  ot  Home,  tbagmian  people *» *>u 

£T     r    .,.,  li  •  ,•       •  -iix  dirrs-Wantoffortressw 

No  military  excellence  in  arms  or  tactic  is  ever  ascribed  to  them  ;>  the  Carthaginian  ter. 
nor  does  it  appear  that  they  were  regularly  trained  to  war,  like 
the  citizens  of  Rome  and  Italy.  The  Carthaginian  armies  were  composed  of 
Africans  and  Numidians,  of  Gauls  and  Spaniards,  but  we  scarcely  hear  of  any 
Carthaginian  citizens  except  as  generals  or  officers.  With  this  deficiency  in  na- 
tive soldiers,  there  was  also  a  remarkable  want  of  fortresses ;  a  point  of  no  small 
importance  at  all  periods,  but  especially  so  in  ancient  warfare.  The  walls  exist 
in  Italy  to  this  day  of  many  towns  whose  very  names  have  perished ;  but  we 
know  that,  small  as  they  were,  they  could  have  delayed  the  progress  of  an  inva- 
der ;  and  how  inestimable  were  the  services  rendered  to  the  Romans  in  their 
greatest  danger  by  the  fortifications  of  Nola  and  Casilinum  !  But  in  the  Cartha- 
ginian territory  a.i  invader  found  nothing  but  a  rich  and  defenceless  spoil. 
Agathocles  conquered  200  towns20  with  scarcely  any  opposition ;  and  Hannibal 
himself,  after  one  defeat  in  the  field,  had  no  resource  but  submission  to  the  con- 
queror. Had  a  French  army  ever  effected  a  landing  in  England  during  the  last  war, 
the  same  want  of  fortresses  would  have  enabled  the  enemy  to  overrun  the  whole 
country,  and  have  taught  us  by  fatal  experience  to  appreciate  in  this  respect 
the  improvidence  of  Carthage. 

Thus,  with  abler  leaders  and  a  richer  treasury,  but  with  a  weaker  people,  an 
unguarded  country,  and  with  subjects  far  less  united  and  attached  canine  ™u  unequal 
to  her  government,  Carthage  was  really  unequal  to  the  contest  toRonie- 
with  Rome.  And  while  observing  this  inequality  in  the  course  of  our  story,  we 
shall  have  more  reason  to  admire  that  extraordinary  energy  and  genius  of  Hamil- 
car Barca  and  his  family,  which  so  long  struggled  against  it,  and  even  in  spite  of 
nature,  almost  made  the  weaker  party  victorious. 

Valerius  Maximus,  IX.  3.  M  Diodorus,  XX.  17. 


CHAPTER  XL. 

FIRST  PUNIC  WAR— THE  ROMANS  INVADE  SICILY— SUBMISSION  OF  HIERO— 
THE  ROMANS  CREATE  A  NAVY— NAVAL  VICTORIES  OF  MYKE  AND  ECNO- 
MUS— EXPEDITION  OF  M.  REGULUS  TO  AFRICA;  HIS  SUCCESSES,  HIS  ARRO- 
GANCE IN  VICTORY,  HIS  DEFEAT  AND  CAPTIVITY— WAR  IN  SICILY— SIEGE  OF 
LILYB^EUM  AND  NAVAL  ACTIONS  CONNECTED  WITH  IT— HAMILCAR  BARCA  AT 
EIRCTE  AND  ERYX— NAVAL  BATTLE  OF  THE  AGATES— PEACE  CONCLUDED— 
A.  U.  C.  490  TO  513— A.  C.  264  TO  241. 


MtAcr^cro/uv  Kal  $/x£?j  f v  irXiovi  X9^vtf    T«  vavrixd,  Kal  ortiv    rr]v  firiffTrJn*)v   is  rb    ivov 
rtj  ye  £in£t>xt'a  t»'i  irov  i:tpitv6nt§a.'  o  yap  i$/mj  c%optv  <f>(tff£i    aya$6v,  iiceivois   OVK  uv  ysvoiro 
8  <5'  fKtlvoi  hntrfftf  Trpovxavoi,  KaSaiperiov  ij^lv  tori  /jeAtrjj. — THUCYD.  I.  121. 


THE  first  Punic  war  lasted,  without  intermission,  for  more  than  two-and-twent) 
A.  u.  c.  490.  A.  c.  years,1  a  longer  space  of  time  than  the  whole  period  occupied  by 
•hi' hiswryof cth«V8t  the  wars  of  the  French  revolution,  if  we  omit  to  reckon  the  nine- 
teen months  of  the  peace  or  rather  truce  of  Amiens.  And  we 
have  now,  for  the  first  time,  the  guidance  of  a  careful  and  well-informed  histo- 
rian, who,  having  been  born  little  more  thirty  years  after  the  end  of  the  war,1 
had  studied  the  written  accounts  given  of  its  events  by  each  of  the  contend- 
ing parties,  had  learned  something,  no  doubt,  concerning  it,  from  the  mouths 
both  of  Romans  and  Carthaginians,  and  who  judged  what  he  had  heard  and  read 
with  understating,  and  for  the  most  part  impartially.  The  actions,  then,  of  this 
war  may  be  known,  and  some  of  them  deserve  to  be  described  particularly ;  nor 
does  it  indeed  seem  possible  to  communicate  any  interest  to  history,  if  it  must 
only  record  results  and  not  paint  actions.  But  in  military  matters,  especially, 
much  that  may  and  ought  to  be  told  at  length  by  a  contemporary  historian, 
ought  not  to  be  repeated  by  one  who  writes  after  an  interval  of  many  centuries : 
and  therefore  I  must,  of  necessity,  pass  over  slightly  many  battles  and  sieges,  in 
order  to  relate  others  in  full  detail,  and  yet  avoid  the  fault  of  too  great  pro- 
lixity. 

It  was  the  eleventh  year  after  the  defeat  of  Pyrrhus  at  Beneventum,  and  Ap- 
The  Mamertme.  of  pius  Claudius  Caudex  and  M.  Fulvius  Flaccus  were  consuls,  when 
forTid"agaafinit!heRcrre.  a  deputation3  arrived  at  Rome  from  the  Mamertines  of  Messana, 
thaginmn.  and  Hiero.  praying  that  the  Romans,  the  sovereigns  of  Italy,  would  not  suf- 
fer an  Italian  people  to  be  destroyed  by  Greeks  and  Carthaginians.  Hiero,  king 
of  Syracuse,  was  their  open  enemy ;  the  Carthaginians,  under  pretence  of  saving 
them  from  his  vengeance,  were  trying  to  get  possession  of  their  citadel ;  but  the 
Mamertines,  true  to  their  Italian  blood,  sought  to  put  themselves  under  the  pro- 
tection  of  their  own  countrymen,  and  it  greatly  concerned  the  Romans  not  to 
allow  the  Carthaginians  to  become  masters  of  Messana,  and  to  gain  a  station  for 
Iheir  fleets  within  thirty  stadia  of  the  coast  of  Italy. 

Six  years  had  not  elapsed  since  the  Romans  had  extirpated  the  brethren  and 

1  From  the  middle,  perhaps,  of  the  year  490  be  deducted,  which  extends  from  October,  1801, 

to  the  middle  of  the  year  513 ;  nearly  twenty-  to  May,  1803. 

three  years,  if  we  reckon  from  the  arrival  of  the  a  The  exact  year  of  Polybius'  birth  is  uncer- 

first  Mamertine  embassy  at  Rome,  to  the  con-  tain.    He  was  under  30  in  ,573,  but  as  he  was 

elusion  of  the  definitive  treaty.    The  whole  pe-  appointed  ambassador  to  Egypt  in  that  year,  he 

riod  of  the  revolution  wars,  from  April,  1792,  to  could  riot  have  been  many  years  younger.    See 

July,  1815,  is  but  a  very  little  longer,  and  it  be-  Fynes  Clinton,  Fasti  Ilellen.  Vol.  111.  p.  75. 

eomes  very  much  shorter  if  the  interval  of  peace  3  Polybius,  1. 10.    Zonaras,  VJ1I.  8. 


OHAP.  XL.]  C   CLAUDIUS  CROSSES  TO  MESSANA,  435 

imitators  of  the  Mamertines,  who  had  done  to  Rhegium  what  the  The  ^ato  i^ute.  to 
Mamertines  had  done  to  Messana  ;  and  Hiero,  king  of  Syracuse,  s™11*11- 
had  zealously  aided  them  in  the  work,  and,  as  it  appears,4  was  actually  at  this 
time  their  ally.  The  Mamertines  were  a  horde  of  adventurers  and  plunderers, 
who  were  the  common  enemies  of  mankind,  and  whose  case  the  Romans  had  pre- 
judged already  by  their  exemplary  punishment  of  the  very  same  conduct  in  the 
Campanians  of  Rhegium,  while  Hiero  and  the  Carthaginians  were  the  friends  and 
allies  of  Rome.  The  senate,  therefore,  we  are  assured,5  after  long  debates,  coTrid- 
not  resolve  to  interfere  in  such  a  quarrel. 

But  the  consuls,  who,  if  true  to  the  hereditary  character  of  their  families, 
were  both  of  them  ambitious  men  and  unscrupulous,  brought  the 
petition  of  the  Mamertines  before  the  assembly  of  the  people.  The  Frit^S^wJit 
ready  topics  of  aiding  the  Italian  people  against  foreigners,  and  of 
restraining  the  power  of  Carthage,  whose  establishments  in  Corsica,  Sardinia, 
and  the  Liparaean  islands,  were  already  drawn,  like  a  chain,  round  the  Roman 
dominion,  were,  no  doubt,  urged  plausibly  ;  it  might  have  been  said  too  that  the 
Carthaginians  had  already  undertaken  to  protect  the  Mamertines,  so  that  they 
could  not  reproach  the  Romans  for  upholding  the  very  same  cause.  Besides, 
the  Roman  people  had  a  fresh  remembrance  of  the  assignations  of  land,  the  rich 
spoil,  and  lucrative  employments  which  had  followed  from  their  late  conquests 
in  Italy;  the  fertility  of  Sicily  was  proverbial;  and  the  well-known  riches  of 
Carthage  made  a  war  with  her  as  tempting  a  prospect  to  the  Romans  as  a  war 
with  Spain  has  been  ere  now  to  Englishmen.  So  the  Roman  people  resolved  to 
protect  the  Mamertine  buccaneers,  and  to  receive  them  as  their  friends  and  allies. 

The  vote  of  the  comitia  was,  by  the  actual  constitution  of  Rome,  paramount 
to  every  other  authority  except  the  negative  of  the  tribunes;  and  c.ciaudim  crosses  over 
as  the  tribunes  did  not  interpose,  the  hesitation  of  the  senate  EfSS'SZlSiEE* 
availed  nothing.  Accordingly  the  senate  now  resolved  to  assist  theaid  of  Rome- 
the  Mamertines  ;  and  Appius  Claudius  was  ordered  to  carry  the  resolution  into 
effect.  But  before  he  could  be  ready  to  act  with  a  consular  army,  C.  Claudius, 
with  a  small  force,  was  sent  to  the  spot  with  orders  to  communicate  as  quickly 
as  possible  with  the  Mamertines.  In  a  small  boat6  he  crossed  the  strait  to 
Messana,  and  was  introduced  before  the  Mamertine  assembly.  With  the  language 
so  invariably  repeated  afterwards  whenever  a  Roman  army  appeared  in  a  foreign 
country,  C.  Claudius  assured  the  Mamertines  that  he  was  come  to  give  them 
their  freedom,  and  he  called  on  the  Carthaginians  either  to  evacuate  the  city,  for 
since  the  Mamertine  embassy  to  Rome  they  had  been  put  in  possession  of  the 
citadel  by  their  partisans  in  Messana,  or  to  explain  the  grounds  on  which  they 
occupied  it.  His  address  received  no  answer  ;  upon  which  he  said,  "  This  silence 
proves  that  the  Mamertine  people  are  not  their  own  masters,  and  that  the  Car- 
thaginians have  no  just  defence  of  their  conduct  to  offer.  For  the  sake  of  our 
common  Italian  blood,  and  because  our  aid  has  been  implored,  we  will  do  the 
Mamertines  justice." 

But  the  strait  of  Messana,  guarded  by  a  Carthaginian  fleet,  was  a  barrier  not 
easy  to  surmount.    The  Romans,  since  their  conquest  of  Tarentum  The  Romnn  fleet>  in 


and  their  possession  of  all  the  coasts  of  Italy,  seem  to  have  given  SJSJtti 
up  their  navy  altogether,  and  we  hear  at  this  time  of  no  duumviri  the  c>urthagi 
or  naval  commanders  as  regular  officers  of  the  commonwealth.  From  the  Greek 
cities  in  their  alliance,  Neapolis,7  Velia,  and  Tarentum,  they  obtained  a  few  tri- 
remes and  penteconters  ;  but  they  had  not  a  single  quinquereme,  the  class  of 
ships  which  may  be  called  the  line-of-battle-ships  of  that  period.  Their  attempt 
to  cross  to  Sicily  was  therefore  easily  baffled,  and  some  of  their  triremes,8  with 

*  Zonaras,  VIII.  8.     Dion  Caserns,  Fragm.  T  Polybius,  I.  20. 

Vatican.  LVIII.  8  Dion  Cassius,  Fragm.  Vatic.  LIX.   Zonaras. 

'  Polybius,  I.  11.  VIII.  8. 
a  "  Zonaras,  VIII.  8.    Dion  Cassius,  Fragm.  Va- 


126  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XL 

the  soldiers  whom  they  were  transporting,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Cartha 
ginians. 

Hanno,  the  Carthaginian  governor  of  Messana,  sent  back  the  ships  and  the 
ciandius  again  crosses  prisoners  to  the  Romans,  calling  upon  them  not  to  break  the  peace 
I^cSrth!^™^^  w^n  Carthage,  nor  to  venture  again  on  the  hopeless  attempt  of 
emor  to  a  cmiferc-nce.  cross}ng  the  strait  in  defiance  of  his  naval  superiority.9  C.  Clau- 
dius rejected  his  overtures,  and  repeated  his  determination  to  deliver  Messana. 
Hanno  exclaimed,  that  since  they  were  so  arrogant,  he  would  not  suffer  the  Ro- 
mans to  meddle  with  the  sea  so  much  as  to  wash  their  hands  in  it.  Yet  his  vigi- 
lance did  not  justify  this  language,  for  Claudius  with  a  few  men  effected  his  pas- 
sage, apparently  in  a  single  ship,  and  finding  the  Mamertines  assembled  at  the 
harbor  to  receive  him,  he  again  proceeded  to  address  them,  professed  his  wish 
to  leave  their  choice  of  protectors  to  their  own  free  decision,  and  urged  that 
Hanno  should  be  invited  to  come  down  from  the  citadel,  that  the  Roman  and 
Carthaginian  commanders  might  each  plead  the  claim  of  his  own  country  to  be 
received  as  the  ally  and  defender  of  Messana. 

With  this  proposal  Hanno10  was  induced  to  comply,   as   overscrupulous,  it 
seems,  to  remove  every  ground  of  suspicion  against  the  good  faith 

The  governor  is  trea-        /»/->,         ••  ,-*•,         -,•       °  *,  .     °  .  °  «  •  • 

cherousiy  seized,  and  of  G&nD&sQ  as  Claudius  was  unscrupulous  m  serving  the  ambition 

surrenders  the   citadel        ,,-,-,  °   AT71  ,         ~         ,          .     .  A  °  ,        ,          ,. 

purchase  Lis  free-  ot  Rome.  When  the  Carthaginian  governor  appeared,  the  discus- 
sion began  ;  neither  party  would  yield,  and  at  last  Claudius  or- 
dered his  soldiers  to  seize  Hanno  and  detain  him  as  a  prisoner.  The  Mamertines 
applauded  the  act,  and  Hanno,  to  procure  his  liberty,  engaged  to  withdraw  his 
garrison  from  the  citadel,  and  to  leave  Messana  in  the  hands  of  the  Romans. 

The  Carthaginian  council  of  elders,11  always  severe  in  its  judgments  upon  mili- 
xr». „  . -.v...-™^-  tary  commanders,  ordered  Hanno  forth  to  be  crucified;  and  dis- 
patched another  officer  of  the  same  name  with  a  fleet  and  army 
to  Sicily.  Hiero,  provoked  by  the  treachery  of  the  Romans,  con- 
cluded an  alliance  with  Carthage  against  them,  and  the  two  allied  powers  jointly 
blockaded  Messana.  Hiero  lay  encamped  on  the  south  side  of  the  town,  Hanno 
stationed  himself  on  the  north,  and  his  fleet  lay  close  by,  at  the  headland  of  Pe- 
lorus,  where  the  strait  is  narrowest,  to  prevent  the  Romans  from  reinforcing  their 
garrison. 

Things  were  in  this  state12  when  Appius  Claudius,  with  his  consular  army  ar- 
Appius ciaudius crosses  rived  at  Rhegium.  After  some  fruitless  attempts  at  negotiation, 
iuLr8aTmV,w«nd  defeats  ^e  prepared  to  force  his  passage.  We  want  here  a  consistent 
the  Syracuse*.  account  of  the  details ;  but  negligence  there  must  have  been  on 
the  part  of  the  Carthaginians,13  to  allow  an  army  of  twenty  thousand  men  to  be 
embarked,  conveyed  over  the  strait,  and  landed  on  the  coast  of  Sicily,  without 
loss  or  serious  interruption.  The  landing  was  effected  at  night,  and  on  the  south 
of  Messana,  near  the  camp  of  the  Syracusans.  Appius  immediately  led  his  sol- 
diers to  attack  Hiero,  who,  confounded  at  the  appearance  of  the  Romans,  and 
believing  that  the  Carthaginians  must  have  betrayed  the  passage,  still  marched 
out  to  meet  the  enemy.  The  Syracusan  cavalry  supported  its  old  renown,  an<J 
obtained  some  advantage,  but  the  infantry  were  never  much  esteemed,  and  on 
this  occasion  they  were,  probably,  inferior  in  numbers.  Hiero  was  defeated  and 
driven  to  his  camp,  and  the  very  next  night,  suspecting  his  allies,  and  perceiving 

9  Zonaras,  VIII.   9.    Dion  Cassius,  Fragm.    a<r0aXtVrara.    It  is  not  easy  to  ascertain  the  ex- 
Vatic.  LIX.  act  meaning  of  Zonaras'  Greek,  but  I  believe 
w  Zonaras,  VIII.  9.     Dion  Cassius,  Fragm.    that  Kara  i:(>6^a<nv  ipiropias  does  not  mean  "  un- 


Vatic.  LX.    '  der  pretence  of  trafficking,"  but  when  "they 

"  Zonaras,  VIII.  9.    Polybius,  I.  11.    Dio-  had  an  occasion  of  trafficking."     Compare  in 

dorus,  Fragm.  Hoeschel.  XXIII.  2.  Thucydides,  VII.    13,   «Y  atro/joX/a?   Trpo<j>dc 

12  Polybius,  I.  11.     Diodorus,  Fragm.  Hoe-  It  would  seem  then  that  the  Carthaginian  sail- 
schel.  X'XIII.  2.  4.    Zonaras,  VIII.  9.  ors  were  trafficking  in  the  port  of  Messana  whon 

13  Zonaras  says  of  Appius,  &s  cvpe  ovxyovs  they  ought  to  have  been  at  sea,  watching  the 

Kara   irptiQafftv  f//ffopiuf  tXX«f(£i/{-  movements  of  the  Romans. 

'£    fftpas    OTTOJJ    ttiXOr]   rbv 


He  defentg  the  Cartha. 
the  Si^e 


CHAP.  XL.]  SECOND  CAMPAIGN  IN  SICILY.  427 

that  he  had  ventured  on  an  ill-advised  contest,  he  raised  the  siege  and  retreated  to 
Syracuse. 

Thus  delivered  from  one  enemy,  Appius  next  attacked  the  Carthaginians.14 
Their  position  was  strong,  and  he  was  repulsed  ;  but  this  success 
tempted  them  to  meet  him  on  equal  ground,  and  they  were  then  ginmns,  raises 

,  •',  .  ,  ,          of  Measana,  an 

defeated  with  loss.  Messana  was  now  completely  relieved  ;  the  Hiero^er  te  Wa« 
Carthaginian  army  retreated,  and  was  divided  into  detachments  to 
garrison  the  towns  of  the  Carthaginian  part  of  the  island.  Appius  overran  Ohe 
open  country  in  every  direction,  and  the  soldiers,  no  doubt,  congratulated  them- 
selves on  their  decision  in  the  comitia  at  Rome,  which,  in  so  short  a  time,  had 
enriched  them  with  the  plunder  of  Sicily.  But  an  attempt  to  take  Egesta  was 
repulsed  with  considerable  slaughter,  and  when  Appius  advanced  even  to  the 
very  walls  of  Syracuse,  and  pretended  to  besiege  the  city,  he  found  that  he  could 
not  always  be  successful  ;  his  men  suffered  from  the  summer  and  autumn  fevers 
of  the  marsh  plain  of  the  Anapus,  and  he  retreated  to  Messana,  with  the  Syra- 
cusan  army  pressing  upon  his  rear.  The  Syracusans,  however,  long  accustomed 
to  regard  the  Carthaginians  as  their  worst  enemies,  were  unwilling  to  support  the 
evils  of  war  in  their  cause  ;  the  Syracusan  advanced  posts  held  frequent  commu- 
nications with  the  Romans,  and  although  Hiero  could  not  yet  consent  to  make 
peace  with  the  protectors  of  the  Mamertines,  yet  the  manifest  disposition  of  his 
subjects  was  not  to  be  resisted,  and  the  Romans  reached  Messana  in  safety. 
Appius  left  a  garrison  there,  and  returned  with  the  rest  of  his  army  to  Rome  ; 
the  strait  was  now  clear  of  the  enemy's  ships,  for  in  ancient  warfare  a  fleet  was 
dependent  upon  land  co-operation,15  and  could  not  act  without  great  difficulty 
upon  a  coast  which  was  wholly  in  the  possession  of  an  enemy. 

When  Appius  returned  to  Rome,  he  found  that  the  war  with  Volsinii  was  at 
an  end,  for  his  colleague,  M.  Fulvius  Flaccus,  triumphed  for  his  ^^  ^ 
victories  over  the  Volsinians  on  the  first  of  November.16     The  s£jiy.   ffi 
whole  force  of  Rome  was  therefore  now  at  liberty,  and  as  the  Car-  A?U.  a'loi. 


863. 


thaginians  seem  to  have  despaired  of  defending  the  straits  of  Mes- 
sana, two  consular  armies,17  amounting  to  about  35,000  men,  crossed  over  into 
Sicily  in  the  spring  of  491.  All  opposition  was  overborne,  and  Hiero,  after  hav- 
ing lost  sixty-seven  towns,18  was  glad  to  obtain  peace  on  condition  of  restoring 
all  the  Roman  prisoners  without  ransom,  of  paying  a  large  sum  of  money,  and  of 
becoming  the  ally  of  the  Roman  people.  He  had  the  wisdom  to  maintain  this 
alliance  unbroken  to  the  hour  of  his  death,  having  found  that  the  friendship  of 
Rome  would  secure  him  from  all  other  enemies,  whereas  the  allies  of  Carthage 
were  exposed  to  suffer  from  her  tyranny,  but  could  not  depend  on  her  protec- 
tion. Hiero  retained  nearly  the  same  extent  of  territory  which  had  belonged  to 
Syracuse  in  old  times,  before  the  tyranny  of  the  first  Dionysius ;  but  all  the  rest 
of  his  dominion  was  ceded  to  the  Romans. 

Having  now  only  one  enemy  to  deal  with,19  and  having  the  whole  power  of 
Syracuse  transferred  from  the  Carthaginian  scale  to  their  own,  the  Roman  gen- 
erals went  on  prosperously.  Many  towns  were  taken  from  the  Carthaginians,  and 


VIII.  9.    Polybius,  I.  12.    Dio-  land  forces  solely,  after  they  had  effected  theii 

dorus,  Fragm.  Hocschel.  XXIII.  4.  landing  in  safety. 

16  The  failure  of  Pompey's  fleet  in  either  pro-  10  Fasti  Capitolini. 

venting  Ceesar  from  crossing  the  Ionian  sea  n  Polybius,  I.  1(J. 

from  Brundusium,  or  in  effectually  cutting"  off  18  Diodorus,  Fragm.  Hoeschel.  XXIII.  5.  The 
his  communications  with  Italy  afterwards,  is  terms  of  the  peace  with  Hiero  are  variously  re- 
one  of  the  most  striking  instances  of  the  defects  ported.  Diodorus  says  that  he  obtained  a  peace 
of  the  ancient  naval  service.  But  with  respect  lor  fifteen  years  on  giving  up  his  Koman  pris- 
to  the  invasion  of  Sicily  from  Italy,  we  must  re-  oners  without  ransom,  and  on  paying  150,000 
member  that  not  even  the  British  naval  force,  drachmae ;  Polybius  makes  the  sum  100  talents, 
while  every  point  in  Sicily  WP.S  in  our  posses-  and  says  nothing  of  any  term  when  the  peaco 
Bion,  could  prevent  the  French  from  throwing  was  to  expire ;  Zonaras  names  no  specific  sum, 
across  a  division  of  about  3000  men,  in  Scptem-  and  Orosius  and  Eutropius  set  it  at  200  talenta, 
ber,  1810,  whose  defeat  was  effected  by  our  IB  Polybius,  I.  17-20. 


128  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  LCnAP.  XL. 

Third  and  fourth  cam.  in  the  following  year,  492,  Agrigentum20  was  reduced  after  a  long 
genfum.  ^Romfni  an(l  obstinate  siege,  and  all  the  inhabitants  sold  for  slaves.  The 
resoiye^buiidftfleeu  consuis  of  the  year  493  were  no  less  successful,  but  the  Cartha- 
S62>261-  ginians  had  at  last  begun  to  exert  their  naval  power  effectually; 

many  towns  on  the  Sicilian  coasts21  which  had  yielded  to  the  Roman  armies  were 
recovered  by  the  Carthaginian  fleets ;  the  coasts  of  Italy  were  often  ravaged,  so 
that  the  Romans  found  it  necessary  to  encounter  their  enemy  on  his  own  element : 
they  resolved  to  dispute  with  the  Carthaginians  their  dominion  of  the  sea. 

Immediately  at  the  close  of  the  year  493,  they  began  to  fell  their  timber.  But 
no  Italian  shipwright  knew  how  to  build  the  line-of-battle  ships  of 
Set?  ships*  "nd'trajn  that  period,  called  quinqucremes,  and  their  build  was  so  different 
from  that  of  the  triremes,  that  the  one  would  not  serve  as  a  model 
for  the  other.  Shipwrights  might  have  been  procured  from  the  king  of  Egypt, 
but  to  send  thither  would  have  caused  too  great  a  delay.  It  happened  that  a 
Carthaginian  quinauereme22  had  run  ashore  on  the  Bruttian  coast  when  Appius 
Claudius  was  first  crossing  over  to  Sicily,  and  it  was  noted  as  a  curious  circum- 
stance that  the  Roman  soldiers  had  taken  a  ship  of  war.  This  quinquereme, 
which  had  probably  been  sent  to  Rome  as  a  trophy,  was  now  made  the  ship- 
wright's model,  and  a  hundred  ships  were  built  after  her  pattern,  and  launched 
in  two  months  after  the  first  felling  of  the  timber.23  The  seamen,  partly  Roman 
proletarians,  or  citizens  of  the  poorest  class,  partly  Etruscans,  or  Greeks  from  the 
maritime  states  of  Italy,  were  all  unaccustomed  to  row  in  quinqueremes,  and  the 
Romans  had,  perhaps,  never  handled  an  oar  of  any  sort.  While  the  ships  were 
building,  therefore,  to  lose  no  time,  the  future  crew  of  each  quinquereme24  were 
arranged  upon  benches  ashore,  in  the  same  order,  that  to  us  undiscoverable 
problem,  in  which  they  were  hereafter  to  sit  on  board ;  the  keleustes,  whose 
voice  or  call  regulated  the  stroke  in  the  ancient  galleys,  stood  in  the  midst  of 
them,  and  at  his  signal  they  went  through  their  movements,  and  learned  to  keep 
time  together,  as  if  they  had  been  actually  afloat.  With  such  ships  and  such 
crews  the  Romans  put  to  sea  early  in  the  spring,  to  seek  an  engagement  with 
the  fleet  of  the  first  naval  power  in  the  world. 

An  English  reader  is  tempted  here  either  to  suspect  extreme  exaggeration  in 
Defeat,  in  the  ancient  the  accounts  of  the  Roman  inexperience  in  naval  matters,  or  to 
entertain  great  contempt  for  the  fleets  and  sailors  of  the  ancient 
world  altogether.  There  are  no  braver  men  than  the  Austrians,  but  there  would 
be  something  ludicrous  in  the  idea  of  an  Austrian  fleet,  manned  chiefly  by  peas- 
ants from  the  inland  provinces  of  the  empire,  and  commanded  by  officers  of  the 
land  *?rvice,  venturing  a  general  action  with  an  English  or  American  squadron. 
But  me  accounts  of  these  events  are  trustworthy ;  and  had  the  Romans  encoun- 
tered the  Athenian  navy  in  the  days  of  its  greatness  instead  of  the  Carthaginian, 
the  result,  in  the  first  years  of  the  war  at  least,  would  probably  have  been  dif- 
ferent. However,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  naval  service  of  the  ancient  nations 
was  out  of  all  proportion  inferior  to  their  land  service  ;  the  seamen  were  alto- 
gether an  inferior  class,  and  the  many  improvements  which  had  been  made  in 
the  military  art  on  shore  seemed  never  to  have  reached  naval  warfare.  Ships 
worked  with  oars  were  still  exclusively  used  as  ships  of  war;  and  although  the 
use  of  engines,  well  deserving  the  name  of  artillery,  was  familiar  in  sieges,  yet  it 
had  never  been  adopted  in  sea-fights,25  and  the  old  method  of  attempting  to  sink 

90  Polybius,  I.  18,  19.    Orosius,  IV.  7.    Zo-  locked  up  in  the  ice,  and  the  French  cavalry 

naras,  VIII.  10.  took  them  without  any  resistance. 

21  Polybius,  I.  20.  M  Pliny,  His  tor.  Natur.  XVI.  §  192.     Floras, 

M  Polybius,  I.  20.     Auctor  de  Viris  Illustrib.  II.  2. 

in  Appio  Claud.  Caudic.  "  quinqueremem  hos-  ••  Polybius,  I.  21. 

tium  copiis  pedestribus  cepit."   So  in  the  inva-  *  Vegetius,  writing  in  the  fourth   century 

sion  of  Holland  in  1795,  the  French  triumphed  after  the  Christian  era,  speaks  of  the  use  of  ar- 

greatly  in  the  capture  of  some  Dutch  ships  of  tillery  in  sea-fights  as  a  thing  of  common  prac- 

wsvr  by  a  party  of  their  cavalry :  the  ships  were  tice  ;  but  I  do  not  recollect  any  mention  oi  it  aa 

early  as  the  Punic  wars. 


CHAP.  XL.] 


INGENUITY  OF  THE  ROMANS. 


429 


or  disable  an  enemy's  vessel  by  piercing  her  just  below  the  water  with  the 
beak  affixed  to  every  ship's  bows,  was  still  universally  practised.  The  system  of 
fighting,  therefore,  necessarily  brought  the  ships  close  to  one  another ;  and  11  the 
fighting  men  on  one  side  were  clearly  superior  to  those  on  the  other,  boarding, 
if  it  could  be  effected,  would  insure  victory.  The  fighting  men  in  the  ancient 
ships,  as  is  well  known,  were  quite  distinct  from  their  rowers  or  seamen,  and  their 
proportion  to  these  varied,  as  boarding  was  more  or  less  preferred  to  manoeuv- 
ing.  In  the  Ionian  revolt,  about  500  B.  c.,  we  find  forty  soldiers26  employed-on- 
ach  of  the  China  ships  out  of  a  crew  of  200 ;  the  Corinthians  and  Corcyrseans, 
about  seventy  years  afterwards,  had  nearly  as  many,27  but  the  Athenians,  in  the 
most  flourishing  state  of  their  navy,  had  commonly  no  more  than  ten.  In  the 
quinqueremes  now  used,  we  find  the  Romans  employing  on  one  occasion  300 
seamen  and  120  soldiers ;  this,  however,  was  perhaps  something  above  their  usual 
proportion ;  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  soldiers  on  board  of  each  ship 
were  numerous,  and  if  they  could  board  the  enemy  their  victory  over  what  Nie- 
buhr  justly  calls  the  mere  rabble  of  an  African  crew  was  perfectly  certain. 

The  object  of  the  Romans  was  therefore  to  enable  their  men,  in  every  case,  to 
decide  the  battle  by  boarding.  For  this  purpose  they  contrived  Macj,ine  invented  by 
in  each  ship  what  may  be  called  a  long  drawbridge,  thirty-six  feet  lhLftTboa8ra°thenene! 
long,  by  four  wide,  with  a  low  parapet  on  each  side  of  it.  This  cy- 
bridge  was  attached  by  a  hole  at  one  end  of  it  to  a  mast  twenty-four  feet  high, 
erected  on  the  ship's  prow,  and  the  hole  was  large  and  oblong,  so  that  the  bridge 
not  only  played  freely  all  around  the  mast,  but  could  be  drawn  up  so  as  to  lie 
close  and  almost  parallel  to  it,  the  end  of  it  being  hoisted  by  a  rope  passing 
through  a  block  at  the  mast-head,  just  as  our  cutters'  booms  are  hoisted  by  what 
is  called  the  topping  lift.  The  bridge  was  attached  to  the  mast  at  the  height  of 
about  twelve  feet  from  the  deck,  and  it  had  a  continuation  of  itself  reaching  down 
to  the  deck,  moving,  I  suppose,  on  hinges,23  and  serving  as  a  ladder  by  which  it 
might  be  ascended.  Playing  freely  round  the  mast,  and  steered  by  the  rope 
above-mentioned,  the  bridge  was  let  fall  upon  an  enemy's  ship,  on  whatever 
quarter  she  approached ;  and  as  a  ship's  beak  was  commonly  her  only  weapon, 
an  enemy  ventured  without  fear  close  to  her  broadside  or  her  stem,  as  if  she 
were  there  defenceless.  When  the  bridge  fell,  a  strong  iron  spike,  fixed  at  the 
bottom  of  it,  was  driven  home  by  the  mere  weight  of  the  fall  into  the  deck  of  the 
enemy's  ship,  and  held  it  fast ;  and  then  the  soldiers,  in  two  files,  rushed  along 
it  by  an  inclined  plane  down  upon  the  deck  of  the  enemy,  their  large  shields  and 


28  Herodotus,  VI.  15. 

27  Thucydidcs,  I.  49.    He  says  that  the  ships 
d  many  heavy-armed  soldiers  on  board,  and 
any  archers  and  dartmen,  after  the  ancient 

fashion.  That  the  number  of  fighting  men  on 
board  the  Athenian  ships  in  the  most  flourish- 
ing state  of  their  navy  was  no  more  than  ten, 
appears  from  a  comparison  of  several  passages 
in  Thucydides,  II.  92,  102.  III.  95,  and  IV.  76, 
101. 

28  This  is  the  difficult  part  of  Polybius'  de- 
scription, I.  22,  which  he  by  no  means  makes 
very  intelligible.     "The  ladder,  or  bridge,  was 
put  round  the  mast  after  the  first  twelve  feet  of 
its  own  length :"  the  object  being  apparently  to 
attach  it  to  the  mast  at  such  a  height  above  the 
deck,  as  to  make  it  form  an  inclined  plane  down 
to  the  deck  of  the  enemy.    But  unless  the  lower 
end  of  the  ladder  had  been  fixed  to  the  deck, 
the  men  could  not  have  ascended  by  it ;  and 
had  it  been  all  one  piece  with  the  upper  part, 
the  moment  the  bridge  was  lowered  to  fall  on 
the  enemy's  deck,  the  lower  part  must  imme- 
diately have  gone  up  into  the  air.     And,  of 
course,  it  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  the  men 
wuld  have  gone  upon  the  bridge  before  it.  was 


fixed  on  the  enemy's  ship  I  can  only  suppose, 
then,  that  what  Polybius  i\lls  "the  first  twelve 
feet  of  the  ladder"  served  a»  a  permanent  ascent 
from  the  deck  to  the  end  of  the  bridge,  where 
it  went  round  the  mast,  and  that  it  was  so  far 
distinct  from  the  bridge,  that  it  remained  in  its 
own  place  when  the  "bridge  was  lowered,  al- 
though, when  the  bridge  was  hoisted  up  to  lie 
close  to  the  mast,  both  it  and  the  bridge  seemed 
to  be  a  continuation  of  each  other. 

Folard's  engraving  and  description  of  this 
machine  are  altogether  erroneous :  but  he  men- 
tions a  story  which  well  illustrates  the  object 
of  attaching  the  bridge  to  the  mast  at  a  height 
of  twelve  feet  above'the  deck.  "The  Maltese 
seamen,"  he  says,  "  have  been  known  to  mount 
on  the  main-yard  preparatory  to  boarding,  and 
when  the  ship  runs  on  board  of  the  enemy,  one 
yard-arm  is  lowered,  and  the  men  are  thus 
dropped  one  after  another  on  the  enemy's 
deck."  I  will  not  answer  for  the  truth  of  the 
story,  but  it  evidently  contains  the  same  notion 
of  boarding  by  an  inclined  plane,  which  appears 
to  have  suggested  to  the  Romans  the  arrange- 
ment of  their  bridge. 


430  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XI* 

the  parapet  of  the  bridge  together  completely  sheltering  their  flanks  from  the 
enemy's  missiles,  while  the  two  file  leaders  held  their  shields  in  front  of  them, 
and  so  covered  the  bridge  lengthways.  So  with  these  bridges  drawn  up  to  their 
masts,  and  exhibiting  a  strange  appearance,  as  the  regular  masts  were  always 
lowered  previously  to  going  into  action,  the  Roman  fleet  put  to  sea  in.  quest  of 
their  enemy. 

It  was  commanded  by  one  of  the  consuls,  Cn.  Cornelius  Scipio,29  but  as  he 
allowed  himself  to  be  taken  with  seventeen  ships,  in  an  ill-advised 

C.    Duilins    commands  .IT*  •    i         i        i  •  11  /-<     T-\     -T  i         i 

the  ttom«n  fleet.  Sea-  attempt  on  the  Liparsean  islands,  his  colleague,  U.  Duilius,  the  de- 
scendant probably  of  *hat  upright  and  moderate  tribune  who  took 
so  great  a  part  in  the  overthrow  of  the  decemvirs'  tyranny,  was  sent  for  from  his 
army  to  conduct  the  fleet.  He  found  the  Carthaginian  fleet  under  the  command 
of  Hannibal,  the  same  officer  who  had  defended  Agrigentum  in  the  late  siege, 
ravaging  the  coast  of  Mylae,  the  modern  Melazzo,  on  the  north  coast  of  Sicily, 
not  far  from  the  strait  of  Messana.  The  Carthaginians  advanced  in  the  full  con- 
fidence of  victory,  and  though  surprised  at  the  masts  and  tackle  on  the  \  rows  of 
the  Roman  ships,  they  yet  commenced  the  action  boldly.  But  the  thirty  ships 
which  formed  their  advanced  squadron,  including  that  of  Hannibal  himself,  were 
immediately  grappled  by  the  Roman  bridges,  boarded  and  taken.  Hannibal  es- 
caped in  his  boat  to  his  main  battle,  which  was  rapidly  advancing  ;  but  the  dis- 
aster of  their  first  division  startled  them,  and  when  they  found,  that  even  if  they 
approached  the  Roman  ships  on  their  broadside  or  on  their  stern,  still  these 
formidable  bridges  were  wheeled  round  and  lowered  upon  them,  they  were  seized 
with  a  panic  and  fled.  Their  whole  loss,  including  that  of  the  advanced  squad- 
ron,30 amounted  to  about  fifty  ships  sunk  or  taken,  and  in  men  to  three  thousand 
killed  and  seven  thousand  prisoners. 

The  direct  consequence  of  this  victory  was  the  raising  of  the  siege  of  Egesta,31 
Results  of  the  battle,  which  the  Carthaginians  had  well-nigh  reduced  to  extremity,  and 
pl!r°raThe°]Duni™  the  taking  of  Macella  by  assault.  But  its  moral  results  were  far 
coluBm*  greater,  inasmuch  as  the  Romans  were  now  confident  of  success 

uy  sea  as  well  as  on  shore,  and  formed  designs  of  wresting  from  the  Carthagin- 
ians all  their  island  possessions,  Sardinia  and  Corsica  no  less  than  Sicily.  Duilius, 
as  was  to  be  expected,  obtained  a  triumph,  and  he  was  allowed32  for  the  rest  of 
his  life  to  be  escorted  home  with  torches  borne  before  him,  and  music  playing 
whenever  he  went  out  to  supper,  an  honor  which  he  enjoyed  for  many  years  after- 
wards. A  pillar  also  was  set  up  in  the  Forum  to  commemorate  his  victory,  with  an 
inscription  recording  the  amount  of  the  spoil  which  he  had  taken  ;  and  an  ancient 
copy  of  this  inscription,53  retaining  the  old  forms  of  the  words,  is  still  preserved, 
though  in  part  illegible. 

The  events  of  the  three  next  years  may  be  passed  over  briefly.  Towns  were 
indecisive  war  in  siciiy.  taken  and  retaken  in  Sicily,  much  plunder  was  gained,  enormous 
OS  anTsSinu!  havoc  made,  and  many  brave  actions34  performed,  but  with  no 
conspiracy  at  Rome.  '  decisive  result.  Hamilcar,  one  of  the  Carthaginian  generals,  de- 

va  Polybius,  I.  21.  "°  Polybius,  I.  23.  temple  had  been  begun  by  him,  and  was  only 

31  Polybius,  I.  24.  completed  by  his  successor. 

32  Cicero,  de  Senectute,  13.     It  appears  that        **  Such  as  that  noble  act  of  a  military  tribune 
tl  is  continuation  of  his  triumph  during  his  in  the  army  of  the  consul  A.  Atilius  Calatinus, 
whole  life  was  his  own  act,  and  that  it  was  in  the  year  496,  who  sacrificed  himself  and  a 
th:;ight  right  and  proper,  as  he  had  done  such  cohort  of  400  men  to  cover  the  retreat  of  the 
good  service ;  "qutesibi  nullo  exemplo  privatus  army  out  of  a  dangerous  defile  in  which  they 
sumpserat:  tantum  licentise  dabat  gloria."  This  had  been  surprised  by  the  enemy.    Cato  com- 
no  doubt  is  more  correct  than  those  other  state-  plained  of  the  injustice  of  fortune  which  had 
ments  which  represent  it  as  an  honor  specially  given  so  scanty  a  share  of  fame  to  this  tribune, 
conferred  upon  him  by  the  senate  or  people.  while  Leonidas  for  an  act  of  no  greater  heroism 

88  A  temple  of  Janus,  built  by  C.  Duilius  at  had  acquired  such  undying  glory.     In  fact,  the 

this  time,  was  restored  in  the  early  part  of  the  tribune's  very  name  is  uncertain,  for  we  find 

reign  of  the  Emperor  Tiberius.     (Tacitus,  An-  the  action  ascribed  to  three  different  persons, 

rial.   II.  49.)   It  is  possible  that  the  column  and  See  A.  Gellius,  III.  7,  who  quotes  at  length^  tha 

its  inscription  may  have  been  restored  in  the  passage  of  the  Origines  in  which  Cato  describes 

reign  of  Augustus;  for  the  restoration  of  the  the  action. 


CHAP.  XL.]  ROMAN  EXPEDITION  TO  AFRICA.  431 

siroyed  the  town  of  Eryx  and  removed  its  inhabitants  to  Drepanum,  a  place  on 
the  sea-side  close  beneath  the  mountain  where  they  had  lived  before,  and  pro- 
vided with  an  excellent  harbor.35  It  was  not  far  from  Lilybseum,  and  these  two 
posts  both  being  strongly  fortified  were  intended  to  be  the  strongholds  of  the 
Carthaginian  power  in  Sicily.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Romans  invaded  Sardinia 
and  Corsica36  and  carried  off  great  numbers  of  prisoners.  But  as  they  extended 
their  naval  operations  they  unavoidably  became  acquainted  with  the  violence  of 
the  Mediterranean  storms  ;  and  the  terrors  of  the  sea  were  very  dreadful  to  the- 
inland  people  of  Italy,  who  were  forced  to  furnish  seamen  to  man  the  Roman 
fleets,  a  service  utterly  foreign  to  the  habits  of  their  lives.  Thus  in  the  year  49537 
some  Samnites,  who  Avere  waiting  in  Rome  till  the  fleet  should  be  ready  for  sea, 
entered  into  a  conspiracy  with  some  slaves  who  had  been  lately  carried  off  as  cap- 
tives from  Sardinia  and  Corsica,  to  make  themselves  masters  of  the  city.  The 
seamen,  however,  of  the  ancient  world  were  always  chosen  from  the  poorest 
classes  of  freemen,  and  their  making  common  cause  with  the  slaves  showed  at 
once  that  their  attempt  had  nothing  of  the  character  of  a  national  revolt.  In 
fact,  their  own  Samnite  commander  informed  the  Roman  government  of  their 
conspiracy,  which  was  thus  prevented  and  punished.  The  higher  classes  in  the 
allied  states,  who  served  as  soldiers,  liked  the  war  probably  as  much  as  the  Ro- 
mans did  ;  and  with  one  doubtful  exception,38  we  read  of  no  symptoms  of  disaf- 
fection to  Rome  during  the  whole  course  of  the  war. 

Besides  their  expeditions  to  Sardinia  and  Corsica,  and  their  naval  co-operation 
with  the  consular  armies  engaged  in  Sicily,  the  Romans  gained  an  ^avai  nction  off  th« 
advantage  over  the  Carthaginian  fleet  in  the  year  497,  off  the  Li-  LiPar*»"ulttnd8- 
parsean  islands,39  for  which  the  Consul  C.  Atilius  obtained,  like  Duilius,  a  naval 
triumph. 

This  success,  although  in  itself  very  indecisive,  yet  encouraged  the  Romans 
to  attempt  operations  on  a  far  grander  scale,  and  to  carry  the  war  Grcat  arrnamect  Of  tho 
into  Africa.     Great  efforts  were  made  during  the  winter,  and  a  Romans- 
a  fleet  of  330  ships  was  prepared,40  manned  by  nearly  300,000  seamen,  exclu- 
sive of  soldiers  or  fighting  men.    This  vast  number  could  scarcely  A  r  c  49g 
have  been  furnished  either  by  Rome  itself  or  its  Italian  allies;  but  TiW prepare  to mVad. 
the  thousands  of  captives  carried  off  from  Corsica  and  Sardinia, 
or  from  the  cities  of  Sicily,  no  doubt  were  largely  employed  as  galley-slaves  ; 
and  if  they  worked  in  chains,  as  is  most  probable,  the  free  rowers  who  were  in 
the  ships  with  them  would  be  a  sufficient  guard  to  deter  them  from  mutiny.    The 
two  consuls  for  the  ensuing  year  were  L.  Manlius  Vulso  and  Q.  Caedicius ;  but 
Q.  Ccedi  :5us  died  soon  after  he  came  into  office,  and  was  succeeded  M.  Atilius 
Regulus.     The  two  consular  armies  had  apparently  wintered  in  Sicily ;  for  the 
fleet  sailed  through  the  strait  of  Messana,  doubled  Cape  Pachynus,41  and  took 
the  legions  on  board  at  Ecnomus,  a  small  place  on  the  southern  coast,  between 

*  Diodorus,  Fragm.  Hoeschel.  XXIII.  Zona-  in  gratitude  for  his  escape  from  destruction, 

ras,  VII.  11.  This  is  noticed  in  his  epitaph,  "  Dedit  tempesta- 

88  Zonaras,  VIII.  11.    Polybius,  I.  24.     The  tibus  asde  merito,"  and  also  by  Ovid  in  his 

Fasti  Capitolini  record  L.  Scipio's  triumph  over  Fasti. 

the  Sardinians  and  Corsicans  in  the  year  494,  88  Polybius  says  that  in  495  or  49.G,  the  allies 

that  is,  according  to  the  common  reckoning,  cjuarrelled  with  the  Romans  in  Sicily,  complain- 

495 ;  and  they  record  also  a  triumph  of  C.  Sul-  ing  that  their  services  in  the  field  were  not  suf- 

picius  over  the  Sardinians  in  the  year  follow-  ficiently  acknowledged,  and  that  they  conse- 

mg.    The  Lucius  Scipio  who  triumphed  over  qnently  encamped  apart  from  the  Romans,  and 

the  Corsicans  was  the  son  of  L.  Scipio  who  was  were  attacked  m  their  separate  position  by  the 

defeated  by  the  Gauls  in  the  third  Samnite  war.  Carthaginian  general,  and  cut  to  pieces,  I.  24. 

His  epiiaph  has  been  preserved,  as  well  as  his  But  it  does  not  appear  that  these  were  the  ItaJ- 

father's,  and  it  tells  of  him,  how  "he  won  Cor-  ian  allies  of  Rome,  and  it  is  possible  that  they 

sica  and  the  city  of  Aleria."   Aleria  is  the  Ala-  may  have  been  the  Mamertines. 

lia  of  Herodotus,  an  old  Greek  colony  founded  **  Polybius,  I.  25.  Fasti  Capitolini.  Zonaras, 

by  the  Phocaeans  when  they  fled  from  the  gen-  VIII.  12. 

erals  of  Cyrus.  *•  Polybius,  I.  25.    Each  Roman  ship  had  on 

w  Zonaras,  VIII.  11.  Scipio  on  his  return  from  board  300  rowers  and  120  fighting  men. 

Corsica  in  495  had  encountered  a  violent  storm,  41  Polybius,  I.  25. 
and  built  a  temple  to  the  powers  of  the  weather 


432  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XI 

Gela  and  Agrigentum.  Forty  thousand  men  were  here  embarked,  and  the  Car- 
thaginians, who  had  assembled  a  still  larger  fleet  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  ships, 
had  already  crossed  over  to  Lilybseum,  and  from  thence,  advancing  eastward 
along  the  Sicilian  coast,  were  arrived  at  Heraclea  Minoa,  and  were  ready  to  give 
the  Romans  battle.  Both  consuls  were  on  board  the  Roman  fleet ;  the  Cartha- 
ginians were  commanded  by  Hanno,  who  had  been  defeated  at  Agrigentum 
during  the  siege  of  that  town,  and  by  Hamilcar,  who  had  so  lately  founded 
Drepanum. 

The  Roman  fleet  at  Ecnomus  contained  140,000  men,  while  less  than  20,000 
Battle  of  Ecnomus.  pe-  British  seamen  were  engaged  at  Trafalgar.  Yet  it  is  not  only  in 
ffm'fkefoff^he'ETutt  our  generation,  when  Trafalgar  and  its  consequences  are  fresh  in 
our  memory,  that  its  fame  will  surpass  a  hundred-fold  the  fame 
of  the  battle  of  Ecnomus.  For  the  twenty-seven  ships  which  Nelson  com- 
manded at  Trafalgar,  by  crushing  the  naval  force  of  France,  changed  the  destiny 
of  all  Europe ;  whilst  the  three  hundred  and  thirty  ships  which  fought  at  Ecno- 
mus produced  only  a  brief  result,  which  within  five  years  was  no  more  perceiva- 
ble. A  fleet  that  could  be  built  in  a  few  months  was  no  irreparable  loss  if 
destroyed  ;  and  the  poor  slaves  who  worked  at  the  oar  might  be  replaced  by  the 
plunder  of  the  next  campaign.  The  battle  of  Ecnomus  was  obstinately  contested, 
but  at  last  the  Romans  were  completely  victorious.  They  lost  twenty-four 
ships,42  in  which  not  more  than  2880  soldiers  could  have  perished,  if  we  suppose, 
what  rarely  happened,  that  not  a  man  was  picked  up  by  the  other  ships  ;  but 
they  destroyed  thirty  of  the  enemy's  fleet,  and  took  sixty-four  with  all  their 
crews.  The  Carthaginians  with  the  rest  of  their  ships  made  all  speed  to  reach 
Carthage,  that  they  might  be  still  in  time  to  defend  their  country  against  the  ex- 
pected invasion. 

The  way  to  Africa  was  now  open,  and  the  consuls,43  after  having  victualled  their 
The  copula  cross  over  ships  with  more  than  their  usual  supplies,  as  they  knew  not  what 
peaf  anCd'b0eCgiDp>toCiay  port  would  next  receive  them,  prepared  to  leave  the  coast  of  Sicily 
waste  the  country.  an(j  to  cross  the  open  sea  to  an  unknown  world.  The  soldiers 
and  even  one  of  the  military  tribunes  murmured  ;44  they  had  been  kept  from 
home  during  one  whole  winter,  and  now  they  were  to  be  carried  to  a  strange 
country,  into  the  very  stronghold  of  their  enemy's  power,  to  a  land  of  scorching 
heat,  and  infested  with  noisome  beasts  and  monstrous  serpents,45  such  as  all  stories 
of  Africa  had  told  them  of.  Regulus,  it  is  said,  threatened  the  tribune  with 
death,  and  forced  the  men  on  board.  The  fleet  did  not  keep  together,  and  thirty 
ships  reached  the  African  shore  unsupported,46  and  might  have  been  destroyed 
before  the  arrival  of  the  rest,  had  not  the  Carthaginians  in  their  confusion  neg- 
lected their  opportunity.  When  the  whole  fleet  was  reassembled  under  the 
headland  of  Hermes,  Cape  Bon,  they  stood  to  the  southward  along  the  coast, 
and  disembarked  the  legions  near  the  place  called  Aspis  or  Clypea,41  in  English, 
shield — a  fortress  built  by  Agathocles  about  fifty  years  before,  and  deriving  its 
name  from  its  walls  forming  a  circle  upon  the  top  of  a  conical  hill.  They  imme- 
diately drew  their  ships  up  on  the  beach,  after  the  ancient  manner,  and  secured 
them  with  a  ditch  and  rampart ;  and  having  taken  Clypea,  and  dispatched  mes- 

42  Polybius,  I.  27,  28.  creatures  besides."    IV.  191.    This  description 

43  Polybius,  I.  29.  is  very  remarkable,  following,  as  it  does,  a  de- 

44  Florus,  II.  2.  tailed  and  most  exact  account  not  only  of  all  the 

45  "Libya  to  the  west  of  the  lake  Tritonis,"  African  tribes  on  the  coast  from  Egypt  to  the 
that  is,  the  present  pashalik  of  Tunis,  the  an-  lesser  Syrtis,  but  also  of  those  in  the  interior, 
cient  territory  of  Carthage,  "  is  very  hilly,"  But  the  Carthaginian  territory  was  rendered  BO 
says  Herodotus,  "  and  overgrown  with  woods,  inaccessible  to  foreigners,  that  all  sorts  of exag- 
and  full  of  wild  beasts.     For  here  are  the  mon-  gerations  and  fables  were  circulated  respecting 
strous  serpents,  and  the  lions,  and  the  elephants,  it.    Herodotus  seems  to  have  known  nothing 
and  the  bears,  and  the  asps,  and  the  asses  with  of  its  fertility,  but  only  of  its  woods  and  its  wild 
horns,  and  the  dog-heads,  and  the  creatures  beasts,  the  terrors  of  which  the  Carthaginians 
with  no  heads,  whose  eyes  are  in  their  breasts,  no  doubt  purposely  magnified. 

*!.  least  as  the  Libyans  sav,  and  the  wild  inen        4<s  Diodorus,  Fragm.  Vatican.  XXIII.  8. 
»nd  the  wild  women,  and  a  great  many  other        47  Polybius,  1.  29.    Strabo,  XV1L  p.  834. 


CHAP.  XL.]  DESCRIPTION  OF  THE  COUNTRY.  433 

sengers  to  Rome  with  the  news  of  their  success,  and  to  ask  for  further  instruc- 
tions, they  began  to  march  into  the  country ;  and  the  ravages  of  forty  thousand 
men  were  spread  far  and  wide  over  that  district  which,  for  its  richness  and  flour- 
ishing condition,  was  unmatched  probably  in  the  world. 

From  Cape  Bon,  the  Hermean  headland,  the  African  coast  runs  nearly  north 
and  south  for  as  much  as  three  decrees  of  latitude  as  far  as  the 

...  0  „,,  •  °  ,  I'-ii  i     Description  of  the  conn- 

bottom  of  the  lesser  feyrtis.  Inis  was  the  most  highly  prized  {JJ/0"^;^0'^**; 
country  of  the  Carthaginian  dominion,  filled  with  their  towns,  and  home.CHeguiu8ruTenn 
covered  with  the  villas  of  their  wealthier  citizens.  In  their  old 
commercial  treaties48  with  Rome  no  Roman  vessel  was  allowed  to  approach  this 
coast ;  they  wished  to  keep  it  hidden  from  every  foreigner,  that  its  surpassing 
richness  might  not  tempt  the  spoiler.  Here  grew  those  figs  which  Cato  the 
censor  showed  in  the  Roman  senate,  to  prove  how  the  fruits  of  Italy  were  out- 
done by  those  of  Africa  ;  and  here  grew  those  enormous  .harvests  of  corn  which 
in  later  times49  constantly  fed  the  people  of  Rome.  But  now  the  aspect  of  the 
country  resembled  the  approach  to  Genoa,  or  the  neighborhood  of  Geneva,  or 
even  the  most  ornamented  parts  of  the  valley  of  the  Thames  above  London. 
Everywhere  were  to  be  seen  single  houses50  standing  in  the  midst  of  vineyards, 
and  olive-grounds,  and  pastures  ;  for  as  in  Judea  in  its  golden  days,  every  drop 
of  rain  was  carefully  preserved  in  tanks  or  cisterns  on  the  high  grounds,  and  a 
plentiful  irrigation  spread  life  and  freshness  on  every  side,  even  under  the  burn- 
ing sun  of  Africa.  On  such  a  land  the  hungry  soldiers  of  the  Roman  army  were 
now  let  loose  without  restraint.  Villas  were  ransacked  and  burnt,  cattle  and 
horses  were  driven  off  in  vast  numbers,  and  twenty  thousand  persons,  many  of 
them  doubtless  of  the  highest  condition,  and  bred  up  in  all  the  enjoyments  of 
domestic  peace  and  affluence,  were  carried  away  as  slaves.  This  havoc  continued 
for  several  weeks,  till  the  messengers  sent  from  Rome  returned  with  the  senate's 
orders.  One  of  the  consuls,51  with  one  consular  army  and  forty  ships,  was  to 
remain  in  Africa ;  the  other  was  to  return,  home  with  the  second  consular  army, 
the  fleet,  and  the  plunder.  L.  Manlius  accordingly  embarked,  and  arrived  safely 
at  Rome  with  his  division  of  the  army,  and  with  the  spoil.  M.  Regulus,  with 
15,000  foot  and  500  horse,  was  left  in  Africa. 

The  defenceless  state  of  the  country,  and  the  apparent  helplessness  of  the  Car- 
thaginian government,  seem  to  have  encouraged  the  Roman  sen- 

i  ,  i       ,  •        i  i  •     !  °  !  i  i        Ho  defeats  the  Cartha- 

ate  to  hope  that  a  single  consular  army  might  at  any  rate  be  able  *inmiw,  and  fixes  LU 
to  maintain  its  ground  and  harass  the  enemy,  even  if  it  could  not 
force  thenc  ,?  submission.  And  the  example  of  Agathocles,  who,  during  four 
years,  had  set  die  power  of  Carthage  at  defiance,  no  doubt  increased  their  con- 
fidence. The  incapacity  of  the  Carthaginian  government  and  generals  was  enough 
indeed  to  embolden  the  Romans.  Their  army,  strong  in  cavalry  and  elephants, 
kept  on  the  hills52  where  neither  could  act,  and  were  attacked  and  defeated,  and 
their  camp  taken  by  the  Romans.  Regulus  then  overran  the  whole  country 
without  opposition  ;  the  Romans53  boasted  that  he  took  and  plundered  more  than 
three  hundred  walled  villages  or  towns,  but  none -of  these  deserved  the  name  of 
a  fortified  place ;  and  even  Tunes54  itself,  within  twenty  miles  of  Carthage,  fell 
into  their  hands  with  little  resistance.  Here  Regulus  established  his  head- 
quarters, and  here  he  seems  to  have  remained  through  the  winter.55 

48  Sec  Polybius,  III.  22,  23.  times,  but  still  the  soil  is  described  as  extreme- 

49  Horace's    expressions    are    well    known,  ly  fertile.    Sir  G.  Temple  counted  ninety-seven 
"  Frumcnti  quantum  m'etit  Africa,"  "  quicquid  shoots  or  stalks  on  a  single  plant  of 'barley, 
de  Libycis  verritnr  areis,"  &c.    See  also  Taci-  which  was  by  no  means  one  of  the  largest  in 
tus,  Annal.  XII.  43.  the  field  ;  he  was  assured  that  plants  were  often 

60  Sec  the  description  of  this  country  as  it  seen  with  three  hundred.    Excursions  in  tho 

appeared  to  the  soldiers  of  Agathocles.    Diodo-  Mediterranean,  Vol.  II.  p.  108. 

rus,  XX.   8.     The  irrigation  is  especially  no-  61  Polybius,  I.  29.                 w  Polybius,  I.  30. 

ticed,  iroXXuv  iitdruv  (Jtwxertu/u'i'Wi/  Kal  irdvTa  rdrrov  63  Florus,  II.  2. 

ipfovovTuv.    It  is  the  neglect  of  this  which  has  so  M  Polybius,  I.  30. 

reduced  the  productiveness  of  Africa  in  modern  *  Zonaras.  VI II.  13. 
28 


434  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XL. 

Meanwhile,  to  increase  the  distress  of  the  Carthaginians,  the  Numidians,65  or 
A.  r.  c.498  499.  A.C.  tne  roving  tribes  of  the  interior,  then  as  now  always  ready  to  attack 
I'n'tr";.  SnedTim"  an&  plunder  the  civilized  settlers  of  the  sea-coast,  joined  the  Ro- 
Dutret.  of  Carthage.  manS)  and,  like  the  Cossacks,  being  most  expert  in  such  desultory 
and  plundering  warfare,  they  outdid  the  Romans  in  their  devastations.  From 
all  quarters  fugitives  from  the  country  crowded  into  Carthage,  and  it  was  feared 
that  the  city  was  unable  to  feed  so  great  a  multitude  as  were  now  confined  with- 
in its  walls.  Alarm  and  distress  prevailed,  and  the  council  of  elders  sent  three 
of  its  own  members  to  the  Roman  consul  to  sue  for  peace. 

Regulus,  like  Fabricius  and  Curius,  was  in  his  own  country  a  poor  man ;  it  is 
Regius  impo»e.  intoi-  a  well-known  story87  that  he  complained  of  the  loss  which  his  small 
c»rbthttgbiZ  ouwho  portion  of  land  must  sustain  from  his  absence,  and  that  the  senate 
eomo  to  sue  for  peace.  promiseci  to  maintain  his  wife  and  children  till  his  return.  Such 
a  man's  head  could  not  but  be  turned  by  his  present  position,  when  the  plunder 
of  Africa  had  given  him  the  power  of  acquiring  riches  beyond  all  his  concep- 
tions, and  when  the  noblest  citizens  of  the  wealthiest  state  in  the  world  came  as 
suppliants  to  his  head-quarters.  He  treated  them  with  the  insolence  shown  by 
some  of  the  French  generals  during  the  revolution  to  the  ambassadors  of  the 
old  sovereigns  of  Europe.  Carthage58  must  evacuate  Sicily  and  Sardinia,  ransom 
all  her  own  prisoners,  and  give  up  without  ransom  all  those  whom  she  had  taken 
from  the  Romans  ;  must  make  good  all  the  expenses  of  the  war,  and  pay  a  yearly 
contribution  besides ;  above  all,  she  must  follow  wherever  the  Romans  should 
lead,  and  make  neither  alliance  nor  war  without  their  consent ;  she  must  not  send 
to  sea  more  than  a  single  ship  of  war  on  her  own  account,  but  if  the  Romans 
required  her  aid  she  must  send  them  a  fleet  of  fifty  ships.  The  Carthaginian 
ambassadors  protested  against  terms  so  extravagant.  "  Men  who  are  good  for 
any  thing,"  replied  Regulus,  "  should  either  conquer  or  submit  to  their  betters."59 
And  with  threatening  and  insolent  expressions  to  the  ambassadors  personally,  he 
ordered  them  to  begone  with  all  speed  from  the  Roman  camp. 

The  council  of  the  elders  called  together  the  great  council  on  this  emergency  ;6" 
and  the  whole  body  of  the  aristocracy  of  Carthage  with  one  voice 

Huterma  are  rejected.  .  .  ..   .  J        .         .          ,.  _/  &     .         , 

rejected  conditions  so  intolerable.  But  great  was  the  danger,  and 
great  the  general  alarm.  The  gods  were  to  be  propitiated  by  no  common  sac- 
rifices, and  those  horrid  offerings  to  Moloch,  which  had  been  made  when  Agatho- 
cles  was  threatening  Carthage  with  ruin,  were  now  again  repeated.  The  figure 
of  the  god  stood  with  outstretched  arms  to  receive  his  victims  ;  young  children 
of  the  noblest  families  were  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  image,  and  from  thence 
rolled  off  into  a  furnace  which  burnt  before  him.  Nor  were  there  wanting 
those  who  with  something  of  a  better  spirit  threw  themselves  into  the  fire,  will- 
ing to  pay  with  their  own  lives  the  atonement  for  their  country. 

In  the  midst  of  this  distress,  an  officer  returned61  who  had  been  sent  to  Greece 

to  engage  Greek  soldiers  of  fortune  in  the  Carthaginian  service. 
••MM*  «rfv*  *t  Among  others  he  brought  with  him  a  Spartan  named  Xanthippus, 

Carthage,   and   direcU  D     ,          111  .         -i    •       i  •  >       v       •     r  f    l 

A»  operation  of  the  a  man  who  had  been  trained  in  his  country  s  discipline,  and  had 
added  to  it  much  of  actual  military  experience.     He  might  have 

60  Polybius,  I.  31.  Diodorus,  Fragm.  Vat-  of  the  human  sacrifices  offered  in  such  emergen- 

ican.  XXIII.  4.  cies,  see  Diodorus,  XX.  14. 

67  Auctor  de  Viris  Illustrib.  in  Eegul.  Valer.  fl  Polybius,  I.  32.  Some  years  afterwards, 

Maxim.  IV.  4,  §  6.  when  Ptolemy  Euergetes  overran  the  whole 

M  Dion  Cassius,  Fragm.  Ursin.  CXLVIII.  kingdom  of  Seleucus  Callinicus,  he  committed 

Regulus  was  so  elated  by  his  successes,  that  he  his  conquests  beyond  the  Euphrates  to  the  care 

wrote  home  to  the  senate  to  say  that  "  he  had  of  "Xantippus,  one  of  his  twogenerals-in-chief." 

nealed  up  the  gates  of  Carthage  by  the  terror  of  Jerome,  in  Daniel,  XI.  9.  Could  this  Xantippus 

his  arms."  Zonaras,  VIII.  13.  '  or  Xanthippus  be  the  conqueror  of  Keguuis, 

n  Diodorus.  iFragm.  Vatican.  XXIII.  4.  whose  glory  in  Africa  recommended  him  to  the 

*  Polybius,  I.  31.  Diodorus,  Fragm.  Vati-  notice  of  the  king  of  Egypt  after  his  return 

ean,  XX%IIl.  4.  And  for  a  particular  description  from  Carthage,  so  that  he  became  a  general  in 

the  Egyptian  armies  ? 


439 

CHAP.  XL.]  TOTAL  DEFEAT  OF  THE  ROMANS. 

>bnssy     from     C»r- 

fought  with  Acrotatus  against  Pyrrhus  in  that  gallant  defence  of  Spa'40 p£ ^.""^ 
all  likeliliood  he  had  followed  king  Areus62  to  Athens  to  save  the  city  froY^KS 
minion  of  Antigonus,  when  Sparta  and  Athens  fought  for  the  last  time  side  ""' 
in  defence  of  the  independence  of  Greece.  Xanthippus63  condemned  the  co» 
of  the  Carthaginian  generals  in  the  strongest  terms ;  his  reputation  gave  w 
to  his  words  ;  the  government  sent  for  him,  and  he  so  justified  his  opinion  ar» 
explained  so  clearly  the  causes  of  their  defeats,  that  they  intrusted  him  with  the 
direction  of  their  forces.  Hope  was  already  rekindled ;  but  when  he  reviewed 
the  soldiers  without  the  walls,  and  made  them  go  through  the  movements  which 
were  best  fitted  to  meet  the  peculiar  tactic  of  the  Romans,  loud  shouts  burst 
from  the  ranks,  and  there  was  a  universal  cry  to  be  led  out  to  battle.  The 
generals  of  the  commonwealth  did  not  hesitate  to  comply,  and  although  they  had 
no  more  than  12,000  foot,  yet  relying  on  their  cavalry,  four  thousand  in  number, 
and  on  their  elephants,  amounting  to  no  fewer  than  a  hundred,  they  boldly 
marched  out,  and  no  longer  keeping  the  high  grounds,  encamped  in  the  open 
plain,  and  thus  checked  at  once  the  devastation  of  the  country. 

Regulus  was  obliged  to  risk  a  battle,64  for  as  soon  as  he  ceased  to  be  master  of 
the  field,  his  men  would  be  destitute  of  provisions.  He  encamped  H«  prepares  to  siveut- 
within  little  more  than  a  mile  of  the  enem)^,  and  the  sight  of  the  *  *""••?• 
Roman  legions,  so  long  victorious,  made  the  resolution  of  the  Carthaginian  gen- 
erals waver.  But  the  soldiers  were  clamorous  for  battle,  and  Xanthippus  urged 
the  generals  not  to  lose  the  precious  opportunity.  They  yielded,  and  requested 
him  to  form  the  army  on  his  own  plan.  Accordingly,  he  placed  his  cavalry  on 
the  flanks,  together  with  some  of  the  light-armed  mercenaries,  slingers  perhaps 
from  the  Balearian  islands,  and  archers  from  Crete.  The  heavy-armed  merce- 
naries, we  know  not  of  what  nation,  whether  Gauls,  or  Spaniards,  or  Greeks,  or 
a  mixed  band  of  all,  were  on  the  right  in  the  line  of  battle ;  the  Africans,  with 
some  Carthaginian  citizens,  were  on  the  left  and  centre ;  the  whole  line  being 
covered  by  the  elephants,  which  formed  a  single  rank  at  some  distance  in  advance. 
The  Romans  were  in  their  usual  order,  their  cavalry  on  the  wings,  and  their 
velites  or  light-armed  troops  in  advance  of  the  heavy-armed  soldiers ;  but  their 
line  was  formed  of  a  greater  depth  than  usual,  to  resist  the  elephants'  charge. 

When  the  signal  was  given,  the  Carthaginian  cavalry  and  elephants  imme- 
diately advanced,  and  the  Romans,  clashing  their  pila  against  the 

r    ,1      '        i  •    11  j       i  •         1       Si  .And     totally     defeat* 

iron  rims  of  their  shields  and  cheering  loudly,  rushed  on  to  meet  them.  ReRUiu.  u  u- 
them.  The  left  wing,  passing  by  the  right  of  the  line  of  elephants,  kenprlM 
attacked  the  Carthaginian  mercenaries  and  routed  them ;  Xanthippus  rode  up  to 
rally  them,65  threw  himself  from  his  horse,  and  fought  amongst  them  as  a  com- 
lon  soldior.  Meantime  his  cavalry  had  swept  the  Roman  and  Italian  horse  from 
ic  field,  and  then  charged  the  legions  on  the  rear ;  while  the  elephants,  driving 
velites  before  them  into  the  intervals  of  the  maniples,  broke  into  the  Roman 
tin  battle,  and  with  irresistible  weight  and  strength  and  fury  trampled  under 
>t  and  beat  down  and  dispersed  the  bravest.  If  any  forced  their  way  forwards 
irough  the  elephants'  line,  they  were  received  by  the  Carthaginian  infantry, 
who,  being  fresh  and  in  unbroken  order,  presently  cut  them  to  pieces.  Two 
thousand  men  of  the  left  of  the  Roman  army  escaped  after  they  had  driven  the 
mercenaries  to  their  camp,  and  found  that  all  was  lost  behind  them.  Regulus 
himself,  with  500  more,  fled  also  from  the  rout,  but  was  pursued,  overtaken,  and 
made  prisoner.  The  rest  of  the  Roman  army  was  destroyed  to  a  man  on  the 
field  of  battle. 

The  few  fugitives  from  the  left  wing  made  their  escape  to  Cly  pea ;  Tunes,  it  seems, 
was  lost  immediately,  and,  except  Clypea,  the  Romans  did  not  re- 
tain a  foot  of  ground  in  Africa.     We  have  no  Carthaginian  histo- 

K  See  Justin,  XXVI.  2.    Pausanias,  III.  6,        M  Polybius,  I.  33. 

M  Dio'dorus,  Fragm.  Vatic.  XXIII.  6. 
*  Polybius,  I.  82. 


436  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XL 

rian  to  describe  the  triumphant  return  of  the  victorious  army  to  Carthage  ;  how 
the  Roman  prisoners  and  Regulus,  lately  so  insolent,  were  led  through  tne  streets 
bound  and  half  naked  ;  how  the  bands  of  noble  citizens  met  at  their  public  tables, 
sworn  companions  and  brethren  to  each  other  in  peace  and  war,  and  remembered 
with  joyful  tears  their  comrades  who  had  fallen  ;  how  the  whole  city  was  full  of 
festivity,66  and  every  temple  was  crowded  by  wives  and  mothers  offering  their 
thanksgivings  for  this  great  deliverance.  The  feasting,  after  the  Carthaginian 
manner,  continued  deep  into  the  night  ;  but  other  sounds  and  other  fires  than 
those  of  revelry  and  rejoicing  were  to  be  seen  and  heard  amid  the  darkness  ;  the 
fires  of  Moloch  again  were  blazing,  and  some  of  the  bravest  of  the  prisoners  were 
burnt  alive  as  a  thank-offering. 

Xanthippus,  crowned  with  glory,67  and  no  doubt  richly  rewarded,  returned  to 
A  u  c  499  AC  Greece  soon  a^ter  ^is  victory»  before  admiration  and  gratitude  had 
855.  The  Romat»  send  time  to  be  changed  to  envy.  Clypea  was  besieged,  but  the  Ro- 

a  fleet  to  bring  off  the  •  T      Vj  .    j  .'  i  i   .  i  i  i 

of  their  army  man  garrison  held  out  desperately,  and  the  senate  no  sooner  learned 


the  disaster  of  their  army,  than  they  sent  a  fleet  to  bring  off  the 
survivors.  The  Carthaginians,  dreading  a  second  invasion,  raised  a  fleet  to  meet 
the  enemy  at  sea,  but  the  number  of  their  ships  was  greatly  inferior,  and  they 
were  completely  defeated.  The  Romans,  however,  had  no  intention  of  landing 
again  in  Africa  ;  so  total  a  destruction  of  their  whole  army  impressed  them  with 
a  dread  of  the  enemy's  elephants,  which  they  could  not  for  a  long  time  shake 
off:  they  contented  themselves  with  taking  on  board  the  garrison  of  Clypea,  and 
sailed  back  to  Sicily. 

The  Romans  had  now  for  five  years  sent  fleets  to  sea,  and  had  as  yet  had  lit- 
tle experience  of  its  terrors.     This  increased  their  natural  confi- 

The  fleet  is  wrecked  on      ,  *  1,1  ,1  i   i     .ii      j    T-»  e.a        '     ^  't 

its  return  off  the  south  dence,  and  they  thought  that  Romans68  might  sail  at  any  season, 

coast  of  Italy.  ,      ,      ,    .  J        ,  ,.  &   .       •         i    i  , 

and  that  it  was  only  cowardice  which  was  restrained,  by  pretended 
signs  of  bad  weather.  So,  in  the  month  of  July,  in  spite  of  the  warnings  of  their 
pilots,  they  persisted  in  coasting  homewards  along  the  southern  coasts  of  Sicily, 
at  the  very  time  when  violent  gales  from  the  south  and  southwest  make  that  coast 
especially  perilous.  The  fleet  was  off  Camarina  when  the  storm  came  on,  and 
taught  the  Romans  that  fair-weather  seamen  may  mistake  ignorant  presumption  for 
courage.  Above  260  ships  were  wrecked,  which  must  have  had  on  board  78,000 
seamen,  without  counting  the  soldiers,  who  were  probably  at  least  as  many  as 
25,000,  and  the  whole  coast  from  Camarina  to  Pachynus  was  covered  with  wrecks 
and  bodies.  The  men69  who  escaped  to  shore  were  most  kindly  relieved  by 
Hiero,  who  fed  and  clothed  them,  and  conveyed  them  to  Messana. 

This  great  disaster  encouraged  the  Carthaginians  to  redouble  their  efforts  in 

Sicily.     Carthalo,  an  able  and  active  officer,70  immediately  recov- 

erec^  Agrigentum,  and  Hasdrubal  was  sent  over  with  140  elephants, 
pinor-  to  take  the  chief  command  of  all  the  Carthaginian  forces  in  the 

island.  But  the  Romans,  with  indomitable  spirit,  fitted  out  a  new 
fleet  of  220  ships  in  the  space  of  three  months  ;  and  the  consuls  of  the  following 

w  Polybius,  I.  36.    For  the  description  of  the  were  consuls  when  they  -were  sent  out  to  'cr.:\g 

Carthaginian  human  sacrifices  after  a  victory,  oft'  the  garrison  of  Clypea,  and  we  can  hardly 

see  Diodorus,  XX.  65.  extend  the  operations  of  Regulus  in  Africa  to  a 

67  Polybius,  I.  36.     Niebuhr  supposes  that  period  of  a  year  and  a  half. 

Rcgulus  was  defeated  towards  the  end  of  the  M  Polybius,  I.  37. 

consular  year  499,  so  that  the  sea-fisrht  off  Cly-  6U  Diodorus,  Fragm.   Hoeschel.   XXIII.  14. 

pea  took  placo  early  in  the  consulship  of  Cn.  The  language  of  these  fragments  must  surely 

Cornelius  and  A.  Atilius,  that  is,  in  the  consular  be  very  modern,  for  in  this  passage  the  writer 

year  500.     He  thinks  that  Ser.  Fulvius  and  M.  says  that  along  the  whole  coast,  ra  owfiarn  xal 

^Emilius  were  already  proconsuls  when  they  ra  a'Aoya  xal  rd  vavdyia  EKttira  •  ra  aXoya  must 

obtained  their  victory,  because  it  appears  from  here  mean  "the  horses,"  which  is  the  common 

the  Fasti  Capitolini  that  they  were  proconsuls  meaning  of  the  word  in  modern  Greek,  but  no 

when  they  obtained  their  triumph.    But  it  is  writer  of  the  Augustan  age  would  have  so  used 

uiove  probablo  that  they  were  both  employed  it. 

as  proconsuls  in  Sicily  for  a  whole  year  alter  70  Diodorus,  Fragm.   Hoeschel.   XX111.  14 

their  consulship,  and  thus  that  their  triumph  Polybius,  I.  38. 
wa»  delayed.    Zonaras  says  expressly  that  they 


CHAP.  XL.]  THE  ROMAN  FLEETS  WRECKED.  43-3 

year,  A.  Atilius  and  Cn.  Cornelius,  crossing  over  to  Messana,  and  A.  ^  c>  493>  A.  a 
there  being  joined  by  the  remnant  of  the  other  fleet  which  had  26I> 
escaped  the  storm,  sailed  along  the  northern  coast  of  Sicily,  took  Cephalcedium, 
and  although  obliged  by  Carthalo  to  raise  the  siege  of  Drepanum,  yet  they  be- 
sieged and  took  the  important  town  of  Panormus,  obtained  a  sum  of  nearly  470 
talents  from  those  of  the  inhabitants  who  could  afford  to  pay  the  stipulated  ran-' 
som,  and  sold  13,000  of  the  poorer  class  as  slaves.     A  garrison  was  left  in  Pa- 
normus, and  several  other  smaller  places  revolted  also  to  the  Romans. 
.    For  this  service  Cn.  Cornelius  justly  obtained  a  triumph.71     But  we  are  sur- 
prised to  find  the  same  honor  bestowed  on  one  of  his  successors, 

si     o  -r-ii  T-I         ot  •  l     1  •  u  si          A.U.  C.  501.  A.  C.  254, 

U.  bempromus  Blcesus.     Jbor  bempromus  and  his  colleague,  Un.  Another  Roman  fleet  i« 

r,          •!•         fi  7j  i         •  •     j     A      •      n        ,  j        ,1  p    wrecked   between  PHI, 

Servihus  Csepio,™  having  carried  their  fleet  over  to  the  coast  of  nor,™,  and  the  const  oi 
Africa,  made  some  descents  and  plundered  the  country  near  the 
sea,  but  were  able  to  effect  nothing  of  importance  ;  and  after  having  been  obliged 
to  throw  all  their  plunder  overboard  to  enable  their  ships  to  float  over  the  shal-' 
lows  of  the  Lesser  Syrtis,  they  were  finally,  when  sailing  across  from  Panormus 
to  the  Lucanian  coast,  overtaken  by  another  storm,  which  wrecked  more  than1 
150  of  their  ships.  Upon  this  the  Romans  resolved  to  attempt  the  sea  no  more; 
and  to  keep  only  a  fleet  of  sixty  ships,  to  supply  their  armies  with  provisions,  and' 
to  protect  the  coasts  of  Italy. 

.  The  two  following  years  were  full  of  discouragement  to  the  Romans.  Their 
armies  remained  in  Sicily,  but  did  little  to  advance  the  conquest  At  u.  c.  502.  A.  c, 
of  the  island;  because  the  terror  of  the  elephants  was  so  great  A5ic.  sti.  The  Roman, 
that  their  generals  were  afraid  to  risk  a  general  action.  Such  a  rSl'ita^S^Lau 
state  of  things  is  very  injurious  to  the  discipline  of  an  army,  and  pline> 
we  find  that  the  service  was  so  unpopular  that  400  of  the  Roman  horsemen,7* 
all  of  them  men  of  birth  and  fortune,  refused  to  obey  the  consul,  C.  Aurelius 
Cotta,  when  he  ordered  them  to  work  at  some  fortifications,  and  were  by  him' 
reported  to  the  censors,  who  degraded  them  all  from  their  rank,  and  deprived 
them  of  their  franchise  of  voting.  And  on  other  occasions  Cotta  ordered  two  of' 
his  officers  to  be  scourged  publicly  by  his  lictors  for  misconduct  ;74  one  of  them  a 
kinsman  of  his  own,  and  the  other  a  military  tribune,  and  a  patrician  of  the  noble 
name  and  house  of  the  Valerii.  Yet  with  the  aid  of  some  ships  which  he  pro- 
cured from  Hiero,  he  attacked  and  reduced  the  island  of  Lipara,  the  largest  of 
the  Liparseans  ;75  and  for  this  and  the  capture  of  Therma,  which  had  risen  up 
on  the  site  of  the  ancient  Himera,  he  obtained  after  all  a  triumph. 

In  the  spring  of  the  third  year,  when  C.  Atilius  Regulus  and  L.  Manlius  Vulso 
were  chosen  each  for  the  second  time  consuls,  the  Romans  resolved  A  u.  Ci  504.  A  c  • 
somewhat  to  extend  their  naval  operations,  and  to  build  fifty  new  S50> 
ships.76  But  before  the  consuls  left  Rome,  the  tidings  came  of  a  most  complete 
victory  in  Sicily,  and  of  the  total  destruction  of  the  dreaded  Carthaginian  ele- 
>hants.  Resuming  then  all  their  former  confidence,  the  Romans  increased  their 
leet  to  two  hundred  ships,77  and  sent  out  both  consuls  with  two  consular  armies1 

form  at  once  the  siege  of  Lilybseum,  the  strongest  and  almost  the  only  place 
still  held  by  the  Carthaginians  in  Sicily. 

This  most  lerilliant  and  seasonable  victory  had  been  won  by  L.  Ccecilius  Metel- 
lus,  who  had  been  consul  in  the  preceding  year ;  and  when  his  ^Me  pf  PanortnU. 
colleague,  C.  Furius,  had  gone  home  at  the  end  of  the  campaign, 
Metellus78  was  left  in  Sicily  with  his  own  army  as  proconsul.  It 
appears  that  Hasdrubal,  the  Carthaginian  general,  was  taunted  for 

'  "  Fasti  Capitolini.  75  Diodorus,  Fragm.    Hoeschel.  XXIII.  15, 

n  Polvbius,  I.  39.    Zonaras,  VIII.  14.     Oro-  Zonaras,  VIII.  14.    Polybius,  I.  39. 

sius,  IV*.  9.  70  Polybius,  I.  39. 

7a  Valerius  Maximus,  II.  9,  §  7.     Frontinus,  "  Polybius,  I.  41. 

Stratcgem.  IV.  1,  §  22.  78  Zonaras,  VIII.  14.    Polyb.  I.  40. 
14  Froutinus,  Stratcgcra.  IV.  1,  §  30,  31.  Vol. 

Max.  II.  7,  §  4. 


438  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XL 

his  inactivity  ;T9  and  relying,  besides,  too  much  on  the  terror  of  his  elephants, 
he  crossed  the  mountains  from  Selinus,  and  descended  into  the  plain  of  Panor- 
mus.  Metellus  kept  close  within  the  walls  of  the  town,  till  Hasdrubal,  not  con- 
tent with  having  laid  waste  the  open  country,  advanced  towards  Panormus,  and 
drew  out  his  army  in  order  of  battle,  as  if  in  defiance.  Then  the  proconsul* 
keeping  his  regular  infantry  within  one  of  the  gates  on  the  left  of  the  enemy,  so 
that  by  a  timely  sally  he  could  attack  them  in  flank,  scattered  his  light  troops  in 
great  numbers  over  the  ground  immediately  in  front  of  them,  with  orders,  it 
hard  pressed,  to  leap  down  into  the  ditch  fcr  refuge.  Meantime  all  the  idle 
hands  in  the  town  were  employed  in  throwing  down  fresh  supplies  of  missile 
weapons  at  the  foot  of  the  wall  within  the  ditch,  that  the  light  troops  might  not 
exhaust  their  weapons.  The  elephants  charged,  drove  the  enemy  before  them, 
and  advanced  to  the  edge  of  the  counterscarp,  or  outer  side  of  the  ditch.  Here 
they  were  overwhelmed  with  missiles  of  all  sizes ;  some  fell  into  the  ditch,  and 
were  there  dispatched  by  thrusts  of  pikes  ;  the  rest  turned  about,  and,  becoming 
ungovernable,  broke  into  the  ranks  of  their  own  army,  which  was  advancing 
behind  them,  and  threw  it  into  great  confusion.  Philinus,81  who  favored  the 
Carthaginians,  said  that  the  Gauls  in  their  army  had  indulged  so  freely  in  the 
wines  which  foreign  traders  sent  to  Sicily  to  tempt  the  soldiers  to  traffic  with 
their  plunder,  as  to  be  incapable  of  doing  their  duty.  But  there  was  no  need  of 
drunkenness  to  increase  the  disorder,  when  more  than  a  hundred  elephants, 
driven  to  fury  by  their  wounds,  were  running  wild  amidst  the  Carthaginian  ranks. 
Then  Metellus  sallied,  attacked  the  enemy  in  flank,  and  completely  defeated  them. 
Ten  elephants  were  taken  with  their  drivers  still  mounted  on  them  ;88  the  rest  had 
thrown  off  their  drivers,  and  the  Romans  knew  not  how  to  take  them  alive,  till 
Metellus  made  proclamation  that  any  prisoner  who  should  secure  an  elephant 
should  be  set  at  liberty.  This  induced  the  drivers  to  exert  themselves,  and  in 
the  end  all  the  elephants  were  secured,  and  conveyed  safely  to  Rome,8'  to  be  ex- 
hibited in  the  conqueror's  triumph.  And  the  device  of  an  elephant,  which  is 
frequent  on  the  coins  of  the  Caecilian  family,  shows  the  lasting  sense  entertained 
by  the  Metelli  in  after-times  of  the  glory  of  their  ancestor's  victory. 

The  battle  of  Panormus  was  fought  about  midsummer,  and  Metellus  returned 
to  Rome  with  his  army  and  his  trophies,  and  triumphed  on  the 
ciuen?Lnor»nof  Metei-  seventh  of  September.84  The  captured  elephants  were  exhibited 
in  the  circus  maximus,85  and  hunted  up  and  down  it  by  men  armed 
onfy  with  pointless  spears,  to  teach  the  people  not  to  be  afraid  of  them ;  after 
wliic'i  they  were  shot  at  with  real  weapons  and  destroyed.  Metellus  must  have 
lived  for  nearly  fifty  years  after  his  triumph,86  full  of  honors  and  glory.  He  was 
a  second  time  chosen  consul,  he  was  appointed  once  master  of  the  horse,  and 
once  dictator,  and  he  was  also  created  pontifex  maximus,  in  which  last  office  he 
acquired  a  new  glory,  by  rescuing  the  sacred  palladium  from  the  temple  of  Vesta 
when  it  was  on  fire,  at  the  risk  of  his  life,  and  to  the  actual  loss  of  his  sight.  For 
this  act  of  piety  he  was  allowed  ever  after  to  be  drawn  to  the  senate  in  a  chariot, 
an  extraordinary  honor,  as  the  chariot  was  accounted  one  of  the  marks  of  kingly 
state,  and  therefore  not  to  be  used  by  the  citizen  of  a  commonwealth. 

Thirteen  noble  Carthaginians87  had  been  taken  at  Panormus,  and  had  been  led 

79  Diodorus,  Fragm.  Hoeschel.  XXIII.  15.  Strategem.  I.  7,  §  1.     Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.  VIIL 

*  Polybius,  I.  40.  §  16. 

81  Diodorus,  Fragm.  Hoeschel.  XXIII.  15.  M  Fasti  Capitolini. 

M  Polybius,  I.  40.    Zonaras,  VIII.  14.  w  Plinv,  Histor.  Natur.  VIII.  §  17. 

83  They  were  carried  across  the  straits  on  M  He  lived  to  the  age  of  a  hundred  years 

rafts  composed  of  a  number  of  casks  lashed  to-  (Pliny,  Histor.  Natur.  VII.  §  157),  and  we  can 

gether,  with  a  sort  of  flooring  fastened  together  scarcely  suppose  him  to  have  been  much  more 

npon  them.  The  flooring  or  deck  was  fenced  than  fifty  when  he  obtained  his  first  consulship. 

in  with  high  bulwarks,  and  covered  over  with  For  his  other  honors  see  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  VII. 

earth,  so  that  the  elephants  were  not  aware  §139.  He  was  appointed  dictator  just  after  th« 

of  their  situation,  and  were  conveyed  over  the  Gaulish  invasion  of  529.  See  Fasti  Capitolini. 

tea  quietly.  Zonaras,  VIII.  14.  Frontinus,  OT  Livy,  Epitom.  XIX.  Zonaras,  VIII.  16. 

Orosius,  IV.  10. 


CHAP.  XL.J  SIEGE  OF  LIL  O^EUM.  43S 

in  the  triumphal  procession  of  the  conqueror.     The  Carthaginians,  Embagsy   from  Car 
wishing  to  recover  these  and  others  of  their  citizens,  sent  an  em-  th«ge  u>  prop*™  »n  «- 

O  '  ,  change     of    prisoner* 

bassv  to  Rome  to  propose  an  exchange  of  prisoners,  and  M.  Ke^u-  Regniu.   accompli.* 

J  .,  _  11  i  •  it.     Hw  irmgnuninr.ouf 

lus  was  allowed  to  accompany  the  ambassadors,  upon  his  promise  g^»«'-e  an^e£'™h  *• 
given  to  return  with  them  to  Carthage  if  the  negotiation  failed. 
Pyrrhus  had  given  a  similar  permission  to  his  Roman  prisoners,  with  the  hope, 
no  doubt,  that  in  order  to  avoid  returning  to  captivity,  they  would  use  their  influ- 
ence to  procure  the  acceptance  of  his  terms.  But  Regulus,  thinking  that  the 
proposed  exchange  would  be  to  the  advantage  of  the  Carthaginians,  nobly  dis- 
suaded the  senate  from  consenting  to  it ;  he  himself  would  be  ill-exchanged,  he 
said,  for  a  Carthaginian  general  in  full  health  and  strength,  for  the  Carthaginians, 
he  believed,  had  given  him  a  secret  poison,88  and  he  felt  that  he  could  not  live 
long.  The  exchange  was  refused ;  Regulus  returned  to  Carthage,  and  soon 
after  died.  His  springs  of  life  had  been  poisoned,  not  by  the  deliberate  crime  of 
the  Carthaginians,  but  by  mortification,  shame,  a  pining  after  his  country,  and 
the  common  miseries  of  a  prisoner's  condition,  at  a  period  when  the  courtesies 
of  war  were  unknown.  Afterwards  the  story  prevailed,  that  the  Carthaginians, 
in  their  disappointment,  had  put  him  to  a  death  cf  lingering  torment ;  whilst  the 
Carthaginians  told  a  similar  story  of  the  cruel  treatment  of  two  noble  Carthaginian 
prisoners89  by  the  wife  and  sons  of  Regulus,  into  whose  hands  they  had  been 
given  as  hostages,  and  Regulus'  natural  death  was  made,  according  to  the  story, 
the  pretext  for  wreaking  their  cruelty  upon  the  unfortunate  Carthaginians  in  their 
power.  We  may  hope  that  these  stories  are  both  untrue ;  but  even  if  the  Car- 
thaginians had  exercised  towards  Regulus  the  full  severity  of  the  ancient  laws  of 
war,  it  ill  became  the  Romans  to  complain  of  it,  when  their  habitual  treatment, 
even  of  generous  and  magnanimous  enemies,  was  such  as  we  have  seen  it  exem- 
plified in  the  execution  of  the  Samnite,  C.  Pontius. 

Never  had  the  prospects  of  the  Romans  been  fairer  than  when,  in  the  autumn  of 
the  fifteenth  year  of  the  war,  the  consuls,  C.  Atilius  and  L.  Man-  The  Rom*™  form  th« 
lius,  began  the  siege  of  Lilybseum.  This  place  and  Drepanum  were  8iege  of  Lilybaeum- 
the  only  two  points  in  Sicily  still  retained  by  the  Carthaginians ;  and  here  they 
concentrated  all  their  efforts,  destroying  even  Selinus,90  their  earliest  conquest 
from  the  Greeks,  and  removing  to  Lilybseum  its  inhabitants  and  its  garrison.  But 
from  this  time  forward  to  the  very  end  of  the  war  the  victories  of  the  Romans 
ceased,  and  during  a  period  of  eight  successive  years  the  Fasti  record  not  a  single 
triumph,  a  blank  not  to  be  paralleled  in  any  other  part  of  the  Roman  annals. 
Lilybaeum  and  Drepanum  remained  unconquered  to  the  last,  after  the  former  had 
sustained  a  siege  which  for  its  length  and  the  efforts  made  both  by  besiegers  and 
besieged  is  not  to  be  surpassed  in  history. 

The  general  difficulty  of  ascertaining  precisely  the  position  of  the  ancient  towns 
and  harbors  is  felt  particularly  when  we  attempt  to  fix  the  topog-  situation  of  Liiyb»ui» 
raphy  of  Lilybseum.  It  seems  that  the  ancient  city,  covering  emdpioyVPonboth2d^ 
more  ground  than  the  modern  town  of  Marsala,  must  have  occu-  " the  "iege- 
pied  the  extreme  point  of  Sicily,  now  called  Cape  Boeo ;  and  to  have  had  two 
sea  fronts,  one  looking  N.  w.  and  the  other  s.  w.,  while  on  the  land  side  the 
wall  ran  across  the  point  from  sea  to  sea,  facing  eastwards,  and  forming  the  base 
of  a  triangle,  of  which  the  two  sea  fronts  meeting  at  the  point  of  Cape  Boeo  formed 
the  sides.  Polybius  speaks  of  the  harbors  of  Lilybaeum,  as  if  there  were  more 
than  one ;  and  as  the  ancient  harbors  were  almost  always  basins  closed  by  arti- 
ficial moles,  it  is  probable  that  there  would  be  one  at  each  sea  front  of  the  town. 
But  the  principal  harbor  looked  towards  Africa,  on  the  s.  w.  side  of  Lilybseum, 
and  its  entrance  was  very  narrow,  because  at  a  little  distance91  from  the  shore 

""  A.  Gellius,  VI.  4.     Zonaras,  VIII.  15.  91  See  Captain  Smyth's  Hydrosrraphical  Ro- 

J  Dioclorus,   Fragm.   de    Virtut.    et  Vitiis,  marks  on  the  coast  of  Sicily,  p.  xxvu,  and  hia 

XXIV.     A.  Gellius,  II.  4.  plan  of  the  anchorages  and  shoals  in  the  neigh- 

*°  Diodorus,  Fragm.  Hoeschel.  XXIV.  1.  Dorhood  of  Trapani,  in  his  Sicilian  Atlas. 


440  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XL 

there  extends  a  line  of  shoals  nearly  rising  in  some  places  to  the  water's  edge, 
and  running  parallel  to  the  coast,  and  the  passages  through  these  shoals,  or  round 
their  extremity,  were  exceedingly  narrow  and  intricate.  The  land  side  was  for- 
tified by  a  wall  with  towers  at  intervals,92  and  covered  by  a  ditch  ninety  feet  wide 
and  sixty  deep.  The  garrison  consisted  at  first  of  ten  thousand  regular  soldiers 
besides  the  inhabitants,  and  the  governor  Himilcon  was  an  able  and  active  officer, 
equal  to  the  need.  The  Romans  employed  in  the  siege  two  consular  armies,  and 
the  seamen  of  a  fleet  of  two  hundred  ships  of  war,  and  a  great  multitude  of  small 
craft ;  so  that  as  the  seamen  worked  regularly  at  the  trenches,  the  besieging 
force  may  well  have  amounted  to  110,000  men.93 

The  Romans  attacked  the  land  front  of  the  town  in  form  :94  they  carried  mounds 

across  the  ditch,  and  battered  the  towers  in  succession  ;  whilst  a 
nmnTto's'to^uptheen-  formidable  artillery  covered  their  operations,  and  played  upon  the 

defenders  of  the  walls.  On  the  sea  side  they  endeavored  to  block 
up  the  harbor  by  sinking  stone  ships  in  the  channels  through  the  shoals,  but  a 
violent  storm9:  raised  such  a  sea  that  every  thing  was  swept  away,  and  the  har- 
bor still  remained  open. 

But  material  fortifications,  however  strong,  must  yie.-d  at  last  to  a  persevering 

enemy.      The  real  strength  of  Lilyboeum  lay  in  the  courage  and 

Able  and  successful  at-       ..  ...    •>         .  .    .        .         ,  i        i       .    i  i  •      11      i  ,1         /^i        - 

^mpu  of  tbe  cariha-  ability  which  the  long  war  had  at  last  enkindled  among  the  Car- 

Biuian  naval  officers  to       ,          /  .  ™  .  ,.  j         •    j 

throw  succors  into  the  tnagniian  officers  ;  so  that  now  all  was  energy  and  wisdom,  m 
complete  contrast  to  the  weakness  and  timidity  of  former  gen- 
erals. Himilcon  was  defending  Lilybaeum  with  the  utmost  ability  and  vigor ; 
Adherbal,  a  man  no  less  brave  and  able,  had  the  command  at  Drepanum,  and 
had  with  him  a  worthy  associate  in  Carthalo ;  while  Hannibal,  one  of  his  inti- 
mate friends,  was  sent  from  Carthage  to  carry  succors  to  Himilcon.  And  here, 
for  the  first  time,  the  Carthaginians  displayed  the  combined  skill  and  coolness  of 
true  seamen.  Hannibal  sailed  from  Carthage96  with  fifty  ships,  and  lay  waiting 
his  time  at  the  small  ^Egusan  islands  which  lie  to  the  north  of  Lilybaeum.  At 
length  the  wind  blew  fresh  from  the  north,  setting  full  into  the  harbor's  mouth  ; 
Hannibal  placed  his  soldiers  on  the  decks  ready  for  battle,  hoisted  every  sail,  and 
knowing  the  channels  well,  he  ran  down  before  the  wind  to  the  entrance  between 
the  shoals,  dashed  through  the  narrow  passage,  whilst  the  Romans  in  astorish- 
inent  and  awkwardness  did  not  put  out  a  single  ship  to  stop  him,  and  amidst  the 
cneers  and  shouts  of  the  whole  garrison  and  people  of  Lilybaeum,  who  had 
crowded  to  the  walls  to  watch  the  event,  he  landed  ten  thousand  men  in  safety 
within  the  harbor.  Other  officers  of  single  ships  passed  several  times  backwards 
and  forwards  with  equal  success,97  acquainting  the  Carthaginian  government  with 


lybius,  I.  42.  these  stones  were  weighed  up ;  but  Captain 

83  The  amount  given  by  Diodorus,  XXIV.  1.  Smyth  does  not  mention  it.  See  his  Survey  of 

»*  Diodorus,  Fragm.  Hoeschel.  XXIV.  1.  Sicily,  P.  234. 

Polybius,  I.  42.  M  Polybius,  I.  44.    It  is  not  easy  to  ascertain" 


*5  Diodorus,    Fragm.    Hoeschel.   XXIV.    1,  whether  Hannibal  ran  into  the  harbor  on  the 

copying,  probably,  from  Philinus.      Polybius  N.  w.  front  of  Lilybrcum,  or  into  that  on  the 

ascribes  the  failure  of  the  work  to  the  depth  of  s.  w.  front.    Probably  it  was  the  latter,  so  that 

the  sea  and  the  force  of  the  current  in  the  nar-  he  passed  between  Cape  Boeo  and  the  shoals 

row  channels.    But  for  more  than  a  mile  off  the  which  lie  a  little  off  the  land,  and  so  ran  on  in 

land  the  water  is  shallow,  nowhere  exceeding  a  direction  parallel  to  the  line  of  the  coast  till  he 

lour  lalhoms,  and  it  is  inconceivable  that  in  came  to  the  actual  entrance  between  the  moles 

fair  weather  such  a  depth  of  water  could  have  in  the  harbor. 

been  a  serious  impediment  to  a  people  like  the  w  Polybius,  I.  46,  47.    There  is  a  passage  ill 

Romans,  when  they  had  at  their  command  the  this  description  which,  if  we  could  discover  the 

labor  of  a  hundred  thousand  men.    According  line  of  the  ancient  walls  of  Lilybamm,  might 

to  Captain  Smyth,  some  of  the  stones  thrown  in  determine  the  position  of  the  harbor.     The  way 

by  the  Romans  in  this  siege  have  been  weighed  to  enter  the  harbor,  says  Polybius,  was  k<  to  ap- 

by  an  English  wine  merchant  residing  near  proach  it  from  the  side  towards  Italy,  arid^to 

Marsala,  and  have  been  used  by  him  to  build  a  bring  the  tower  on  the  sea-shore  in  a  line  with 

very  respectable  mole  opposite  to  his  own  es-  all  the  towers  of  the  wall  looking  towards  Af- 

tabiishment,  nearly  at  what  must  have  been  the  rica,   so  as  to  cover  them  all."     I.  47.    The 

loutheast  corner  of  the  ancient  town.      One  "  tower  on  the  sea-shore"  must  mean  the  tower 


SUFFERINGS  OF  THE  ROMANS.  441 

every  particular  of  the  siege,  and  confounding  the  Romans  by  their  absolute 
command,  as  it  seemed,  of  the  winds  and  waves. 

But  the  courage  of  the  Roman  soldiers  was  as  firm  as  ever.     Immediately 
after  Hannibal's  arrival,  Himilcon  made  a  general  sally08  to  destroy 
the  works  of  the  besiegers,  but  the  Romans  maintained  their  ground  Tfcrtn**  BMM 
and  he  was  repulsed  with  loss.     The  land  wall  of  the  town  was 
carried,"  but  Himilcon,  meanwhile,  had  raised  a  second  wall  within,  parallel  to 
the  first ;  so  that  when  the  first  was  taken  the  Romans  had  to  begin  all  their 
approaches  over  again  ;  and  a  second  attempt100  to  burn  the  works,  being  favored 
by  a  strong  wind,  was  completely  successful.     All  the  Roman  engines,  their 
covered  galleries,  and  towers,  were  burnt  to  ashes,  and  the  consuls,  in  despair, 
turned  the  siege  into  a  blockade. 

During  the  winter  the  sufferings  of  the  Romans  were  very  great.     Thousands 
of  men  had  perished  in  the  course  of  the  siege,101  and  the  loss  of 

,,  .,  ,  .    a  ,  ,     Sufferings  of   the  Ro- 

seamen  had  been  so  great,  as  they,  it  seems,  were  chiefly  employed  man8  during  the  win- 
in  the  works,  that  the  fleet  was  useless  for  want  of  hands  to  work 
it.  Besides,  the  troops  were  ill-supplied  with  corn,  and  were  obliged  to  subsist 
chiefly  on  meat;102  a  change  of  diet  most  unwelcome  and  hurtful  to  the  Ro- 
mans, who  were  accustomed  then  as  now  to  live  almost  wholly  on  their  polenta 
and  on  vegetables.  Fevers  broke  out  amongst  them,  and  were  very  fatal ;  but 
Hiero  again  came  to  their  assistance,  and  supplied  them  with  corn.  But  no  prog- 
ress was  made  with  the  siege,  when  the  following  summer  brought  the  new  con- 
sul, P.  Claudius,  to  Sicily  to  take  the  command. 

P.  Claudius  was  the  son  of  Appius  Claudius,  the  famous  censor,  and  he  inher- 
ited, even  in  over  measure,  the  pride  and  overbearing  temper  of 


A.U.C.  505.  A.C.249. 


.,  _          ,      ..  ...       .     ... 

his  family.     He  loudly  reproached  the  former  consuls  for  their  mac-  P.  cimuiiu.  takes  th« 

1/  •*•  - 


command  at  Lilvbreura 


.     .          ,n,  i  i    .     .       ••  i       ,    ,-,          ,  .       .     ,.  ...  comman    a        vreura 

tivity  ,     and  complaminq;  that  the  discipline  of  the  army  was  gone  Hesaiuto  attack  A<I. 

•'.         ,  •       j      i  *!•  n  j          i  •  herbrtl    nt    Drepanum. 

to  rum,  he  exercised  the  greatest  seventies  on  all  under  his  com-  HW  obstinacy  and  Pn>- 


mand,  whether  Romans  or  Italians.  He  renewed  with  equal  ill-suc- 
cess the  attempt  to  block  up  the  entrance  to  the  harbor,  and  being  impatient  to  dis- 
tinguish himself,  he  no  sooner  received  a  reinforcement  of  10,000  seamen  from 
Rome  than  he  resolved  to  put  to  sea  and  attack  Adherbal,  who  was  lying  with  the 
Carthaginian  fleet  in  the  harbor  of  Drepanum.  It  seems  that  his  own  officers104 
foreboded  the  failure  of  his  attempt,  but  none  could  hope  to  move  a  Claudius  from 
his  purpose.  The  consul's  pride  disdained  alike  the  warnings  of  gods  and  men  ; 
as  he  was  going  to  sail  it  was  reported  to  him  that  the  omens  were  unfavorable, 
for  the  sacred  chickens  refused  to  eat.  "  Then  they  shall  drink,"  was  Claudius' 
answer,  and  he  ordered  them  immediately  to  be  thrown  into  the  sea. 

Adherbal  did  not  expect  the  attack  ;105  but  so  great  was  his  promptitude,  that  on 
the  first  sight  of  the  enemy  he  manned  all  his  ships  with  his  sea-  Bftttle  of  Drepamim. 
men  and  soldiers,  and  keeping  close  under  the  land,  stood  out  of  baTaovcrtotLof  Roman 
the  harbor  while  the  enemy  were  actually  entering  it.  Claudius,  fleet  uuder  p-  CInudiua- 
confounded  at  this,  ordered  his  ships  to  put  about  and  stand  out  to  sea  again. 
Some  ran  foul  of  each  other  in  doing  this,  but  at  last  he  got  clear  of  the  harbor 


nearest  to  the  extreme  point  of  Cape  Boeo,  but  102  Kpcwpopovvrcs  p6vov    eh  rfiv    v6<rov 

whether  the  line  of  towers  looking  towards  Af-  Diodorus,   Fragm.  Hoeschel.  XXIV.  1.     We 

rica  followed  the  line  of  the  coast,  so  that  to  may  compare  the  distress  of  Csesar's  soldiers  on 

bring  them  into  a  line  with  the  "tower  on  the  the  coast  of  Epirus,  when,  although  they  had 

sea  side,"  a  vessel  must  advance  in  a  course  meat  in  plenty,  yet  they  wanted  corn,  and  no- 

nearly  s.  E.,  or  whether  they  ran  due  eastward  thing  could  make  up  to  them  for  the  loss  of 

from  Cape  Boeo,  in  the  direction  of  the  modern  their  bread.     Caesar,  JBell.  Civil.  III.  40. 

Marsala,  and  therefore  did  not  follow  the  line  of  °3  Diodorus,   Fragm.   de  Virtut.    et  Vitiis, 

the  coast,  can  hardly  be  ascertained  without  a  fur-  XXIV.   Fragm.  Hoeschel.  XXIV.  1.   PolyLius, 

ther  and  more  careful  examination  of  the  ground.  I.  49. 

w  Poiybius,  I.  45.  1M  Cicero  de  Nat.  Deor.  II.  3.    Valei.  Maxim. 

99  Diodorus,  Fragm.  Hoeschel.  XXIV.  1.  I.  4,  §  3. 

1  Poiybius,  I.  48.  106  Poiybius,  I.  49-51.   Orosius,  IV.  10.   Dio- 

n  Diodorus,   Fragm.    Hoeschel.    XXIV.  1.  dorus,  Fragm.  Hoeschel.  XXIV.  1. 
Pol?  bias,  I.  49. 


442  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XL 

and  formed  his  fleet  under  the  land,  with  the  ships'  heads  turned  to  the  sea. 
Adherbal,  who  had  brought  his  own  fleet  safely  into  the  open  sea,  now  formed 
his  line  of  battle  and  attacked  the  Romans.  We  hear  no  more  of  Duilius*  bridges 
for  boarding ;  whether  the  Carthaginians  had  discovered  some  means  of  baffling 
them,  or  whether  the  practised  soldiers  now  on  board  the  Carthaginian  ships 
rendered  such  a  contrivance  no  longer  formidable.  Adherbal's  victory  was  com- 
plete ;  Claudius  escaped  with  only  thirty  ships,  and  the  rest,  amounting  to  ninety- 
three,  were  taken ;  with  a  loss  in  men,  although  some  escaped  to  land,  of  not 
fewer  than  8000  killed  and  20,000  prisoners.  The  conquerors  did  not  lose  a 
single  ship,  and  the  number  of  their  killed  and  wounded  was  very  inconsiderable. 
They  followed  up  their  victory  with  vigor.106  Thirty  ships  sailed  to  Panormus, 
and  carried  off  from  thence  the  Roman  magazines  of  corn,  which 

The  Carthnpimans  fol-  1,1  •  /•TM-I  /-»         i      -i  •         i 

low^u^their  .ucce«  were  sent  to  supply  the  garrison  of  Lilybseum.  Carthalo  arrived 
with  seventy  ships  from  Carthage,  and  being  reinforced  by  Adher- 
bal, attacked  the  remains  of  the  Roman  fleet  which  had  been  drawn  up  on  shore 
at  Lilybaeum  under  the  protection  of  the  army,  carried  off  five  ships  and  destroyed 
others.  Meanwhile  the  other  consul,  L.  Junius  Pullus,  had  sailed  from  Rome  with 
a  large  fleet  of  ships  laden  with  corn  and  other  supplies  for  the  army  at  Lily- 
baeum, which  he  convoyed  with  a  hundred  and  twenty  ships  of  war.  Being 
himself  detained  at  Syracuse  to  wait  for  some  of  the  ships  of  his  convoy,  and  to 
collect  corn  from  some  of  the  districts  in  the  interior  of  the  island,  he  intrusted 
about  four  hundred  of  the  corn-ships  with  some  of  his  ships  of  war  to  his  quaes- 
tors, and  sent  them  on  to  Lilybeeum,  where  the  want  of  corn  was  severely  felt. 
Carthalo  was  lying  at  Heraclea,  near  Agrigentum,  looking  out  for  the  Roman 
fleet ;  and  when  he  heard  of  their  approach  he  put  out  to  sea  to  intercept  them. 
The  quaestors  being  in  no  condition  to  fight,  fled  to  the  small  bay  of  Phintias, 
not  far  from  Ecnomus,  the  scene  of  the  great  naval  battle  seven  years  before, 
and  there  mooring  their  ships  at  the  bottom  of  the  bay,  and  mounting  the  artil- 
lery of  the  town  on  the  cliffs  on  each  side  of  them,  they  waited  for  the  enemy's 
attack.  Carthalo  was  disappointed  to  find  them  so  well  prepared,  and  as  their  re- 
sistance was  obstinate,  he  only  carried  off  a  few  of  the  corn- ships,  and  returned  to 
Heraclea,  watching  for  the  time  when  they  should  venture  to  continue  their  voyage. 
He  had  not  waited  long  when  his  look-out  ships107  announced  that  the  rear- 
Two  Roman  fleet,  are  division  of  the  Roman  fleet  under  the  consul  in  person  had  doubled 
touiiy wrecked.  Cape  Pachynus,  and  was  advancing  along  the  southern  coast  of 
Sicily.  Wishing  to  meet  these  ships  before  they  could  join  their  other  division 
in  the  bay  of  Phintias,  he  sailed  in  pursuit  of  them  with  all  speed.  The  consul 
made  for  the  shore  near  Camarina,  dreading  an  open  and  rocky  coast,  and  the 
danger  of  the  southwest  gales,  less  than  an  engagement  with  an  enemy  so  supe- 
rior. Carthalo,  not  choosing  to  attack  him  in  this  situation,  stationed  his  fleet 
off  a  headland  between  Phintias  and  Camarina,  and  there  lay,  watching  the  move- 
ments of  both  the  Roman  divisions.  Meanwhile  it  began  to  blow  hard  from  the 
south,  and  there  were  signs  of  a  coming  storm  which  were  not  lost  on  the  expe- 
rienced Carthaginian  pilots,  who  urged  Carthalo  to  run  in  time  for  shelter.  With 
great  exertions  he  got  around  Cape  Pachynus,  and  there  lay  safely  in  smooth 
water.  But  the  storm  burst  with  all  its  fury  on  the  Romans,  and  overwhelmed 
both  their  fleets  with  such  utter  destruction,  that  all  the  corn-ships,  amounting 
to  nearly  800,  and  105  ships  of  war,  were  dashed  to  pieces.  With  two  ships  of 
war  only  did  the  unfortunate  consul  arrive  at  Lilybaeum. 

These  accumulated  disasters  broke  the  resolution  of  the  Romans.     P.  Claudius 

p  ciaudiu.  ig  recalled   was  reca^e^  to  Rome,108  and  required  to  name  a  dictator,  that  he 

»rid  a  dictator  appoint-'  might  himself  be  brought  to  trial  for  misconduct.     He  named  one 

of  his  own  clerks,  M.  Claudius  Glicia,  as  if  he  delighted  to  express 

m  Diodorus,  Fragm.    Hoeschel.  XXIV.   1.        107  Diodorus,   Fragm.    Hoeschel.   XXIV.  1 
Polybius.  1.  52.  53.  Polybius,  I.  53,  54. 

«*  Livy,  Epitom.  XIX.    Zonaras,  VIII.  1£ 


_ 


•.  XL.J  TRIAL  OF  P.  CLAUDIUS.  443 

his  scorn  of  his  country  when  it  no  longer  held  him  in  honor.  The  senate  obliged 
Qlicia  to  resign  his  office  immediately,  and  appointed  by  their  own  authority,  as 
in  ancient  times,  A.  Atilius  Calatinus.  Atilius  named  L.  Metellus  his  master  of 
horse,  and  they  both  set  out  without  delay  to  take  the  command  in  Sicily. 

P.  Claudius  was  tried  before  the  people  for  his  profane  contempt  of  the  aus- 
pices ;  but,  according  to  the  most  probable  account,109  the  trial  was 
broken  off  by  a  sudden  storm,  which  if  noticed  by  any  one  present  c.'  •**•*£•  Trial  °* 
obliged  the  comitia  to  separate.  It  was  done,  in  all  likelihood,  on 
an  understanding  that  the  accused  would  by  his  own  act  satisfy  the  justice  of  the 
people  ;  and  the  Romans  at  this  period  shrank  from  shedding  noble  blood  by  the 
hands  of  the  executioner.  We  only  know  that  three  years  afterwards  P.  Clau- 
dius was  no  longer  alive  ;  for  his  sister,  being  pressed  by  the  crowa  of  spectators 
as  she  was  going  home  from  the  circus,  said  aloud  that  she  wished  her  brother 
could  come  to  life,  and  command  another  fleet,  that  he  might  make  the  streets 
less  crowded.  For  this  speech  she  was  impeached110  by  the  sediles,  and  heavily 
fined  :  and  this  trial  is  recorded  to  have  taken  place  three  years  after  the  defeat 
at  Drepanum. 

L.  Junius111  was  not  more  fortunate  than  his  colleague,  although  he  had  on 
shore  endeavored  to  make  up  for  his  disasters  at  sea,  and  had  ami  of  his  colleague,  L 
stormed  and  occupied  the  mountain  and  town  of  Eryx,  immediately  Juniu§- 
above  Drepanum.     He  too  was  tried  for  having  put  to  sea  in  defiance  of  the 
auspices,  and  finding  his  condemnation  certain  he  killed  himself. 

It  was  about  this  period  of  the  contest  that  Hamilcar  Barca,112  the  father 
of  the  great  Hannibal,  was  appointed  to  command  the  Cartha-   . 

»e  .      ~.    .,  mi        T-.  11  •  11  ,      .       A.  U.  C.  507.    A.  C, 

giman  forces  in  Sicily.     Ihe  Romans  had  resigned  the  sea  to  their  »«.   Humiicar  Bare. 

.  .      .  J    .       .         ,        .         .  ,   .  .     ...  ,  .,          i»  appointed  to  the  corn- 

enemy,  but  their  superiority  by  land  was  at  present  irresistible  ;  the  mand  in  sidiy.    H« 

f     i  iT1  i       i  •   i       i  i    o  •    •  i         •  i     •  L    *ystem  of  warfare. 

terror  of  the  elephants  had  vanished,  and  Sicily,  m  general,  is  not 
a  country  peculiarly  suited  to  the  action  of  cavalry.  It  was  Hamilcar's  object, 
which  he  pursued  steadily  to  the  end  of  his  life,  to  form  an  infantry  which  should 
be  a  match  for  the  Roman  legions ;  and  this  could  only  be  done  by  avoiding  for 
the  present  all  pitched  battles,  and  at  the  same  time  carrying  on  an  incessant 
warfare  of  posts,  in  which  his  soldiers  would  be  constantly  trained,  and  learn  to 
feel  confidence  in  their  general  and  in  each  other.  This  was  the  method  by  which 
alone  Pompey  could  have  resisted  Caesar's  veterans ;  but  Pompey,  although  he 
saw  what  was  right,  had  not  the  firmness  to  persevere  in  it,  and  Pharsalia  was 
the  reward  of  his  weakness.  Hamilcar  possessed  patience  equal  to  his  ability, 
and  his  influence  with  the  government  enabled  him  to  turn  both  to  the  best  ad- 
vantage. 

During  six  years,  therefore,  Hamilcar  made  Sicily  a  training  school  for  the 
Carthaginian  soldiers,  as  he  afterwards  made  Spain.     He  first  oc- 

.,        P  ,     .  ,,,  A.  U.  C.  507— 511.    A. 

cupied  the  summit  of  a  table-mountain  near  Panormus,  3  now  .  f  247~243;tion  „, 
called  Monte  Pellegrino,  rising  immediately  above  the  sea,  with  theSubug-moSntain°neaf 

.     .  v/v  &  .  ,     &  ',11  /•  «i       Panorama,  and  of  Eryr. 

precipitous  cliffs  on  every  side,  and  with  a  level  surface  of  consid- 
erable extent  on  the  summit,  and  abundant  springs  of  water.  A  steep  descent 
led  to  a  little  cove  where  ships  could  be  drawn  upon  the  beach  with  safety  ;1H 
and  here  he  kept  a  light  fleet  always  at  hand,  with  which  he  made  repeated 
plundering  descents  on  the  coasts  of  Italy,  while  by  land  he  was  continually 
breaking  out  and  making  inroads  into  the  territory  of  the  Roman  allies,  even  as 
far  as  the  eastern  coast  of  the  island.115  Year  after  year  the  consuls  were  em- 

09  Valer.  Maximus,  VIII.  1,  §  4.  Eosolia's  "bones  were  said  to  have  been  found 

110  A.  Gellius,  X.  6.  in  1624,  and  where  a  church  has  since  been 

111  Polybius,  I.  55.    Cicero,  de  Natur.  Deor.    built  in  her  honor. 

114  Apparently  the  small  bay  of  Mondello,  be- 
118  Polybius,  I.  56.  Hamilcar  seems  to  have  tween  Capo  di  Gallo  and  Monte  Pellegrino. 

succeeded  Carthalo.  Zonaras,  V11I.  16.  "*  A  fragment  of  Diodorous  speaks  of  Hamil 

IM  Polybius,  I.  56.  Monte  Pellegrino  is  fa-  car  as  making  war  in  the  neighborhood  of  C» 

mous  in  modern  times  for  the  cave  in  which  Sta.    tana.    Fragm.  Hoeschel.  XXIV.  2. 


444  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XL 

ployed  against  him,  but  they  never  could  gain  any  pretence  for  claiming  a  tri- 
umph. During  the  latter  part  of  this  remarkable  warfare  Hamilcar  recovered, 
and  fixed  his  head-quarters  at  the  town  of  Eryx,m  although  the  summit  of  the 
mountain  above  him  was  occupied  by  the  Romans,  and  a  Roman  army  lay  also 
below  him,  nominally  engaged  in  blockading  Drepanum.  It  appears  that  the 
Romans  still  continued  also  to  blockade  or  rather  to  be  encamped  before  Lily- 
baeum ;  but  as  the  sea  was  perfectly  open,  their  presence  produced  no  effect  on 
the  garrison. 

We  wish  in  vain  to  catch  any  glimpses  of  the  internal  state  of  Rome  after 
twenty  years  of  such  destructive  warfare.    If  the  varying  numbers 

Internal  state  of  Rome.       r     1.       n  r  01  ci       /?  T  •        »  •  TV 

Deviation  of  the  cop.  oi  the  Mbfe.  or  Livy  s  epitomes  can  be  trusted,  the  Roman  citizens 
at  the  end  of  the  war  were  fewer  by  one-sixth  part  than  they  had 
been  ten  years  before:  the  census  sank  from  297,797  to  251, 222,m  and  the  de- 
crease amongst  the  Latins  and  Italian  allies  must  have  been  at  least  equal.  We 
rind  also  that  the  As  towards  the  end  of  the  war  was  reduced  five-eighths  of  its 
original  weight ;  from  having  weighed  twelve  ounces  it  was  brought  down  to 
two  ;118  and  although  it  is  certain  that  this  reduction  was  gradual,  inasmuch  as 
Ases  of  several  intermediate  weights  are  still  in  existence,  yet  Pliny  may  be  so 
far  correct  that  the  As,  having  weighed  a  full  pound,  or  nearly  so,  down  to  the 
beginning  of  the  first  Punic  war,  was  reduced  to  two  ounces  before  the  end  of  it. 
No  rise  in  the  value  of  copper  could  possibly  have  justified  such  a  reduction, 
which  could  only  have  been  one  of  the  ordinary  tricks  of  distressed  governments  ; 
it  is  clear  also  that  the  silver  denarii  coined  a  few  years  before  must  have  van- 
ished out  of  circulation,  as  otherwise,  if  the  general  payments  of  the  government 
were  made  in  silver,  they  would  have  gained  nothing  by  the  depreciation  of  the 
copper  coinage.  Besides,  the  constant  employment  of  such  immense  armaments 
in  Sicily  must  have  drained  Italy  of  its  silver,  as  even  the  Sicilian  states,  and 
much  more  the  foreign  merchants,  who  always  gathered  in  numbers  where  war 
was  going  on  on  a  large  scale,  would  have  been  unwilling  to  take  the  Roman  cop- 
per money.  And  this  great  scarcity  of  money  would  perhaps  explain  the  very 
low  reported  prices  of  provisions  at  Rome119  on  one  or  two  occasions  during  the  war, 
if  those  prices  were  indeed  to  be  depended  on ;  for  if  the  government  did  not 
want  to  make  purchases  of  corn  for  its  armies,  a  plentiful  harvest  would  create  a 
great  glut  of  it  in  the  market :  the  actual  war,  and  the  general  jealousy  of  the 
wy?-ient  world  on  that  point,  making  it  alike  impossible  to  dispose  of  it  by  expor- 
tation. 

Twenty  years  before,  the  Roman  people,  we  are  told,  had  voted  for  engaging 
Heavy  taxation.  Foun-  ^  the  war  with  Carthage,  while  the  senate  sat  hesitating;  and  the 
eoioniesf anSVeVa^  plunder  of  Sicily,  in  the  first  campaigns,  made  them  doubtless  re- 
•ignatiouofi*n<u.  j0jce  jn  ^\ie[r  decision.  At  a  later  period,  something  was  occasion- 
ally gained  by  the  soldiers  in  the  same  way,  but  from  the  beginning  of  the  siege 
of  Lilybseum  it  ceased  altogether,  and  the  warfare  with  Hamilcar  was  as  un- 
profitable to  the  Roman  armies  as  it  was  laborious  and  dangerous.  Meanwhile 
the  taxation  must  have  been  very  heavy ;  for  the  building  of  such  large  fleets, 
though  not  to  be  measured  by  the  cost  of  our  ships  of  war,  was  still  expensive, 
and  armaments  of  a  hundred  thousand  men,  including  soldiers  and  seamen  to- 
gether, such  as  were  often  sent  out  in  the  course  of  the  war,  must  have  greatly 

110  Polybius,  1. 58.     Diodorus,  Fragm.    Hoe-  understand  the  As  before  its  depreciation,  or 

Bchel.  XXIV.  2.  rather  that  the  reckoning  was  made  according 

117  Livy,  Epitom.  XVIII.  XIX.  to  the  old  standard  and  not  the  later  and  re- 

IW  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  XXXIII.  §  44.  duced  one.   It  is  very  strange,  however,  that  in 

119  Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.  XVIII.  §  17,  quoting  the  very  winter  after  this  season  of  plenty,  the 

from  Varro,  says  that  at  the  time  of  L.  Metellus'  Komans  should  have  been  in  such  great  distress 

triumph,  the  modius  or  peck  of  corn  sold  for  for  corn  at  Lilybanim.    See  p.  441.     The  low 

a  single  As,  and  that  the  congius  of  wine,  and  prices  at  the  time  of  Metellus'  triumph  were 

twelve  pounds  of  meat,  were  sold  also  at  the  not  probably  market  prices,  but  merely  the 

Bame  price.     Some  accident  must  have  occa-  rate  at  which  he  made  distributions  of  corn  and 

lioned  these  prices,  unless  indeed  we  are  to  wine  to  the  people  in  honor  of  his  success. 


CHAP.  XL.]  INTERNAL  STATE  OF  ROME.  444 


anc 

K: 


drained  the  treasury.  To  all  this  was  to  be  added,  since  the  disasters  of  the 
Roman  fleets,  the  ravage  of  the  coast  of  Italy  by  the  enemy ;  for  Hamilcar,  from 
his  stronghold  near  Panormus,  more  than  once  put  to  sea  with  his  ships  of  war, 
and  wasted  not  only  the  Bruttian  and  Lucanian  coasts,  but  the  shores  of  the  gulf 

Salernum,  and  even  of  the  bay  of  Naples  as  far  as  Cumae.120    On  the  other  hand, 

ivate  citizens  were  allowed  to  fit  out  the  government  ships  of  war  on  their  own 
ount,121  and  some  plunder  was  thus  taken,  but  very  insufficient  to  make  up  for 
the  losses  of  the  war.  Two  or  three  colonies  were  planted,  such  as  Alsium  and  Fre- 
gense  on  the  Etruscan  coast  near  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber,  and  Brimdisium ;  but 
these  were  more  for  public  objects,  the  two  in  Etruria  being  founded  probably 
as  outposts  to  check  the  descents  of  the  Carthaginian  fleet,  than  for  the  relief 
of  the  poorer  citizens.  An  accidental  notice  in  Pliny122  informs  us  that  L.  Me- 
tellus  was  in  the  course  of  his  life  appointed  one  of  fifteen  commissioners  for 
granting  out  lands ;  a  larger  number  of  commissioners  than  we  find  on  any  other 
occasion  named  for  that  purpose.  It  would  be  important  to  fix  the  date  of  this 
appointment,  but  this  can  only  be  done  by  conjecture ;  it  could  scarcely,  however, 
have  been  as  early  as  the  great  assignation  of  lands  made  after  the  fourth  Samnite 
war,  for  that  was  twenty  years  before  Metellus  obtained  his  first  consulship ;  nor 
could  it  have  been  much  later  thin  the  period  of  Hamilcar's  warfare  in  Sicily, 
for  in  the  beginning  of  the  last  year123  of  the  war  he  was  already  pontifex  maxi- 
mus,  and  in  the  year  following  he  lost  his  sight  in  saving  the  palladium.  The 
probability  is,  therefore,  that  an  assignment  of  lands  on  the  largest  scale  took 
place  about  the  close  of  the  war,  either  to  the  poorer  citizens  generally,  or,  as 
after  the  second  Punic  war,  to  the  old  soldiers  who  had  undergone  such  hard 
and  unprofitable  service  in  Sicily. 

On  the  other  side,  Carthage  maintained  no  large  fleets  since  the  Romans  had 
laid  aside  theirs,  purposely  to  avoid  so  great  an  expense.  Hamil-  EffecU  pf  the  war  oc 
car's  army  could  not  have  been  very  large,  and  the  agriculture  Carthase- 
and  internal  trade  of  Africa  suffered  little  or  nothing  from  the  war.  But  the 
contest  was  tedious  and  wearing,  and  in  Sicily  it  was  almost  wholly  defensive, 
which  in  itself  is  apt  to  sicken  a  nation  of  continuing  it ;  nor  were  ordinary  minds 
likely  to  enter  into  the  views  of  Hamilcar,  and  await  patiently  the  result  of  his 
system  of  creating  an  effective  army.  Besides,  the  unsoundness  of  the  Cartha- 
ginian power  in  Africa  was  always  felt  in  seasons  of  pressure ;  and  at  this  very 
time  hostilities524  were  going  on  against  some  of  the  African  people,  which,  how- 
ever successful,  were  necessarily  an  expense  and  a  distraction  to  the  government. 
It  seemed,  therefore,  that  in  spite  of  Hamilcar's  ability,  the  possession  of  Lily- 
bseum  and  Drepanum  was  held  but  by  a  thread,  which  a  single  unfortunate 
event  might  sever. 

The  Roman  government  at  last,  in  the  twenty- fourth  year  of  the  war,  roused 
itself  for  one  more  decisive  effort.  But  so  exhausted  was  the  A.  u.  c.  512.  A.  c. 
treasury,  that  a  fleet  could  only  be  raised  by  a  patriotic  loan ;  that  ^  £h ^r^ZuM 
is  to  say,  one,  two,  or  three  wealthy  persons,  according  to  their  fleettosca- 
means,  advanced  money  to  build  a  quinquereme,  which  was  to  be  repaid  to  them 
in  better  times.185  In  this  way  two  hundred  ships  were  constructed ;  and  tne 
Romans  had  an  excellent  model  in  one  of  the  best  sailing  of  the  Carthaginian 
ships,  which  had  been  taken  some  years  before  off  Lilybaeum.  The  consuls  of 
the  year  were  C.  Lutatius  Catulus  and  A.  Postumius  Albinus.  Lutatius  was 
the  founder  of  the  nobility  of  his  house,  and  a  man  worthy  to  have  been  the  an- 
cestor of  that  Q.  Catulus  whose  pure  virtue  bore  the  hardest  of  trials,  the  triumph 
of  his  own  party.  Postumius  belonged  to  a  family  scarcely  second  to  the  Clau- 
dii  in  overbearing  pride  ;  and  it  was  perhaps  not  without  some  suspicion  of  hia 

1M  Polybius,  I.  56.  B*  Diodorus.   Fragm.   do  Virtut.   et  Vitiifl. 

121  Zonaraa,  VIII.  16.  XXIV.     Polybius,  I.  73. 

n  VII.  §  139.  »  Polybius,  I.  59. 
*'•  Valerius  Maximus,  1. 1,  §  2. 


446  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XL 

following  the  example  of  P.  Claudius  at  Drepanum,  that  the  pontifex  raaximus,12' 
Metellus,  forbade  him  to  take  any  foreign  command,  because,  as  he  was  flamen 
of  Mars,  his  religious  duties  required  his  constant  presence  at  Rome.  The  fleet 
therefore  was  intrusted  to  C.  Lutatius. 

The  anxiety  for  the  success  of  this  enterprise  was  naturally  greai.  On  such 
Anxiet  for  iti  .awe*  occas^ons  °niens  and  prophecies  were  never  wanting  ;  and  the  con- 
sul himself  longed  to  discover  his  future  fate,  and  wished  to  con- 
sult the  famous  lots  kept  in  the  temple  of  Fortune  at  Preeneste.187  But  the 
senate  forbade  him,  resolving  that  the  consul  of  the  Roman  people  should  go 
forth  with  no  auspices  but  those  vouchsafed  to  him  by  the  gods  of  Rome. 

The  fleet  sailed  at  an  unusual  season ;  for  if  Eutropius'  date  of  the  battle  be 
c  Lutatiui  catuiu.  ar  correct'  ^e  S^PS  must  have  left  the  Tiber  as  early  as  the  month 
cre^anum  **  ****  **  °^  February.  Lutatius,  accordingly,  found  that  the  Carthaginian 
ships  had  all  gone  back  to  Carthage128  for  the  winter,  so  that  he 
occupied  the  harbor  of  Drepanum  without  opposition,  and  began  vigorously  to 
besiege  the  town.  As  Q.  Valerius,  the  praetor,  accompanied  him  to  Sicily,  it 
is  probable  that  two  consular  armies  were  employed,  and  so  large  a  force  obliged 
Hamilcar  to  remain  quiet  in  Eryx,  and  made  it  certain  that  Drepanum  must  fall, 
unless  relieved  by  a  fleet  from  Carthage. 

Lutatius,  expecting  to  be  attacked  by  sea,129  was  indefatigable  in  exercising  his 
A  Carthaginian  fleet  is  seamen  both  in  rowing  and  in  manoeuvring,  and  he  attended  care- 
rnto^ehimomAfricato  ^u%  ^°  their  food  and  manner  of  living,  that  they  might  be  in 
the  best  possible  condition.  The  Carthaginians,  on  their  part, 
equipped  a  fleet  with  all  haste,  and  appointed  Hanno  to  command  it,  an  officer 
who  had  acquired  distinction  by  his  services  against  the  Africans.  But  they 
had  lately  so  neglected  their  navy  that  their  seamen  and  soldiers  on  board  were 
alike,  for  the  most  part,  without  experience ;  and  the  ships,  besides,  were  heavily 
laden  with  provisions  and  other  stores  for  the  relief  of  Drepanum. 

Hanno  first  put  in  at  the  small  island  of  Hiera,130  which  lies  some  miles  out  to 
catuiu.  i.  anrioue  to  s^  off  the  western  point  of  Sicily.  His  hope  was  to  dash  over 
accept  them.  unperceived  to  the  coast  of  Drepanum,  to  land  his  stores,  and  to 

take  Hamilcar  and  his  veterans  on  board  from  Eryx ;  which  being  effected,  he 
would  not  fear  to  encounter  the  Romans.  This  Catulus  was  above  all  things 
anxious  to  hinder,  and  he  resolved  to  bring  on  the  action,  if  possible,  before  the 
enemy  could  communicate  with  Hamilcar.  He  had  himself  been  badly  wounded 
a  little  before  in  some  skirmish  with  the  garrison  of  Drepanum,  and  was  unable 
to  leave  his  bed  ;  but  Q.  Valerius,  the  praetor,  was  ready  to  take  the  command, 
and  kept  earnestly  watching  for  the  enemy. 

It  was  the  morning  of  the  10th  of  March  ;131  the  Roman  fleet  having  taken  on 
,  board  picked  soldiers  from  the  legions,  had  sailed  on  the  preced- 

Bnttle  of  Mgnsa  or  of.  r.  ,        .,         ,«»-,         °  /.•.».         •,  TT-  i 

lor6  ^fu!e8Ro^ani vic"  in£  evening  to  the  island  of  ^Egusa,  which  lies  between  Hiera  and 
the  Sicilian  coast,  and  had  there  spent  the  night.  When  day 
broke,  the  wind  WHS  blowing  fresh  from  the  west,  and  rolling  a  heavy  sea  in 
upon  the  land ;  the  Carthaginians  took  advantage  of  it,  hoisted  their  sails,  and 
ran  down  before  the  wind  towards  Drepanum.  The  Roman  fleet,  notwithstand- 
ing the  heavy  sea  and  the  adverse  wind,  worked  out  to  intercept  them,  and 
formed  in  line  of  battle  with  their  heads  to  windward,  cutting  off  the  enemy's 
passage.  Then  the  Carthaginians  lowered  their  masts  and  sails,  and  prepared 
of  necessity  to  fight.  But  their  heavy  ships  and  raw  seamen  and  soldiers  were 
too  unequal  to  the  contest,  and  the  fortune  of  the  day  was  soon  decided.  Fifty 
ships  were  sunk,  and  seventy  taken ;  the  rest  'fled,  and  the  wind,  happily  for 
them,  shifting  just  in  time,  they  again  hoisted  their  sails,  and  escaped  to  Hiera. 

138  Valerius  Maxim.  I.  1,  §  4.  "*  Polybius,  I.  60.  2onaras,  VIII.  17.  Valer. 

m  Cicero,  de  Divinat.  II.  41.  Maxim.  II.  8,  §  2. 

28  Polybius,  I.  59.  m  Eutropius,  II.    Polybius,  I.  60. 

09  Polybius,  I.  59,  60. 


CHA 


to 

Ri 
.     i 


p.  XL.]  CONCLUSION.  447 

To  continue  the  war  was  now  impossible,  and  orders  were  sent  to  Hamilcai 
negotiate  for  peace.132  Lutatius,  whose  consulship  was  on  the  The  Cftrthaginiang  gu, 
'  ';  of  expiring,  readily  received  his  overtures;  but  he  required  {^g^6-  Terms  of 

Hamilcar's  army  should  give  up  their  arms,  and  all  the  Ro- 
an deserters  who  had  fled  to  them,  as  the  price  for  being  allowed  to  return  to 
rthage.     This  demand  was  rejected  by  Hamilcar  with  indignation:  "Never," 
e  replied,  "  would  he  surrender  to  the  Romans  the  arms  which  his  country  had 
iven  him  to  use  against  them ;"  and  he  declared  that  sooner  than  submit  to~ 
terms,  he  would  defend  Eryx  to  the  last  extremity.     Lutatius  thought  of 
lus,  and  of  the  vengeance  which  had  punished  his  abuse  of  victory,  and  he 
ithdrew  his  demand.     It  was  then  agreed,  "that  the  Carthaginians  should 
vacuate  Sicily,  and  make  no  war  upon  Hiero  or  his  allies ;  that  they  should 
lease  all  Roman  prisoners  without  ransom  ;  and  pay  to  the  Romans  in  twenty 
years  2200  Euboic  talents."     These  were  the  preliminaries,  which  were  subject 
to  the  approval  of  the  Roman  government ;  the  senate  and  people  would  not, 
however,  ratify  them,  but  sent  over  ten  commissioners  with  full  powers  to  con- 
clude a  treaty.133     These  plenipotentiaries  required  that  the  money  to  be  paid 
ould  be  increased  to  3200  talents,  and  the  term  of  years  reduced  to  ten ;  and 
they  insisted  that  the  Carthaginians  should  also  give  up  all  the  islands  between 
Sicily  and  Italy.     This  clause  was  intended  apparently  to  prevent  their  forming 
any  establishments  on  the  Lipanean  Islands,  which,  although  not  at  present  in 
.heir  power,  they  might  after  the  peace  have  attempted  to  reoccupy,  as  some 
f  them  were  uninhabited,  and  none  possibly  had  been  as  yet  formally  occupied 
y  the  Romans. 

Hamilcar  would  notfbreak  off  the  negotiation  on  such  points  as  these.     His 
views  were  now  turned  to  Spain,  a  wide  field  of  enterprise  which  Hamncar  evacuate  si- 

ight  amply  compensate  for  the  loss  of  Sicily.  And  he  wished  cily- 
to  see  his  country  relieved  from  the  burden  of  the  war  with  Rome,  and  enabled 
to  repair  and  consolidate  its  resources.  The  peace,  therefore,  was  concluded : 
Hamilcar  evacuated  Eryx,134  and  his  troops  were  embarked  at  Lilybaeum  for  Car- 
thage. But  their  unseasonable  and  bloody  rebellion  which  immediately  fol- 
lowed, and  which  for  more  than  three  years  involved  the  Carthaginians  in  a  war 
far  more  destructive  than  that  with  the  Romans,  deranged  all  his  plans,  and  de- 
layed probably  for  many  years  the  renewal  of  the  contest  between  the  two  rival 
nations. 

Such  was  the  end  of  the  first  Punic  war,  in  which,  although  the  contest  was 
long  and  wearisome,  yet  both  parties  fought  as  it  were  at  arm's  c    lnaion> 
length,  and  if  we  except  the  short  expedition  of  Regulus,  neither 
struck  a  blow  at  any  vital  part  of  his  enemy.     But  the  next  struggle  was  sure 
be  of  a  more  deadly  character,  to  be  fought,  not  so  much  for  dominion  as  for 
life  and  death.     In  this  new  contest,  the  genius  of  Hamilcar  and  of  his  son  de 
rmined  that  in  the  mortal  assault  Carthage  should  anticipate  her  rival ;  and 
Italy  for  fifteen  years  was  laid  waste  by  a  foreign  invader.     The  state  of  the 
Roman  supremacy  in  Italy,  when  it  was  exposed  to  this  searching  trial,  the  fate 
the  several  Italian  nations  under  the  Roman  dominion,  and  their  dispositions, 
whether  of  attachment  or  of  hatred,  will  form,  therefore,  the  fit  beginning  of  the 
succeeding  portion  of  this  history,  which  will  embrace  the  third  period  of  the 
Roman  commonwealth ;  the  period  of  its  foreign  conquests,  before  Rome, 

" whom  mighty  kingdoms  curtsied  to, 

Like  a  forlorn  and  desperate  castaway, 
Did  shameful  execution  on  herself." 

139  PoJyhius,  I.  62.  Diodorus,  Fragm.  Vatican.        133  Polybius,  I.  63. 
XXIV.  4.    Cornel.  Nopos  in  Hamilcar,  1.  J34  Polybius,  I.  66. 


CHAPTER  ILL 

6TAIE  OF  ITALY  AFTER  THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST— POLITICAL  RELATIONS  03 
THE  INHABITANTS,  AND  DIFFERENT  TENURES  OF  LAND— LATIN  COLONIES. 


up — fTeXSdvrEj, — Kal  vavs  Kal  "nrirovg  KOI  ntyiSrj  i~xpvoai$  ov  fiyvdfttvoi  iirtt/tyittiv  OVTE  IK  iroAt 
ra'ac  ri  //£ra/?oA»jS  TO  £id<f>opov  avrotJ,  w  Trpoarjyovro  ay,  ovr'  tK  irapaaKevtfs  roAAui  Kpciocovs  Svrts,  <?<j>a\\6 
ur.voi  6e  TO.  TrAa'w, — fjrrdpovv. — TllUCYD.  VII.  55. 


THE  first  and  second  Punic  wars  were  separated  by  an  interval  of  two-and- 
twenty  years  ;    and  the  first  Punic  war,  as  we  have  seen,  had 

Establishment     of    tlie    ..  /   CJ  •      i         r-  ,1         ,1  i  mi  j        / 


n      o        ie    ..  C  •      i         r-  ,1         ,1  i  mi  j         / 

dominion  over  lasted  for  a  period  of  exactly  the  same  duration.  The  end  of 
the  fourth  Samnite  war,  and  the  final  submission  of  the  Samnites, 
Lucanians,  and  Bruttians,  took  place1  eight  years  before  the  beginning  of  the 
contest  with  Carthage  ;  and  the  treaty  which  permanently  settled  the  relations 
of  Rome  with  the  Etrurians  was  concluded  eight  years  earlier  still.2  Thus, 
when  Hannibal,  in  the  spring  of  the  year  537,  invaded  Etruria,  few  living  Etru- 
rians had  seen  their  country  independent,  except  in  their  childhood  or  earliest 
youth  ;  and  all  who  were  still  in  the  vigor  of  manhood  had  been  born  since  it 
had  become  the  dependent  ally  of  Rome.  And  when,  after  his  victory  at  the 
lake  Thrasymenus,  he  marched  into  Samnium,  and  encouraged  the  Samnites  to  take 
up  arms  once  more  in  their  old  national  quarrel,  fifty-five  years  had  passed  since 
the  Samnites,  abandoned  by  Pyrrhus,  and  having  tried  fortune  and  hope  to  the 
uttermost,  had  submitted  to  the  consul  Sp.  Carvilius  Maximus.  So  in  Samnium, 
as  well  as  in  Etruria,  the  existing  generation  had  grown  up  in  peace  and  alliance 
with  the  Romans  ;  and  many  a  Samnite  may  have  been  enriched  by  the  plunder 
of  Sicily,  and  must  have  shared  with  the  Romans  in  the  memorable  vicissitudes 
of  the  first  Punic  war;  in  the  defeat  of  Drepanum,  and  the  disastrous  ship- 
wrecks which  followed  it  ;  in  the  five  years  of  incessant  fighting  with  Hanni- 
bal's father  at  Eryx  and  by  Panormus  ;  in  the  long  and  painful  siege  of  Lilybseum  ; 
in  the  brilliant  victory  of  S.  Metellus,  and  in  the  final  triumph  of  C.  Lutatius  at 
the  Agates.  It  is  true,  that  fifty-five  years  of  constrained  alliance  had  not  ex- 
tinguished the  old  feelings  of  hatred  and  rivalry  ;  and  the  Samnites  joined  Han- 
nibal, as  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  afterwards  they  joined  the  younger  Marius, 
against  the  same  enemy,  the  dominion  of  the  Roman  aristocracy.  But  that  their 
rising  was  not  universal,3  nor  persisted  in  with  more  desperate  resolution  ;  that 
Etruria,  with  some  doubtful  exceptions,4  offered  no  encouragement  to  the  Car- 
thaginian general  ;  that  the  fidelity  of  Picenum,  of  Umbria,  of  the  Vestinians, 
Marsians,  Pelignians,  Marrucinians,  and  Sabines  never  wavered  ;  that  the  "  Latin 
name"  remained  true  to  a  man;  and  that  even  in  Campania  the  fidelity  of  Nola 
and  of  Cuma  was  as  marked  as  the  desertion  of  Capua  ;  —  all  this  is  to  be  at- 
tributed mainly  to  the  system  of  government  which  the  Romans  had  established 
after  their  conquest  of  Italy,  and  which,  so  far  as  it  can  be  traced,  we  must 
now  proceed  to  examine  in  its  complicated  details.  Not  that  we  should  by  any 
means  regard  this  system  of  government  as  a  constitution  founded  upon  justice, 

1  In  482  A.  v.  c.  See  chap.  XXXVIII.  p.  410.  guished  himself  on  the  Roman  side,  in  an  ac- 

2  In  474  A.  TT.  c.  See  chap.  XXXVIII.  p.  401.  tion  fought  by  M.  Miuucius  against  Hannibal, 

3  The  Pentrian  Samnites,  that  is  to  say,  the  in  the  year  preceding  the  battle  of  Cannae. 
Samnites  on  the  north  of  the  Matese,  in  whose  LJvy,  XXII.  24. 

territory  yEsernia  had  formerly  been,  and  who        *  Such  as  the  alleged  disaffection  of  the  peo- 

still  held  Bovianum,  did  not  revolt  from  Rome  pie  of  Arretium  in  the  eleventh  year  of  the  sec- 

at  all.     See  Livy,  XXII.  61.     A  wealthy  Sam-  pnd  Punic  war,  which  however  displayed  itself 

uite  of  Bovianum,  Numerius  Decimius,  distill-  in  no  overt  acts.    Livy,  XXVII.  21,  24. 


the 


CHAP.  XLI]  CONDITION  OF  THE  ALLIES.  449 

and  granting  to  all  whom  it  embraced  within  its  range  the  benefits  of  equal  law. 
Its  praise  is  rather,  that  it  secured  the  Roman  dominion,  without  adopting  the 
extreme  measures  of  tyranny  ;  that  its  policy  was  admirable,  its  iniquity  and  op- 
pression not  intolerable.  And  so  small  a  portion  of  justice  has  usually  been  dealt 
to  the  mass  of  mankind,  that  their  highest  hopes  have  commonly  aspired  to 
nothing  more  than  an  escape  from  extravagant  tyranny.  If  life,  and  property, 
and  female  honor,  and  domestic,  national,  and  religious  feelings,  have  not  been 
constantly  and  capriciously  invaded  and  outraged,  lesser  evils  have  been  con< 
tentedly  endured.  Political  servitude,  a  severe  conscription,  and  a  heavy  taxa- 
tion, habitual  arrogance  on  the  part  of  the  governors,  and  occasional  outbreaks 
of  insolence  and  cruelty,  have  been  considered  no  less  incident  to  the  condition 
of  humanity,  than  the  visitations  of  poverty,  disease,  and  death.  The  dominion 
of  the  Romans  over  the  people  of  Italy,  therefore,  as  it  allowed  the  ordinary 
enjoyment  of  many  rights,  and  conferred  some  positive  advantages,  was  viewed 
by  its  subjects,  notwithstanding  its  constant  absoluteness  and  occasional  tyranny, 
as  a  condition  quite  as  likely,  if  overthrown,  to  be  changed  for  t'n-i  worse  as  for 
the  better. 

"  The  Lacedaemonians,"  says  Thucydides,5  "  maintained  their  supremacy  over 
their  allies,  by  taking  care  that  an  oligarchy  such  as  suited  their 

»   .          ill  i  i      •          -iv       t    /•  p  Aristocrntical  character 

own  interests  should  be  everywhere  their  allies  form  ot  govern-  of  jhe  Roman  •«- 
ment."     This  also  was  one  of  the  means  by  which  the  Romans 
secured  their  dominion  in  Italy.     They  universally  supported6  the  aristocratical 
party,  and  thus  made  the  principal  inhabitants  of  every  city  willing  instruments 
uphold  their  sovereignty ;  a  fact  which  alone  would  prove,  if  the  point  were 
erwise  doubtful,  that  the  constitution  of  Rome  itself,  even  since  the  passing  of 
le  Hortensian  laws,  was  much  more  an  aristocracy  than  a  democracy. 
I  have  said  that  the  Roman  dominion  in  Italy  allowed  its  subjects  the  ordinary 
enjoyment  of  many  rights,  and  conferred  on  them  some  positive  Itsadvanta  eg 
advantages.     Moreover,  it  held  out  to  them  hopes  more  or  less 
definite  of  rising  to  a  higher  political  condition  hereafter.     These  three  points  will 
give  us  the  fair  side  of  the  Roman  sovereignty,  and  they  shall  now  be  considered 
in  order. 

I.  According  to  the  general  practice  of  the  ancient  world,  the  relation  between 
Rome  and  her  Italian  subjects  was  nominally  that  of  alliance  ;  and  Ancient  righu  retained 
the  very  term  alliance  implies  something  of  distinctness  ;  for  the  uuderu- 
members  of  the  same  commonwealth  cannot  be  each  other's  allies.  Thus  it  is 
derstood  at  once,  that  most  of  the  Italian  states  retained  their  municipal  inde- 
ndence  :  they  had  their  own  magistrates  ;  they  could  pass  laws  for  their  inter- 
government  ;  and  their  ancient1  laws  of  inheritance,  and  marriage,  as  well  as 
eir  criminal  law,  were  still  preserved  in  full  force.  But  this  applies  only  to 
igle  states,  or  to  the  separate  parts  of  a  nation ;  for  every  thing  like  a  national 
uncil  or  diet  was  carefully  prohibited.  Arretium,  Perusia,  and  Volaterrse, 
ight  each  legislate  for  themselves ;  but  we  hear  no  more  of  any  general  con- 
gress of  the  Lucumones,  or  chiefs  of  the  whole  Etruscan  nation,  at  the  temple  of 
Voltumna.  Nay,  in  some  recorded  instances,8  and  probably  in  many  others  not 

5  I.  19,  76,  144.  lating  to  marriage,  till  they  obtained  the  lull 

c  In  the  second  Punic  war,  Livy  says,  "  unus  Roman  franchise  after  the  great  Italian  war  in 

velut  morbuB  invaserat  ornnes  Italise  civitates,  the  middle  of  the  seventh  century.     A.  Gellius, 

Tit  plebes  ab  optimatibus  disentirent;   senatis  IV.  4.     And  their  law  of  interest,  being  diifer- 

Romanis  faveret,  plebs  ad  Poenos  rein  traheret."  cnt  from  that  of  Rome,  enabled  Koman  credit- 

XXIV.  2.     So  it  was  at  Nola;  Livy,  XXIII.  ors  to  evade  their  own  law,  by  nominally  trans- 

15.    But  we  have  the  same  thing  already  exist-  ferring  their  debts  to  a  Latin,  who,  according  to 

ing  in  the  Samriite  wars  :  where  some  of  the  his  law,  might  exact  a  greater  rate  of  interest 

Ausonian  aristocracy  betray  their  cities  to  the  than  was  permitted  at  Rome.   Livy,  XXXV.  7 

Romans,  and   the  L'ucanian  aristocracy  is  at-  8  As  in  the  case  of  the  Latins  after  the  great 

taehcd  to  the  Roman  alliance,  while  the  popu-  Latin  war,  Livy,  VIII.  14;   of  the  Ilernicaus. 

lar  partv   favor  the   Samnites.      See  page  269  after  their  revolt,  in  the  second  Samriite  war! 

of  this  history.  Livy,  IX.  43 ;  and  of  the  Macedonians,  after  the 

1  The  Latins  retained  some  peculiar  laws  re-  battle  of  Pydna,  Livy,  XLV.  29. 

29 


450  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [Caxp.  XLI 

recorded,  the  several  states  or  districts  of  the  same  nation  were  so  isolated  from 
each  other,  that  the  citizens  of  one  could  neither  intermarry  with,  nor  inherit, 
nor  purchase  land,  from  those  of  another.  Thus  the  allies  were  left  in  possession 
of  their  municipal  independence  ;  but  all  free  national  action  amongst  them  wa? 
totally  destroyed. 

II.  Besides  the  benefits  which  the  Roman  dominion  did  not  take  away  from 

edb  its  subjects,  there  were  some  others  which  it  conferred  upon  them, 
and  which  they  could  not  have  enjoyed  without  it.  The  first  and 
greatest  of  these  was  the  extinction  of  internal  war.  From  the  Rubicon  to  the 
straits  of  Messana,  there  were  no  more  of  the  intolerable  miseries  of  a  plundering 
border  warfare,  no  more  wasting  of  lands,  driving  away  of  cattle,  burning  of 
houses,  and  carrying  off  the  inhabitants  into  slavery.  Those  cities  which  had 
survived  the  Roman  conquest,  were  thenceforward  secure  from  destruction  ;  their 
gods  would  be  still  worshipped  in  their  old  temples  ;  their  houses  were  no  longer 
liable  to  be  laid  in  ruins  by  a  victorius  enemy  ;  their  people  would  not  be  mas- 
sacred, made  slaves,  or  scattered  over  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  their  very  name 
and  memory  extinguished.  The  Americans  feel  truly  that,  whatever  may  be  the 
inconveniences  of  their  federal  union,  it  has  still  the  inestimable  advantage  of  ban- 
ishing war  from  the  whole  of  their  vast  continent  ;  and  this  blessing  vas  con- 
ferred on  ancient  Italy  by  the  Roman  dominion,  and  was  so  far  even  more  valu- 
able, as  wars  between  independent  states  in  the  ancient  world  were  far  more  fre- 
quent than  now,  and  produced  a  far  greater  amount  of  human  misery. 

Again,  the  allies  of  Rome,  while  they  escaped  the  worst  miseries  of  war,  were 
enabled  by  the  great  power  of  their  confederacy  to  reap  largely  its  advantages. 
In  the  plunder  of  Sicily  the  Italian  allies  and  the  Roman  legions  shared  equally  ; 
and  after  the  fourth  Samnite  war  the  Campanians  received  as  their  share  of 
the  spoil  a  large  portion  of  the  coast9  of  the  Gulf  of  Salerno,  which  had 
formerly  belonged  to  the  Samnites.  Individuals  also  amongst  the  allied  states 
might  enjoy  the  benefits  of  an  occupation  of  the  Roman  domain  land  ;  a  privi- 
lege which  would  naturally  bind  many  of  the  wealthiest  families  throughout 
Italy  to  the  Roman  interest,  some  already  possessing  it,  and  others  hoping  to  ob- 
tain it. 

III.  With  these  actual  benefits  the  Roman  dominion  also  held  out  hopes  to  its 

subjects  of  rising  sooner  or  later  to  a  higher  political  condition. 

.utbyit. 


regu|ar  gteps  appear  to  have  keenj  that  an  allied  state  should 
first  receive  the  Roman  franchise  without  the  right  of  voting  ;  and  after  the  lapse 
of  years  these  imperfect  citizens  gradually  gained  the  full  franchise,  and  were 
either  formed  into  one  or  more  new  tribes,  or  were  admitted  into  one  of  the  tribes 
already  existing.  It  is  true  that  the  first  step  in  this  process  was  generally  an 
unwelcome  one  ;  because  it  involved,  under  ordinary  circumstances,  the  forfeiture 
of  all  municipal  independence,  and  the  entire  adoption  of  a  foreign  system  of  law. 
But  there  were  cases  in  which  it  was  stripped  of  these  degradations,  and  became, 
as  far  as  appears,  a  mere  benefit  :  such  seems  to  have  been  the  condition  of  a 
large  portion  of  the  Campanians  at  the  beginning  of  the  second  Punic  war. 
Capua  at  that  time  was,  beyond  all  doubt,  municipally  independent  :  it  had  its 
own  laws  and  magistrates,  and  its  own  domain  lands:10  yet  it  is  no  less  certain 
that  the  Campanian  aristocracy,  at  any  rate,  were  Roman  citizens  in  all  respects, 
except  in  the  right  of  suffrage."  Other  allied  states  might  expect  the  same  re- 
ward of  their  continued  fidelity  ;  and  from  this  condition  the  advance  to  the  full 
franchise  was  always  to  be  looked  for  in  the  course  of  time  ;  and  would,  in  all 
probability,  have  been  the  reward  of  Capua  itself,  had  the  Campanians  devoted 

This  appears  from  the  statement,  that  the  nites,  we  may  conclude  that  the  Campanians 

Koman  colonies  of  Salernum  and  Buxenturn,  obtained  it  as  their  share  of  the  spoil  after  the 

founded  after  the  second  Punic  war,  were  set-  third  or  fourth  Samnite  war. 

tied  on  laud  which  had  belonged  to  Capua.  10  Livy,  XXIII.  3,  foil.  XXVIII.  46. 

Livy,  XXXIV.  45.     As  the  coast  of  the  Gulf  of  "  Livy,  VIII.  14.    See  Niebuhr,  Vol.  II.  note 

Salernum  had  originally  belonged  to  the  Sam-  136. 


CHAP.  XLI.J  CONDITION  OF  THE  ALLIES.  451 

their  whole  strength  to  the  support  of  Rome  after  the  battle  of  Cannae,  instead 
of  opening  their  gates  to  Hannibal. 

Living  in  such  a  state,  with  so  much  not  taken  from  them,  with  so  much  given 
to  them,  and  with  the  hope  of  one  day  obtaining  so  much  more;  jtg<> 
and  being  further  bound  to  their  sovereigns  by  geographical  posi- 
tion in  all  cases,  and  in  most  by  something  of  an  acknowledged  affinity  in  race 
and  language,  the  Roman  allies  had  many  inducements  to  acquiesce  in  their  ac- 
tual condition,  and  to  regard  themselves  as  united  indissolubly  with  Rome, 
whether  for  better  or  for  worse.  But  they  had  also  much  to  bear ;  nor  can  we 
wonder  if  the  descendants  of  C.  Pontius,  or  Gellius  Egnatius,  or  Stimius  Statilius, 
or  of  the  Calavii  of  Capua,  should  have  thought  life  intolerable  under  the  abso- 
lute dominion  of  that  people,  against  wlrom  their  fathers  had  fought  in  equal 
rivalry.  England,  for  many  generations,  upheld  a  system  of  domestic  slavery  in 
her  colonies,  while  her  own  law  so  abhorred  it,  that  any  slave  landed  upon  Eng- 
lish ground  became  immediately  a  freeman.  What  the  four  seas  were  to  England, 
that  the  line  running  round  the  city  at  the  distance  of  a  mile  from  the  walls,  was 
to  Rome :  it  was  the  boundary  between  law  and  despotism.  Within  this  pre- 
cinct the  sentences  of  the  magistrates  were  the  sentence  of  the  law  (legititna  ju- 
dicia) ;  and  their  power  was  controlled  by  the  sacred  interposition  of  the  tribunes. 
But  without  this  limit  all  was  absolute  dominion,  imperium :  there  the  magistrate 
wielded  the  sword  with  full  sovereignty  ;  and  judicial  sentences  were  held  to 
proceed  not  from  the  law,  but  from  his  personal  power,  so  that  their  validity 
lasted  in  strictness  no  longer  than  the  duration  of  his  authority.  Even  Roman 
citizens  had  no  present  protection  from  this  tyranny  ;  they  had  only  the  resource 
of  seeking  for  redress,  afterwards  from  the  courts  of  Rome.  But  the  allies  had 
not  even  this  relief,  except  in  cases  of  extraordinary  atrocity :  for  the  imperium 
of  the  Roman  magistrates  conferred  a  plenitude  of  dominion  over  the  persons  and 
property  of  the  subjects  of  Rome  :  any  thing  might  be  done  on  the  plea  of  the 
service  of  the  Roman  people,  or  of  maintaining  the  dignity  of  its  officers ;  and 
the  least  opposition  was  held  to  be  rebellion.  Therefore,  although  barefaced 
robberies  of  private  property  were  as  yet  mostly  restrained  by  public  opinion, 
which  would  not  allow  a  magistrate  to  use  his  power  for  purposes  of  personal 
plunder ;  yet  acts  of  insolence  and  cruelty,  far  more  galling  than  any  mere  spo- 
liations of  property,  were  no  doubt  frequent  from  the  very  beginning  of  the  Ro- 
man dominion  over  Italy,  and  arose  partly  out  of  the  very  position  of  the  Roman 
officers  with  respect  to  the  allies,  and  partly  out  of  the  inherent  coarseness  and 
arrogance  of  the  Roman  national  character. 

Thus  far  we  have  considered  the  subjects  or  allies  of  Rome,  in  their  relations 
to  Rome  generally,  without  noticing  any  differences  in  their  condi-  Difference8  ;„  the  <*»- 
tior  which  distinguished  them  more  or  less  from  each  other;  in-  dition of the allies* 
deed,  in  that  distant  view  of  the  sixth  century  of  Rome,  which  is  all  that  we  are 
permitted  to  enjoy,  these  differences  are  scarcely  perceptible ;  greatly  as  they 
must  have  affected  the  internal  state  of  the  Italian  people,  yet  in  their  recorded 
outward  movements  we  see  scarcely  any  thing  but  the  equal  working  of  the  Ro- 
man power,  which  all  were  alike  obliged  to  obey.  The  treaties  which  fixed  the 
elations  of  the  several  allied  states  with  Rome,  varied  considerably  in  their  con- 
ditions. Camerinum,  in  Umbria,  and  Heraclea,  on  the  Ionian  Sea,  are  noticed  as 
ving  treated  with  the  Romans  on  almost  equal  terms  ;12  and  Etruria,  making 
ce  at  the  very  moment  when  Pyrrhus  was  advancing  victoriously  upon  Rome, 
st  surely  have  secured  more  favorable  conditions  than  could  be  obtained  by 
!  exhausted  Samnites  and  Lucanians,  when  in  utter  helplessness  they  submitted 
their  triumphant  enemy.  But  we  neither  know  what  these  differences  were, 
if  we  did,  would  the  knowledge  be  of  much  importance,  without  much  fuller 

Livy,  XXVIII.  46.    Camertcs,  quum  sequo  foedere  cum  Romania  essent.    On  Heraclea,  see 
sro  pro  Arch.  c.  4. 


452  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XL1 

information  on  the  other  points  than  we  can  now  ever  recover.  One  great  dis- 
tinction, however,  claims  the  attention  of  the  most  general  history, — that  which 
separated  all  the  other  Italian  allies  from  those  of  the  Latin  name. 

When  Mago  brought  to  Carthage  the  tidings  of  the  victory  of  Cannes,  and  told 
the  council  how,  not  only  the  Bruttians  and  Apulians,  but  even  some  of  the  Lu« 
canians  and  Samnites,  and  above  all,  the  great  city  of  Capua  itself,  had  in  conse- 
quence of  it  joined  the  Carthaginians,  the  leader  of  the  party  opposed  to  Hanni- 
bal is  represented  as  asking,  whether  a  single  people  of  the  Latin  name  had  re- 
volted, or  a  single  citizen  of  the  thirty-five  tribes  deserted  to  the  enemy  ?13  Un- 
faithfulness to  Rome  was  thought  to  be  not  more  impossible  in  her  very  citizens 
than  in  her  Latin  allies :  Samnium  and  Capua  might  revolt ;  but  the  fidelity  of 
the  Latin  name  was  never  to  be  shaken.  What,  then,  were  the  ties  which  bound 
the  two  nations  together  so  indissolubly  ? 

In  order  to  answer  this  question,  we  must  first  explain  what  was  meant  in  the 
sixth  century  of  Rome  by  the  "  Latin  name."     Now,  if  we  remem- 
ber that  almost  all  the  cities  of  ancient  Latium  were  long  since 
become  Roman,  so  that  scarcely  any  except  Tibur  and  Prseneste  could  any  longer 
be  included  under  the  name  of  allies,  we  may  wonder  how  the  Latin  name  could 
still  be  spoken  of  as  so  powerful,  or  where  could  be  found  those  eighty-five  thou- 
sand Latins,  who  were  returned  as  able  to  bear  arms  in  the  census  of  the  great 
Gaulish  war.14 

The  answer  is,  that  the  Latin  name  was  now  extended  far  beyond  its  old  geograph- 
it<  extent  ical  limits,  and  was  represented  by  a  multitude  of  flourishing  cities 

scattered  over  the  whole  of  Italy,  from  the  frontier  of  Cisalpine 
Gaul  to  the  southern  extremity  of  Apulia.  The  people  of  the  Latin  name  in  the 
sixth  century  of  Rome  were  not  the  Tiburtines  merely  and  the  Praenestines,15  but 
the  inhabitants  of  Circeii  and  Ardea  on  the  old  coast  of  Latium,  of  Cora  and 
Norba  on  the  edge  of  the  Volscian  highlands,  of  Fregellse  and  Interamna  in  the 
valley  of  the  Liris,  of  Sutrium  and  Nepete  under  the  Ciminian  hills,  of  Cales, 
Suessa  Aurunca,  and  Saticula  on  the  edge  of  the  Campanian  plain,  of  Alba  in 
the  country  of  the  Marsians,  of  JEsernia  and  Beneventum  in  the  heart  of  Sam- 
nium, of  Narnia  and  Spoletum  in  Umbria,  of  Luceria  and  Venusia  in  or  close  to 
the  frontiers  of  Apulia,  of  Hadria  and  Firmum  in  Picenum,  and  finally  of  Brun- 
disium,  far  to  the  south,  where  the  Adriatic  opens  into  the  Ionian  Sea,  and  of 
Ariminum  on  the  frontiers  of  the  Cisalpine  Gauls,  where  the  Apennines  first  leave 
the  shores  of  the  Adriatic,  and  make  room  for  the  vast  plain  of  northern  Italy.16 
All  these  states,  with  others  which  I  have  not  noticed,  formed  the  Latin  name  in 
the  sixth  century ;  not  that  they  were  Latins  in  their  origin,  or  connected  with 
the  cities  of  the  old  Latium :  on  the  contrary,  they  were  by  extraction  Romans ; 
they  were  colonies  founded  by  the  Roman  people,  and  consisting  of  Roman  citi- 
zens :  but  the  Roman  government  had  resolved,  that  in  their  political  relations 
they  should  be  considered,  not  as  Romans,  but  as  Latins ;  and  the  Roman  set- 
tlers, in  consideration  of  the  advantages  which  they  enjoyed  as  colonists,  were 
content  to  descend  politically  to  a  lower  condition  than  that  which  they  had  re- 
ceived as  their  birthright. 

The  states  of  the  Latin  name,  whether  cities  of  old  Latium  or  Roman  colonies, 
Pnviieget  belonging  to  a^  enjoyed  their  own  laws  and  municipal  government,  like  the 
other  allies ;  and  all  were,  like  the  other  allies,  subject  to  the  sov- 
ereign dominion  of  the  Romans.  They  were  also  so  much  regarded  as  foreigners, 
that  they  could  not  buy  or  inherit  land  from  Roman  citizens ;  nor  had  they 
generally  the  right  of  intermarriage  with  Romans.  But  they  had  two  peculiar 
privileges :  one,  that  any  Latin  who  left  behind  him  a  son  in  his  own  city,  to  per- 
petuate his  family  there,  might  remove  to  Rome,  and  acquire  the  Roman  fran- 
chise ;  the  other,  that  every  person  who  had  held  any  magistracy  or  distinguished 

w  Livy,  XXIII.  12.  *  Livy,  XXVII.  9,  10.    Savigny,  on  the  Jus 

M  Polybius,  II.  24.  Latii,  in  the  Philological  Museum.    I.  56. 


CHAP.  XL!.,  THE  LATIN  COLONIES.  453 

office  in  a  Latin  state,  might  become  at  once  a  Roman  citizen.  So  that  in  this 
manner  all  the  principal  families  in  the  Latin  cities  had  a  definite  prospect  assured 
to  them  of  arriving  in  time  at  the  rights  of  citizens  of  Rome. 

Yet  it  is  remarkable  that  when  twelve  of  the  Latin  colonies,  in  the  middle  ol 
the  second  Punic  war,  renounced  the  sovereignty  of  Rome,  the  Itt  relation  to  Rome 
consuls,  in  their  remonstrance  with  them,  are  represented  as  ap- 
pealing, not  to  their  peculiar  political  privileges,  but  to  their  sense  of  duty  and 
gratitude  towards  their  mother-country.  "  They  were  originally  Romans,  settled 
on  lands  conquered  by  the  Roman  arms  for  the  very  purpose  of  rearing  sons  to 
do  their  country  service ;  and  whatever  duties  children  owed  to  their  parents, 
were  owed  by  them  to  the  commonwealth  of  Rome."17  And  as  no  age  made  a 
son,  according  to  the  Roman  law,  independent  of  his  father,  but  entire  obedience 
was  ever  due  to  him,  without  any  respect  of  the  greater  or  less  benefits  which  the 
son  might  have  received  from  his  kindness,  so  the  Romans  thought  that  the  alle- 
giance of  their  colonies  was  not  to  depend  on  a  sense  of  the  advantages  which 
their  connection  with  Rome  gave  to  them,  but  was  a  plain  matter  of  duty.  When 
they  called  on  the  Campanians  not  to  desert  them  after  the  battle  of  Cannae, 
they  appealed  to  their  gratitude  for  the  boon  of  political  or  social  privileges : 
"  We  gave  you,"  they  said,  "  the  enjoyment  of  your  own  laws,  and  to  a  great 
proportion  of  your  people  we  communicated  the  rights  of  our  own  franchise."" 
How  different  is  this  language  from  the  simple  admonition  of  the  Latin  colonies, 
"  that  they  were  the  children  of  Rome,  and  should  render  to  their  parent  a  child's 
obedience !" 

Yet  the  sense  of  filial  duty  might  have  been  quickened  in  the  Latin  colonies  by 
a  recollection  of  what  they  owed  to  Rome,  and  how  much  of  their  condition  of  the  Latin 
political  existence  depended  on  her  protection.  The  colonists  of  Colonie8t 
Beneventum  and  ^Esernia,  of  Luceria  and  Spoletum,  were  not  the  only  inhabit- 
ants of  those  cities :  they  had  not  been  sent  as  settlers  into  a  wilderness,  where 
every  work  of  man  around  them  was  to  be  their  own  creation.  According  to 
the  Roman  notions  of  a  colony,  they  had  been  sent  to  occupy  cities  already  built 
and  inhabited,  to  enter  into  the  possession  of  lands  which  man's  labor  had  long 
since  made  productive.  They  were  to  be  the  masters  and  citizens  of  their  new 
city  and  its  territory,  while  the  old  inhabitants  were  to  be  their  subjects,  and 
strangers,  as  it  were,  in  their  own  land.  And  as  long  as  they  remained  true  to 
their  duties  as  Roman  colonies,  the  power  of  Rome  would  maintain  their  domin- 
ion :  but  if  Rome  no  longer  upheld  them,  there  was  no  slight  danger  of  their 
being  expelled  by  the  old  population  of  the  colony,  aided,  as  the  latter  would 
soon  be,  by  their  countrymen  in  the  neighboring  cities ;  and  Beneventum  and 
JSsernia  would  then  no  longer  be  Latin  colonies,  but  return  to  their  old  condition 
of  independent  states  of  Samnium. 

It  may  be  asked,  however,  why  the  Romans  refused  to  their  own  colonies  the 
private  rights,  at  any  rate,  of  Roman  citizens ;  and  as  in  some  instances  colonies 
of  Roman  citizens  were  founded,  why  was  not  this  made  the  general  rule,  and 
why  were  the  great  majority  of  the  colonies  obliged  to  content  themselves  with 
the  name  and  franchise  of  Latins  ?  I  do  not  believe  that  any  existing  ancient 
writer  has  answered  this  question  directly  ;  and  the  uncertain  history  of  the  early 
times  of  Rome  embarrasses  our  conjectures.  But  it  is  probable  that  colonies 
founded  during  the  equal  alliance  between  Rome  and  Latium,  such  as  Norba  and 
Ardea,  were  properly  Latin  cities,  to  which  the  Latins  sent  colonists  equally  with 
the  Romans ;  so  that  they  did  not  belong  exclusively  to  Rome.  It  is  more  dif- 
ficult to  understand  why  Sutrium  and  Nepete,  colonies  planted  on  the  Etrurian 
frontier,  and  at  a  period  when  the  old  Latin  alliance  was  virtually  at  an  end,  still 
received  the  Latin  franchise,  and  not  the  Roman ;  and  why  Gales,  and  the  other 
colonies  founded  after  the  great  Latin  war,  were  colonies,  not  of  the  Roman,  but 

*  Lhy,  XXVII.  9.  M  Livy,  XXIII.  5. 


454  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLl 

of  the  Latin  name.  We  may  suppose,  perhaps,  that  in  all  these  settlements  the 
population  of  the  colony  was  mixed  from  the  beginning — colonists  from  Latin 
cities,  some  of  which  were  always  friendly  to  Rome,  being  amongst  the  original 
settlers  ;  and  after  the  Latin  war,  we  may  conceive  that  there  were  many  Latins, 
whom,  either  as  a  reward  or  a  precaution,  the  Romans  may  have  been  glad  to 
establish  in  a  colony  out  of  their  own  country.  We  may  understand  also,  that 
as  the  Roman  colonists  were  often  taken,  not  only  from  the  class  of  poorer  citi- 
zens, but  also  from  the  freedmen,  the  government  would  be  glad  to  get  them  off 
from  the  roll  of  Roman  citizens,  which  could  only  be  done  by  their  consenting  to 
join  a  Latin  colony,  in  consideration  of  its  providing  them  with  a  grant  of  land. 
And  generally,  as  the  country  of  a  Greek  or  a  Roman  was  essentially  a  single 
city,  it  was  natural  that  men  leaving  that  city,  and  settling  in  another  at  a  dis- 
tance, should,  in  the  common  course  of  things,  cease  to  be  citizens  of  their  old 
country.  In  the  Greek  colonies  the  connection  was  broken  off  altogether :  but, 
as  this  would  have  defeated  the  very  purpose  for  which  Rome  founded  hers,  it 
was  not  entirely  severed,  but  exchanged  for  the  relation  of  subject  and  sovereign, 
or,  in  the  Roman  language,  of  child  and  parent. 

Besides  the  allies  and  the  Latin  name,  there  was  yet  a  third  class  of  Roman 
subjects,  those  who  were  Romans  in  their  private  rights,  but  not 

Subjects  of  Rome  en-    .         *.      .  ..    .       ,,  j     ,1  '     t   .          c    •     j.  •  J 

JS&Mh  Io7r  fT"  m  ™eir  P°htical,  who  possessed  the  rights  of  intermarriage,  and 
theSju°rLdictioa  of?!*-  of  inheritance,  or  purchase  of  land  by  mancipation,  connubium  and 
commercium,  but  had  no  vote  in  the  comitia,  and  were  ineligible 
to  all  public  offices  of  authority.  This  condition,  although  it  was  often  a  pre- 
paratory step  to  receiving  the  full  Roman  franchise,  was  yet  in  itself  considered 
far  inferior  to  that  of  the  allies  or  of  the  Latin  name,  inasmuch  as  it  implied  the 
complete  forfeiture  of  all  a  nation's  laws  and  institutions,  and  a  complete  adop- 
tion of  the  laws  and  customs  of  Rome.  It  was  a  natural  consequence  of  this 
state,  that  it  did  away  all  municipal  government.  A  people  thus  become  subject 
to  Rome  had  properly  no  magistrates  of  its  own  ;  such  public  officers  as  it  still 
retained  had  merely  an  honorary  office :  they  were  to  superintend  the  sacrifices, 
preside  at  festivals,  and  direct  other  matters  of  pageantry  and  ceremonial.  The 
administration  of  justice  was  vested  in  the  hands  of  a  praefect  sent  from  Rome ; 
and  districts  so  governed  were  properly  called  prefectures.  These  prsefectures 
were  probably  very  numerous  all  over  Italy;  for  the  magistrates  of  the  cities 
had  no  jurisdiction  beyond  the  city  walls ;  and  even  in  the  territories  of  the  colo- 
nies themselves  the  country  district  was  called  a  prsefecture,  although  in  these 
cases  the  prsefect  was  not  sent  from  Rome,  but  appointed  by  the  colony.  It  is 
possible  that  this  may  explain  what  otherwise  seems  so  puzzling,  the  application 
of  the  terms  praefectura  and  municipium  to  the  same  places,  and  that  too  in 
cases  where  municipium  undoubtedly  expresses  the  existence  of  a  municipal 
government,  as  at  Cumae,  Fundi,  and  Formise.19  In  these  instances  the  towns 
were  municipia,  and  had  their  own  magistrates ;  but  the  country  around  them 
may  have  been  a  prefecture  ;  and  the  preefect  was  not  appointed,  as  in  the 
colonies,  by  the  government  of  what  may  be  called  its  local  capital,  but  was  sent 
immediately  from  Rome. 

This  intermixture  of  different  kinds  of  government,  within  the  same  geographi- 
vanoui  tenu.es  of  land  ca^  ^m^8'  ™aJ  ^ea(^  us  to  consider  another  point  of  some  import- 
'  ance :  the  variety  of  the  tenures  of  land  which  the  Roman  con- 
quest had  introduced  into  every  part  of  Italy ;  so  that  in  each  separate  country, 
for  instance  in  Etruria,  Umbria,  Samnium,  or  Lucania,  as  there  were  great  differ- 
ences of  political  condition,  so  also  was  there  the  greatest  diversity  in  the  ten- 
ures of  property.  There  might  be  found  everywhere  three  sorts  of  land,- — 1st, 
Land  held  by  the  old  inhabitants,  whether  it  had  never  been  forfeited,  or,  if  for- 
feited at  the  period  of  their  conquest,  formally  restored  to  them  by  the  Roman 

18  Festus,  v.  Preefecturse. 


us  c 

r 


IAP.  XLI]  TENURES  OF  LAND.  455 

vernment ;  2dly,  Land  held  by  a  Roman  or  Latin  colony,  by  grant  from  the 

>man  people ;  and  3dly,  Land  still  held  by  the  Roman  people  as  domain,  whether 
it  was  let  or  farmed  by  the  government,  or  was  in  the  occupation  of  individuals, 

ether  Romans,  Latins,  or  Italians  of  other  nations.  We  have  no  Domesday  - 
>k  of  Italy  remaining,  which  would  enable  us  to  determine  the  relative  propor- 

>n  of  these  three  kinds  of  land  ;  but  the  amount  of  the  third  kind,  or  domain 
,  was  absolutely  enormous ;  for  the  Roman  people  retained  their  full  right 

property,  as  we  have  seen  before,  in  all  land  occupied  (possessus)  by  individ- 
whereas  a  large  proportion  of  the  manors  which  Domesday-book  records 

belonging  to  the  crown,  when  granted,  as  they  soon  were,  to  private  persons, 

tsed  to  be  domain,  and  became  to  all  intents  and  purposes  private  property. 

us  in  England,  and  in  other  countries  of  modern  Europe,  the  domain  lands 

ve  become  gradually  less  and  less  extensive  ;  but  as  at  Rome  nothing  could 
ienate  them  except  a  regular  assignation,  and  as  various  circumstances  from 
ime  to  time  added  to  their  amount,  on  the  whole  their  extent  went  on  increasing 
rather  than  diminishing ;  and  we  are  astonished  at  the  vast  proportion  of  domain 
land  belonging  to  the  commonwealth,  even  at  the  end  of  the  seventh  century,  all 
of  which  would  have  come  within  the  disposal  of  a  general  agrarian  law. 

The  later  effects  of  these  enormous  tracts  of  domain  land  are  well  known,  and 
will  require  our  notice  hereafter.  But  from  the  beginning  they 

...  ,,  ..  IT/.         /•  T      i  mi  i      i        Effecti  of  the  domain 

must  have  greatly  injured  the  spirit  and  me  of  Italy.  I  he  whole  land  on  the  .tme  oi 
spring  of  social  and  civil  activity  in  the  ancient  world  lay  in 
its  cities ;  and  domain  land  and  cities  could  not  exist  together.  Towns,  there- 
!,  which  had  been  taken  at  the  first  conquest  of  the  country,  and  their  inhabi- 
ts massacred  or  sold  for  slaves,  becoming  in  many  instances  the  domain  of 
.e  conqueror,  were  condemned  to  perpetual  desolation.  Their  old  population 
was  dispersed  or  destroyed ;  and  the  wealthy  Roman,  who  became  the  occupant 
of  their  territory,  allowed  a  large  part  of  it  perhaps  to  lie  waste,  and  settled  the 
slaves  whom  he  employed  in  cultivating  the  remainder,  rather  in  farm  buildings  or 
workhouses  in  the  country,  than  in  the  houses  of  the  old  town.  Thus  a  scanty 
and  scattered  slave  population  succeeded  in  the  place  of  those  numerous  free 
cities,  which,  small  as  they  were,  yet  well  answered  the  great  object  of  civil  so- 
ciety, in  bringing  out  at  once  the  faculties  and  affections  of  mankind ;  while  by 
Jlie  frequent  interposition  of  these  large  and  blank  districts,  the  free  towns  which 
ere  left  became  more  isolated,  and  their  resources  diminished,  because  they  too 
ad  lost  a  part  of  their  territory  to  the  conqueror.  The  larger  cities  had  in 
many  instances  become  Latin  colonies,  and  were  lost  to  their  old  nation :  and 
thus,  when  the  Samnites  joined  Hannibal,  it  was  like  the  insurrection  of  a  peas- 
try,  where  all  the  fortresses  are  in  possession  of  the  enemy.  Beneventum  and 
rina,  the  principal  cities  remaining  in  Samnium,  were  Latin  colonies,  or  in 
er  words  Roman  garrisons;  the  Samnite  towns  were  all  inconsiderable;  and 
soon  as  Hannibal's  protection  was  withdrawn,  the  first  Roman  army  which 

~.ed  the  country  recovered  them  almost  without  resistance. 
Many  questions  might  be  asked  concerning  the  state  of  Italy,  to  which  the 
ve  sketch  contains  no  answer.     Many,  indeed,  I  could  not  answer  satisfac- 
rily ;  and  the  discussion  of  doubtful  points  of  law  or  antiquities,  where  the 
eatest  men  have  been  unable  to  arrive  at  any  certain  conclusions,  seems  to  me 
to  encumber  history,  rather  than  illustrate  it.     Some  points  I  have  forborne  to 
notice  at  present,  because  their  bearing  on  the  general  course  of  the  story, is  not 
yet  manifest.    I  have  wished,  not  to  write  an  essay  on  the  condition  of  ancient  Italy 
in  the  abstract,  but  to  connect  my  notices  of  it  with  the  history  of  the  period, 
that  this  chapter  may  catch  some  portion  of  the  interest  attached  to  Hannibal's 
great  invasion;  whilst  it  may  render  the  narrative  of  that  invasion  more  intelli- 
ible,  and  may  enable  me  to  pursue  it  with  fewer  interruptions. 
Meantime  we  must  follow  the  course  of  events  abroad  and  at  home,  througl 
e  two-and-twenty  years  which  still  separate  us  from  the  beginning  of  the  ex 
dition  of  Hannibal. 


CHAPTER  ILII. 

liSNERAL  HISTORY  FEOM  THE  FIRST  TO  THE  SECOND  PUNIC  ^  AR— ILLYRIAN 
WAR-GREAT  GAULISH  INVASION-MUSTER  OF  THE  FORCES  OF  ALL  ITALY- 
DEFEAT  OF  THE  GAULS— ROMAN  INVASIONS  OF  CISALPINE  GAUL— M.  MAR- 
CELLUS  AND  C.  FLAMINIUS.  A.  U.  C.  513  TO  535,  A.  C.  241  TO  219. 

ALREADY  at  the  end  of  the  first  Punic  war  some  eminent  Romans  were  in  their 
Eminent  Romans  of  tin.  full  manhood,  whose  names  are  enduringly  associated  with  the 
p*"0*1'  events  of  the  second.  Q.  Fabius  Maximus,  the  great  dictator, 

"  who  by  his  caution  saved  the  Roman  state,"  was  consul  eight  years  after  the 
conclusion  of  the  treaty  with  Carthage ;  Q.  Fulvius  Flaccus,  the  conqueror  and 
butcher  of  Capua,  obtained  his  first  consulship  four  years  earlier,  in  the  year  517  ; 
and  M.  Claudius  Marcellus,  the  conqueror  of  Syracuse,  must  have  been  thirty 
years  old  at  the  end  of  the  first  Punic  w;r,  had  already  won  honors  by  his  per- 
sonal prowess  as  a  soldier  in  Sicily,  and  had  held  the  office  of  curule  sedile.  The 
earliest  Roman  historians,  C.  Fabius  Pictor,  and  L.  Cincius  Alimentus,  must  have 
been  at  this  time  old  enough  to  retain  some  impression  of  things  around  them ; 
Naevius,  the  earliest  known  Roman  poet,  had  served  in  the  last  war  in  Sicily ; 
Livius  Andronicus,  the  oldest  dramatist,  brought  his  first  piece  upon  the  stage 
in  the  very  year  after  the  conclusion  of  the  war.  Hannibal  him- 

A.  U.C.  513.  A.  C.  241.          **•*••  i        ,1  j  11  /•   ,1         /• 

self,  whose  genius  was  to  be  the  mover  and  controller  of  the  fu- 
ture invasion  of  Italy,  was  already  born ;  but  he  was  as  yet  an  innocent  child, 
only  six  years  old,  playing  in  his  father's  house  at  Carthage. 

The  transition  from  war  to  peace,  which  we  remember  five  or  six  and  twenty 
Bt«te  of  Rome  after  the  years  ago,  after  a  contest  of  very  nearly  the  same  length  as  the 
war-  first  Punic  war,  brought  rather  an  increase  than  an  abatement  of 

embarrassment.  A  great  stimulant  was  withdrawn ;  but  a  great  burden  re- 
mained to  be  borne ;  and  the  end  is  not  yet  manifest.  But  no  sooner  do  the 
marks  of  battles  pass  away  from  the  fields  where  they  were  fought,  than  the 
effects  even  of  an  exhausting  war  were  shaken  off  in  ancient  times  by  nations  not 
yet  fallen  into  decline ;  because  wars  in  those  days  were  not  maintained  at  the 
expense  of  posterity.  The  sole  debt  which  Rome  had  contracted  had  been 
incurred  for  the  building  of  her  last  fleet ;  and  this  could  be  paid  off  immediately 
by  the  Carthaginian  contributions.  Population  repairs  its  losses  with  wonderful 
rapidity ;  and  to  the  dominions  which  the  Romans  had  possessed  before  the  war, 
was  now  added  the  greatest  portion  of  Sicily.  Q.  Lutatius,  the  brother  and  suc- 
cessor of  the  consu  who  had  won  the  decisive  victory  of  the  ^Egaies,  passed  the 
whole  summer  of  his  consulship  in  Sicily  after  the  conclusion  of  the  peace,  and 
settled  the  future  condition  of  the  Roman  part  of  the  island.1  Sicily  was  the 
earliest  Roman  province ;  and  in  it  was  first  exhibited  that  remarkable  system  of 
provincial  government,  which  was  gradually  extended  over  so  large  a  part  of  the 
ancient  world.  The  peculiar  character  of  this  system  did  not  consist  in  the  ab- 
solute dominion  of  the  Roman  magistrates ;  for  their  power  was  no  less  uncon- 
trolled in  Italy  itself,  everywhere  beyond  the  immediate  precinct  of  Rome,  than 
it  could  be  in  the  provinces.  But  the  nations  of  Italy,  like  the  allies  of  Lace- 
daemon,  aided  the  sovereign  state  with  their  arms,  and  paid  no  tribute ;  while  the 
provinces  were  disarmed,  like  the  allies  of  Athens,  and  served  their  sovereign 
with  their  money,  and  not  with  their  men.  Hence  the  perpetual  difference  in 
Roman  law  between  land  in  Italy  and  land  in  the  provinces ;  that  the  former 

-  /.onaras,  VIII.  17. 


1> 

men 
islar 
cam 
allt 


CHAP.  XLII.J  THE  PUBLICAN!  457 

ight  be  held  by  individuals  as  their  freehold,  and  was  liable  to  no  payments  of 
the  or  land  tax  ;  while  the  property  of  the  latter  was  vested  solely  in  the  Ro- 
people.     When  we  hear  that  a  Sicilian  state  had  its  forfeited  lands  restored 
it,2  this  means  only  that  they  were  restored  subjected  to  the  sovereign  rights 
the  conqueror ;  and  therefore  they  were  still  burdened  with  the  payment  of 
hes,   as  an  acknowledgment  that  they  were  not  held  by  their  possessors  in 
ll  property. 

No  sooner  was  the  provincial  system  established  in  Sicily,  than  the  moneyed 
en  of  Rome,  the  famous  Publicani,  began  to  flock  over  to  the 

i  ,,  t  '   -I  i     ii  -i  1-1      Sources  of  wealth  open- 

nd  to  farm  the  tithes  and  the  various  other  revenues  which  e<i  to  the  &nnen  oftte 
e  in  from  a  province  to  the  Roman  people.  Then  were  opened 
all  those  sources  of  acquiring  wealth  at  the  expense  of  the  provincials,  which  rich 
or  influential  Roman  citizens  drained  so  unsparingly.  Many  Sicilian  states  were 
hindered  from  buying  land  in  each  other's  territories  ;3  but  the  Roman  could  pur- 
chase everywhere  ;  and  competition  being  thus  restricted,  he  was  enabled  to 
purchase  at  greater  advantage.  If  any  state,  or  any  individual  in  it,  had  sus- 
tained losses  which  disabled  them  from  paying  what  they  owed  to  the  government 
at  the  appointed  time,  a  wealthy  Roman  was  always  ready  to  lend  them  money ; 
and  as  the  Roman  law  of  interest  did  not  extend  to  the  ;rovinces,  he  lent  it  on 
his  own  terms,  and  availed  himself  of  the  necessities  of  the  borrower  to  the 
utmost.  Even  in  common  commercial  transactions  the  Roman  merchant  in 
the  provinces  came  into  the  market  with  great  advantages.  If  he  wished  to 
buy,  a  provincial  would  often  be  afraid  to  bid  against  him :  if  he  sold  at  a  high 
ice,  the  provincial  dealers  in  the  same  commodity  would  be  afraid  to  undersell 
m.  The  money  thus  gained  by  Roman  citizens  in  the  provinces  gave  them 
fluence  at  Rome  ;  and  this  again  made  their  friendship  or  enmity  of  importance 
to  the  Roman  provincial  governors.  Thus  they  were  armed  not  only  with  the 
general  authority  of  the  Roman  name,  but  with  the  direct  countenance  and  sup- 
port of  the  Roman  magistrates  ;  and  those  magistrates  held  the  lives  and  proper- 

of  the  provincials  at  their  absolute  disposal. 

While  the  wealthy  had  these  means  afforded  them  of  becoming  more  wealthy, 
e  end  of  a  long  war  seemed  a  fit  season  for  rewarding  the  faith-  „ 

1  .  /.      c  /.     .-,  ...  1C1I-  i      Two  new  tnbei,  raising 

.1  services  of  som-  :>f  the  poorer  citizens,  and  of  the  subjects  of  *e  number  to  tiurty- 
the  commonwealth      I  have  already  noticed  the  large  assignation 
of  lands  which  tooK  place  somewhere  about  this  period,  and  for  the  direction  of 
which  no  fewer  than  fifteen  commissioners  were  appointed.     And  the  censors  of 
the  year  513  created  two  new  tribes  of  Roman  citizens,  the  Quirinian  and  the 
Velinian,''  containing,  as  the  names  show,  the  Sabines  of  the  neighborhood  of 
Cures  and  of  the  valley  of  the  Velinus,  and  the  people  possibly  of  some  other 
fwns  and  districts  also.     These  new  tribes  raised  the  whole  number  of  tribes  to 
rty-five :    and  none  were  ever  added  afterwards.     Nearly  sixty  years  had 
ipsed   since    the   last   creation  of  two    tribes,   the  Aniensian  and  Terentine, 
jtween  the  second  and  third  Samnite  wars.     But  before  another   period  of 
[ty  years  could  elapse,  Hannibal's  invasion  had  so  changed  the  state  of  Italy 
id  of  the  Roman  people,  that  the  old  practice  was  never  again  repeated :  and 
ms  the  Roman  tribes  remained  fixed  at  the  number  of  thirty-five,  rather  from 
icident,  as  I  believe,  than  from  deliberate  design. 

But  the  remedy  in  human  affairs  is  seldom  commensurate  with  the  evil. 
Neither  the  assignation  of  lands  by  the  fifteen  commissioners,  nor 
the  grant  of  the  full  Roman  franchise  to  a  portion  of  the  Sabine 
people,  could  compensate  to  Italy  for  the  wide  destruction  of  the 
poorest  classes  of  free  citizens  occasioned  by  the  naval  losses  of  the  first  Punic 
rar.  "  The  Romans,"  says  Polybius,'  "  lost  in  battle  and  by  shipwreck,  in  the 
>urse  of  the  war,  no  fewer  than  700  quinqueremes."  They  lost  besides,  at  one 

•  Cicero  in  Verrem,  IIT.  6.  *  Livy,  Epitom.  XIX. 

»  Cicero  in  Verrem,  II.  50,  III.  40.  6  I.  63. 


i 

to 

ge 
por 

5 


458  HISTORY  OF  ROME,  [CnAp.XLII 

time,  nearly  800  corn  ships  in  the  great  storm  which  wrecked  the  two  fleets  ol 
L.  Junius,  on  the  south  coast  of  Sicily,  in  the  year  505.  Now  the  seamen,  as 
is  well  known,  were  taken  exclusively  from  the  poorest  class  of  freemen ;  from 
those  who,  in  many  instances  no  doubt,  like  the  corresponding  class  in  Greece, 
lived  only  by  their  labor;  who  in  Etruria,  especially,  and  elsewhere,  resembled 
the  Coloni,  so  well  known  from  the  law  books  of  the  latter  empire,  a  class  of  men 
humble  and  dependent,  but  not  slaves.  As  the  war  drained  this  class  more  and 
more,  it  had  at  the  same  time  supplied  the  slave  market  beyond  all  former  ex- 
ample. Nor  did  the  supply  cease  with  the  war  against  Carthage ;  for  several 
years  afterwards  we  read  of  expeditions  against  the  Ligurians,"  Sardinians,  01 
Corsicans  :6  and  every  expedition  brought  off  slaves  as  a  part  of  its  plunder. 
"  Sardinians  for  sale"7  became  a  proverb  to  express  any  thing  of  the  least  possible 
value ;  and  the  Corsicans  were  a  race  so  brutish,  according  to  the  judgment  of 
the  slave  dealers  of  the  Augustan  age,  that  they  would  fetch  only  the  smallest 
price  in  the  market.8  These  poor  wretches  therefore  would  not  pay  the  expense 
of  carrying  them  to  the  distant  markets  of  Greece  or  Asia :  they  must  be  sold 
at  home ;  and  their  purchasers  would  commonly  be  the  holders  of  large  estates 
of  domain  land,  who  employed  them  there  in  the  place  of  free  laborers.  Thus 
began  that  general  use  of  slave  labor  in  Italy,  which  in  the  course  of  a  hundred 
years  had  in  some  places  almost  extirpated  the  free  population. 

At  the  end  of  the  summer  of  513,  the  consul  Q.  Lutatius  returned  home  from 
war  with  the  Fails-  the  settlement  of  Sicily :  but  before  he  went  out  of  office  in  the 
following  spring,  both  he  and  his  colleague,  A.  Manlius,  were 
obliged  to  employ  the  whole  force  of  the  commonwealth  against  an  enemy  scarcely 
thirty  miles  distant  from  the  walls  of  Rome.  These  enemies  were  the  Falis- 
cans,  or  people  of  Falerii  :9  a  name  which  has  not  been  heard  of  in  Roman  his- 
tory for  more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  years ;  when  it  is  said  that  the  four  new 
tribes  created  after  the  recovery  of  Rome  from  the  Gauls,  in  the  year  368,  were 
composed  partly  out  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  territory  of  Falerii.  What  could 
tempt  a  single  city  to  brave  the  power  of  Rome  at  a  period  when  there  was  no 
foreign  war  to  make  a  diversion  in  its  favor,  we  know  not,  and  can  scarcely  con- 
jecture. But  the  Romans  thought  the  example  so  dangerous,  that  they  exerted 
their  whole  force  to  put  an  immediate  stop  to  it ;  and  in  six  days  the  Faliscans, 
after  a  desperate  resistance,  were  obliged  to  submit  at  discretion.  They  were 
forced  to  surrender  all  their  arms,  horses,  and  movable  property,  and  half  of 
their  domain  land  :  their  city  was  destroyed  ;  and  they  were  removed  to  another 
spot  less  strongly  situated  ;  a  condition  similar  to  that  which  had  been  imposed 
on  the  people  of  Volsinii,  four-and-twenty  years  earlier.  For  this  conquest  both 
consuls  obtained  a  triumph. 

With  the  exception  of  this  six  days'  war,  the  three  years  which  followed  the 
Employments  during  treaty  with  Carthage  were  to  Rome  a  period  of  perfect  peace, 
rear,  of  peace.  While  the  Carthaginians  in  Africa  were  struggling  for  their  exist- 
ence  against  their  revolted  subjects  and  their  rebellious  mercenary  soldiers,  the 
Roman  annals  record  nothing  but  friendly  embassies,  works  of  internal  improve- 
ment, new  festivals,  and  new  kinds  of  amusement.  Ambassadors  were  sent  to 
Ptolemy  Euergetes,  king  of  Egypt,  to  offer  him  the  aid  of  Rome  against  the  king 
of  Syria;10  but  it  was  declined  with  thanks,  as  the  war  was  already  at  an  end. 
A  carriage  road  was  made  to  the  top  of  the  Aventine  by  the  eediles,  L.  and  M. 
Publicius,  with  the  fines  which  they  had  recovered  from  persons  convicted  ot 
pasturing  their  cattle  illegally  on  the  domains  of  the  commonwealth :  with 
another  portion  of  these  same  fines  was  defrayed  the  expense  of  the  games  of 

6  Zonaras,  VIII.  18.  8  Strabo,  V.  p.  224. 

7  Sardi  venalcs.   Aurelius  Victor,  de  Vir.  111.  9  Livy,   Epitom.   XIX.     Zonaras,   VIII.  18. 
c.  LVII.  attributes  the  origin  of  this  saying  to  Polybius,  I.  65.    Eutropius,  II.  28.     Orosius, 
the  time  of  the  conquest  of  Sardinia  by  Tiberius  IV.  11. 

Gracchus.  »  Eutropius,  III.  1. 


bir 

*. 


CHAP.  XLIL]  NEW  DISPUTES.  459 

Flora,1'  now  for  the  first  time  instituted,  and  celebrated  from  henceforward  every 
year,  beginning  on  the  28th  of  April:  and  in  514,  as  I  have  already  mentioned, 
the  first  regular  drama  was  exhibited  at  Rome  by  L.  Livius  Andronicus.1*  It 
may  be  noticed  as  a  curious  coincidence,  that  the  next  year,  515,  witnessed  the 
birth  of  Q.  Ennius,  who  may  be  called  the  father  of  the  existing  poetry  of  the 

.tin  language. 

This  season  of  peace  appears  to  have  infused  a  spirit  of  unwonted  mod- 
eration and  honesty  into  the  Roman  councils.  Some  Italian  ves-  Friendly  relation  with 
sels  carrying  corn  to  the  African  rebels  were  interrupted  by  the  Cartha*e- 
Carthaginians,  and  the  crews  thrown  into  prison.13  The  Romans  sent  an  em- 
bassy to  require  their  liberation,  which  the  Carthaginians  granted;  and  this 
ready  compliance  so  gratified  the  Roman  government,  that  they  released  without 
ransom  all  the  Carthaginian  prisoners  still  left  in  their  hands,  permitted  supplies 
of  all  kinds  to  be  carried  to  Africa  for  the  use  of  the  Carthaginians,  while  they 
strictly  forbade  all  traffic  with  the  rebels ;  and  even,  it  is  said,  allowed  the  Car- 
thaginians to  levy  soldiers  in  their  dominions ;  that  is,  to  enlist,  as  they  had  been 
wont  in  times  long  past,  Lucanian,  or  Samnite,  or  Bruttian  mercenaries.  Nor 
was  this  all ;  for  when  the  mercenaries  in  Sardinia  revolted  from  Carthage,  and 
called  in  the  Romans  to  their  aid,  their  request  was  not  listened  to ;  and  when 
the  people  of  Utica,  dreading  the  vengeance  of  the  Carthaginians,  offered  to  give 
themselves  up  to  Rome,  the  Romans  rejected  this  offer  also. 

But  when  Hamilcar 's  genius  had  delivered  his  country  from  its  extreme  peril, 
when  the  rebel  mercenaries  were  destroyed,  and  when  Utica  and  Beginning  of  new  au. 
the  other  revolted  towns  and  people  of  Africa  had  been  obliged  pute9> 
to  submit  at  discretion,  when  perhaps  also  rumors  were  already  abroad  of  HamiL 
car's  intended  expedition  to  Spain,  then  the  jealousy  of  the  Romans  seems  to 
have  revived,  and  their  whole  conduct  towards  Carthage  underwent  a  total 
change.  The  mercenaries  of  Sardinia,  after  having  revolted  from  Carthage,  and 
applied  at  that  time  vainly  for  the  aid  of  the  Romans,  were  overpowered  by  the 
natives  and  obliged  to  fly  from  the  island.14  They  took  refuge  in  Italy,  and  had 
probably  never  ceased  soliciting  the  Roman  government  to  espouse  their  quarrel, 
and  take  possession  of  Sardinia  for  themselves.  But  now  the  Romans  began  to 
listen  to  them  ;  and  it  was  resolved  to  send  over  a  fleet  to  Sardinia  to  restore 
them.  The  Carthaginians  meanwhile,  having  recovered  their  dominion  in  Africa, 
were  proceeding  to  reduce  the  revolted  islands  ;  and  an  armament  was  prepared 
to  attack  Sardinia.  Then  the  Romans  complained  that  the  Carthaginians,  while 
employing  their  fleet  to  prevent  the  African  rebels  from  receiving 

r    ...      i  -r,  ,°     A.U.C.516.  A.C.23S. 

supplies  by  sea,  had  committed  many  outrages  upon  Roman  sub- 
jects sailing  to  and  from  Africa ;  that  this  had  manifested  their  hostile  feeling 
towards  Rome  ;  and  that  the  armament,  prepared  ostensibly  for  the  recovery  of 
Sardinia,  was  intended  t:  attack  Italy.  Accordingly,  the  senate  and  people 
passed  a  resolution  for  war  with  Carthage.  The  Carthaginians,  utterly  unable 
to  engage  in  a  new  contest,  offered  any  terms  for  the  sake  of  peace ;  and  the 
Romans  not  only  obliged  them  to  make  a  formal  cession  of  Sardinia,  but  required 
them  to  pay  1200  talents,  in  addition  to  the  sum  stipulated  by  the  last  treaty, 
as  a  compensation  for  the  injuries  sustained  by  the  Roman  merchants,  and  a  pen- 
alty for  their  meditated  aggression."  Hamilcar  advised  compliance  with  these 
demands ;  but  he  hastened,  no  doubt,  with  tenfold  eagerness,  the  preparations 
for  his  expedition  to  Spain. 

When  all  was  ready,  the  general  performed  a  solemn  sacrifice,  to  propitiate  the 
gods  for  the  success  of  his  enterprise.16     The  omens  were  declared  Hannibal,g  Tow 
favorable ;  Hamilcar  had  poured  the  libation  on  the  victim,  which 


11  Ovid,  Fast.  V.  279-294.    Festus,  v.  Pub-  M  Polybius,  I.  29. 

licius.  K  Polybius,  1. 88.  Appian  do  Keb.  Pun  ic.  o.  5. 

a  Cicero,  Tusc.  Quaest.  1. 1.    Brut.  18.  lfl  Polybius,  III.  11. 
M  Polybius,  I.  83. 


160  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLII 

was  duly  offered  on  the  altar,  when  on  a  sudden  he  desired  all  his  officers,  and 
the  ministers  of  the  sacrifice,  to  step  aside  to  a  little  distance,  and  then  called 
his  son  Hannibal.  Hannibal,  a  boy  of  nine  years  old,  went  up  to  his  father,  and 
Hamilcar  asked  him  kindly,  if  he  would  like  to  go  with  him  to  the  war.  The 
boy  eagerly  caught  at  the  offer,  and  with  a  child's  earnestness  implored  his 
father  to  take  him.  Then  Hamilcar  took  him  by  the  hand,  and  led  him  up  to 
the  altar,  and  bade  him,  if  he  wished  to  follow  his  father,  lay  his  hand  upon  the 
sacrifice,  and  swear  "that  he  would  never  be  the  friend  of  the  Romans."  Han- 
nibal swore,  and  never  to  his  latest  hour  forgot  his  vow.  He  went  forth  devoted 
to  his  country's  gods  as  the  appointed  enemy  and  destroyer  of  their  enemies ; 
and  the  thought  of  his  high  calling  dwelt  ever  on  his  mind,  directing  and  con- 
centrating  the  spirit  and  enthusiasm  of  his  youth,  and  mingling  with  it  the  fore- 
cast, the  great  purposes,  and  the  deep  and  unwavering  resolution  of  the  ma- 
turest  manhood. 

This  story  of  his  solemn  vow  was  told  by  Hannibal  himself  many  years  after- 
Renewe* dilutes with  wards  to  Antiochus,  king  of  Syria;  but,  at  the  time,  it  was  heard 
by  no  other  ears  than  his  father's ;  and  when  he  sailed  with  Ha- 
milcar to  Spain,  none  knew  that  he  went  with  any  feelings  beyond  the  common 
light-hearted  curiosity  of  a  child.  But  the  Romans  viewed  Hamilcar's  expedition 
with  alarm,  and  were  probably  well  aware  that  he  would  brook  his  country's 
humiliation  only  so  long  as  he  was  unable  to  avenge  it.  More  than  once  they 
renewed  their  complaints  that  the  Carthaginians  annoyed  their  merchants  at  sea, 
and  that  they  were  intriguing  with  the  Sardinians,  to  excite  them  to  revolt  from 
Rome.  A  fresh  sum  of  money  was  paid  by  Carthage  ;  but  the  complaints  still 
continued  ;  and  the  Romans,  for  the  second  time  it  is  said,  passed  a  resolution  for 
A.  u.  c.  5i9.  A.  c.  war.  Embassy  after  embassy  was  sent  to  Rome  by  the  Cartha- 
ginian government,  to  deprecate  a  renewal  of  the  contest  ;17  and  at 
last  ten  of  the  principal  members  of  the  council  of  elders  were  appointed  ambas- 
sadors, if  perhaps  their  rank  and  dignity  might  at  once  move  the  Romans  to  pity, 
and  inspire  confidence  in  the  peaceful  intentions  of  Carthage.  Still  the  Romans 
were  for  a  long  time  inexorable  ;  till  Hanno,  the  youngest  of  the  ambassadors, 
and,  if  he  was,  as  is  probable,  the  famous  opponent  of  Hannibal,  himself  sincerely 
inclined  to  maintain  the  peace,  remonstrated  with  the  senate  plainly  and  boldly. 
"If  you  will  not  have  peace  with  us,"  he  said,  "then  give  us  back  Sardinia  and 
Sicily  ;  for  we  yielded  them  to  you,  not  to  purchase  a  brief  truce,  but  your  last- 
ing friendship."18  Then  the  Romans  were  persuaded ;  and  the  treaty  of  peace 
was  again  renewed  and  ratified.  This  was  in  the  year  of  Rome  519,  in  the  con- 
sulship of  T.  Manlius  Torquatus  and  C.  Atilius  Bulbus.  It  was,  apparently,  to 
assure  the  Carthaginians  that  the  peace  thus  ratified  was  to  be  sincere  and  lasting, 
that  the  old  ceremony  of  shutting  the  gates  of  Janus  was  now  performed  ;19  for 
the  first  time,  it  was  said,  since  the  reign  of  King  Numa ;  for  the  last  time  also 
until  they  were  closed  by  Augustus  after  his  conquest  of  Egypt. 

But  in  this  very  year,  as  well  as  for  several  years  before  and  after  it,  the  Ro- 
A.  u.  c.  sal.  A.  c.  roan  arms  found  employment  against  barbarian  enemies  in  Sardinia, 
833.  Divers  wars.  jn  Corsica,  in  Liguria,  and  in  Cisalpine  Gaul.20  These  wars  served 
to  exercise  the  citizens  in  arms,  to  furnish  the  consuls  with  an  occasion  of  tri- 
umphs, and  to  bring  fresh  multitudes  of  slaves  into  Italy.  Q.  Fabius  Maximus, 
afterwards  so  famous,  was  consul  for  the  first  time  in  521,  and  obtained  a  tri- 
umph for  his  victories  over  the  Ligurians.21 

Twelve  years  after  the  end  of  the  first  Punic  war,  and  six  after  the  solemn  con- 
firmation of  the  treaty,  a  Roman  army  was  sent,  for  the  first  time,  across  the  Ionian 


.     Sardinia, 
Zonaras,  VIII.  28  ;  Livy,  Epit.  XX. ;  Valerius        ai  Plutarch,  Fabius,  2. 


CHAV.  XLIL]  THE  ILLYRIANS.  46} 

gulf.     More  than  forty  years  had  now  passed  since  the  death  of  The  Romans  cross  tll, 
Pyrrhus  ;  his  family  in  the  second  generation  had  become  ex-  Adriatic- 
tinct ;  and  the  Epirots  were  governing  themselves  without  a  king.     But  their 
power  had  sunk  almost  to  nothing ;  and  the  only  name  now  dreaded  in  those 
parts  was  that  of  the  Illyrians. 

The  various  tribes  of  the  Illyrian  nation  occupied  the  whole  eastern  coast  of 
the  Adriatic,  from  its  most  northern  extremity  to  its  mouth.  Their 
extent  inland  can  scarcely  be  determined :  in  the  later  Roman  ge- 
ography, the  name  of  Illyricum  was  applied  to  the  whole  country  between  Ma- 
cedonia and  the  Danube,"  while  the  early  Greek  writers  distinguished  the  Illyr- 
ians from  the  Pseonians  or  Pannonians,  and  appear  to  have  confined  the  Illyrian 
name  to  the  tract  of  country  more  or  less  narrow  where  the  streams  flow  into  the 
Adriatic.;  and  placed  other  nations,  the  Triballians,  Pseonians,  and  Thracians,  in 
the  country  beyond  the  watershed,  where  the  streams  run  northward  to  the 
Danube.  In  truth,  all  these  nations  were  probably  connected  with  each  other ; 
and  their  language,  if  it  belonged,  as  seems  likely,  to  the  Sclavonic  branch  of  the 
great  Indo- Germanic  family,  was  not  wholly  foreign  either  to  the  Hellenic,  spoken 
on  their  southern  borders,  or  to  the  various  dialects  of  Italy,  from  which  they 
are  so  little  distant  on  their  western  frontier.  The  Illyrians  on  the  Adriatic  coast, 
and  on  the  western  border  of  Upper  Macedonia,  were  held  by  the  Greeks  in 
great  respect  for  their  courage  ;  but,  like  most  barbarians,  they  loved  to  maintain 
themselves  by  plunder  instead  of  labor ;  and  the  innumerable  harbors  along  their 
coast  tempted  them  to  plunder  by  sea  rather  than  by  land.  Seventy  years  before 
this,  they  were  already  formidable  to  all  who  navigated  the  Adriatic :  but  now, 
since  the  fall  of  the  Epirot  power,  the  coast  to  the  southward  lay  unprotected ; 
and  their  vessels  made  frequent  plundering  descents,  not  only  on  Epirus,  but 
even  on  the  western  shores  of  Peloponnesus,  on  Elis,  and  on  Messenia.  This 
brought  them  more  in  the  way  of  the  merchant  ships  of  Italy,  which  were  en- 
gaged in  traffic  with  Greece  and  the  East ;  and  complaints  of  the  Illyrian  pira- 
cies had  been  frequently  brought  before  the  Roman  government.  A_  u.  c.  625.  A.  c. 
These  were  for  a  time  neglected,  but  at  last  they  became  more  229> 
numerous  and  pressing  ;  and  they  were  further  supported  by  the  people  of  the 
island  of  Issa,  a  Greek  colony,  who,  being  attacked  by  the  Illyrians,  sent  to  im- 
plore the  protection  of  the  Romans. 

The  senate  accordingly  sent,  as  was  its  custom,  three  ambassadors  to  Illyria, 
to  learn  the  state  of  the  Illyrian  power,23  and  to  find  out  what  Ambassadors  »nt  to  n- 
friends  the  Romans  would  be  likely  to  have  within  the  country  lyria  put  to  death- 
itself,  if  they  should  have  occasion  to  declare  war.  The  ambassadors  found  the 
king  of  the  Illyrians  dead  ;  and  his  widow,  Teuta,  as  the  Illyrian  law  permitted, 
was  governing  in  the  name  of  her  step-son,  Pinnes,  who  was  still  a  child.  At  the 
moment  when  the  ambassadors  arrived,  the  Illyrian  queen  was  besieging  Issa, 
and  was  highly  elated  with  the  recent  success  of  her  fleet,  which  had  returned 
loaded  with  spoil  from  a  plundering  expedition  against  Epirus.  She  was  in  nc 
mood  therefore  to  brook  the  peremptory  language  always  used  by  Roman  am- 
bassadors ;  and  one  of  the  three  so  offended  her,  that  she  sent  one  of  her  ships 
after  them  on  their  return  home,  to  seize  them.  Two  of  them  were  killed,  and 
the  third  was  brought  to  the  queen,  and  thrown  into  prison.24 

The  Romans,  without  delay,  declared  war  against  the  Illyrians,  and  both  con- 
suls, Cn.  Fulvius  Centumalus  and  L.  Postumius  Albinus,  were  Warwith 
sent  across  the  Adriatic  with  a  fleet  and  army  such  as  had  rarely 
been  seen  in  those  parts.     As  usual,  they  found  allies  within  the  country  ;  Deme- 

23  Zonaras,  VIII.  19.  Appian,  Illyr.  I.  Pliny,  XXXIV.  11,  says tha*  statues  (tripedanea) 

53  Poly  bias,  II.  8.  Dion,  Fragm.  Ursin.  CLI.  were  raised  by  the  republic  to  P.  Junius  and 

Zonaras,  VIII.  19.  Titus  Coruncancius,  who  were  killed  by  Teuta. 

84  Polybius,  II.  8,  gives  Caius  and  Lucius  queen  of  the  Illyrians.  "  Hoc  a  republica  tribiu 

i/oruncancius  as  the  names  of  the  ambassadors,  solebat  injuria  ctesis." 


462  HISTORY  OF  ROME. 

trius,  a  Greek  of  the  island  of  Pharos,  who  was  holding  Corcyra  for  the  Illyrian 
queen,  surrendered  it  at  once  to  the  Roman  fleet,25  and  guided  the  consuls  in  all 
their  subsequent  operations.  A  Roman  fleet  of  two  hundred  quinqueremes,  and 
a  regular  consular  army  of  22,000  men,  were,  as  opposed  to  the  piratical  barks 
and  robber  soldiery  of  Queen  Teuta,  like  a  giant  amongst  pigmies.  Town  after 
town,  and  tribe  after  tribe,  yielded  to  them,  and  Teuta,  having  taken  refuge  in 
Rhizon,  which  was  almost  her  last  remaining  stronghold,  was  glad  to  obtain 
peace  on  the  conqueror's  terms.  The  greater  part  of  her  former  dominion  was 
bestowed  on  Demetrius ;  she  was  to  pay  a  fixed  tribute  to  the  Romans,  and 
was  never  to  allow  more  than  two  of  her  ships  together,  and  these  not  armed 
vessels,  to  sail  to  the  south  of  the  port  of  Lissus,  the  last  place  in  the  Illyrian 
dominions.26  In  the  course  of  this  short  war,  not  only  Corcyra,  but  Apollonia 
also,  and  Epidamnus,  submitted  to  the  Romans  at  discretion,  and  received 
their  liberty,  as  was  afterwards  the  fate  of  all  Greece,  as  a  gift  from  the  Roman 
people. 

The  Illyrian  war  having  been  settled  rather  by  the  Roman  fleet  than  by  the 
Roman  embas^e.  into  army,  Cn.  Fabius,  who  had  commanded  the  fleet,  returned  home 
alone  to  obtain  a  triumph  ;  while  his  colleague,  L.  Postumius,  was 
left,  with  a  small  force  at  Corcyra.  He  sent  ambassadors  to  the  ^Etolu.ns 
and  the  Archaean  league,  to  explain  the  grounds  on  which  the  Romans  had 
crossed  the  sea,  and  to  read  the  treaty  which  had  been  concluded  with  the  Illyri- 
ans.  As  all  the  Greeks  had  suffered  from  or  dreaded  the  Illyrian  piracies,  the 
Roman  ambassadors  had  met  with  a  most  friendly  reception,  and  were  welcomed 
as  the  benefactors  of  Greece.  Soon  afterwards  the  Romans  sent  other  embas- 
sies to  Corinth  and  to  Athens,  with  no  other  object,  so  far  as  appears,  than  of  in- 
troducing themselves  to  some  of  the  most  illustrious  states  of  the  Greek  name, 
which  many  of  the  Romans  had  already  learnt  to  admire.  At  Corinth  they  re- 
ceived the  solemn  thanks  of  the  Corinthians  for  the  services  they  had  rendered 
to  the  Greek  nation ;  and  the  Romans  were  allowed  to  take  part  in  the  Isthmian 
games,  as  if  they  were  acknowledged  to  have  some  connection  with  the  Hellenian 
race.27  The  Athenians,  it  is  said,  went  further,  granted  to  the  Roman  people  the 
honorary  franchise  of  Athenian  citizens,  and  admitted  them  to  the  Eleusinian 
mysteries.  That  this  honor  was  not  despised  by  the  highest  Roman  nobility  may 
be  concluded  from  the  fact,  that  A.  Manlius  Torquatus,  who  was  censor  in  506, 
and  consul  in  509  and  512,  has  the  surname  of  4-tticus,  in  the  Capitoline  Fasti, 
a  name  borne,  so  far  as  we  know,  by  no  other  member  of  his  family,  either  before 
or  afterwards. 

Nearly  about  the  time  when  the  consuls,  Cn.  Fulvius  and  L.  Postumius.  left 
Rome  on  their  expedition  to  Illyria,  the  Romans  must  have  heard 

Death  of  Hamilcar.  ,  ...  „       .     -1    ,          .         _  TT      J  .,  ..-,  ,   .        ,»  .          .. 

the  tidings  of  the  death  01  Hamilcar.  b  rom  his  nrst  landing  in 
Spain  he  had  advanced  with  uninterrupted  success,  training  his  army  in  this  con- 
stant warfare  with  the  bravest  of  barbarians,  and  gaining  fresh  popularity  and 
influence  both  at  home  and  with  his  soldiers,  by  his  free  distribution  of  his  spoils  ; 
spoils  not  to  be  estimated  by  the  common  poverty  of  barbarians,  but  rich  in  sil- 
ver and  gold,  the  produce  of  the  still  abundant  mines  of  Spain.  In  the  ninth 
year  of  his  command  he  had  reached  the  Tagus,  when  he  was  killed  in  a  battle 
with  the  Vettonians,  a  tribe  who  dwelt  between  the  Tagus  and  the  Douro,  and 
was  succeeded  by  his  son-in-law,  Hasdrubal.28 

The  work  which  Hamilcar  had  begun  by  the  sword,  was  continued  and  consoli- 
Havirubar.    Pro-reM  dated  by  the  policy  of  his  successor.     Hasdrubal  was  one  of  those 

in    Spain.        Meu»-"  1  '     "        /• .  .      i     .  •- -  . ._  .1  ,1 


I  men  who  are  especially  fitted  to  exercise  an  ascendency  over  the 
minds  of  barbarians  f  his  personal  appearance  was  engaging  ;  he 
understood  the  habits  and  feelings  of   the  Spaniards,  and  spared  no  pains  to 


l»Uei.  by 
lo  check  h 


»  Polybius,  IT.  11.  *  Polybius,  II.  1.     Zonaras,  VIII.  19.     No- 

«  Polybius,  II.  12.  pos,  Diodor.  Eel.  lib.  XXV. 

*  Polybius,  II.  12.    Zonaras,  VIII.  19.  »  Polybius,  II.  13,  36.    Appian,  VI.  4,  6. 


CHAP.  XLIL]  THREATENED  INVASION.  4(J3 

accommodate  himself  to  them.  Thus  the  native  princes,  far  and  mar,  sought 
his  friendship,  and  were  eager  to  become  the  allies  of  Carthage ;  A.  u  c.  B-K.  A.  c. 
while  by  the  foundation  of  New  Carthage,  or  Carthagena,  a  place  228- 
possessing  one  of  the  best  harbors  in  the  Mediterranean,  and  naturally  strong  on 
the  land  side,  he  was  enabled  to  command  the  heart  of  Spain,  from  a  position 
close  at  hand,  instead  of  beginning  his  operations  from  a  distant  corner  of  the  coun- 
try, like  Gades.  The  Romans  observed  his  progress  with  no  small  alarm;  but 
their  dread  of  an  approaching  Gaulish  invasion  made  them  unwilling  to  provoke 
a  war  at  this  moment  with  Carthage.  They  endeavored  therefore  to  secure 
themselves  by  treaty,  and  concluded  a  convention  with  Hasdrubal,  by  which  he 
bound  himself  not  to  extend  his  conquests  to  the  north  of  the  Iberus  or  Ebro  30 
By  this  stipulation  the  Romans  hoped  to  keep  him  at  a  sufficient  distance,  not 
from  Italy  only,  but  from  their  old  allies,  the  people  of  Massalia,  some  of  whose 
colonies  had  been  founded  south  of  the  Pyrenees,  along  the  coast  of  what  is  now 
Catalonia.  Nor  were  they  abandoning  to  him  the  whole  country  southward  of 
the  Iberus  ;  for  they  had  lately  formed  an  alliance  with  the  Saguntines,  a  people 
partly  of  Greek,  or  at  any  rate  not  of  Spanish  extraction,  who  lived  near  the 
coast  between  the  Iberus  and  the  Sucro,  and  who,  in  their  fear  of  the  Cartha- 
ginian power,  had  put  themselves  under  the  protection  of  Rome.31  The  treaty 
concluded  with  Hamilcar,  at  the  end  of  the  first  Punic  war,  had  contained  a 
clause  forbidding  either  of  the  contracting  parties  to  molest  the  allies  of  the 
other;32  Saguntum,  therefore,  was  safe  from  attack;  and  the  Romans  hoped,  no 
doubt,  to  secure  their  footing  in  Spain  through  its  means,  and  from  thence,  so 
soon  as  the  Gaulish  war  was  over,  to  sap  the  newly  formed  dominion  of  Car- 
thage, by  offering  their  aid  to  all  the  native  tribes  who  might  wish  to  escape 
from  it. 

But  these  hopes  and  fears  for  their  dominion  in  Spain  were  overpowered  at 
present  by  a  nearer  anxiety,  the  dread  of  a  Gaulish  invasion.  The  Threatening!  of  an  in- 
Cisalpine  Gauls  had  for  the  last  ten  years  resumed  their  old  hos-  vasion  by  the  Gauls- 
tile  dispositions,  which  before  that  time  had  slumbered  for  nearly  forty-five  years, 
since  their  great  defeat  by  the  consul  Q.  ./Emilius  Papus,  two  years  before  the 
invasion  of  Pyrrhus.33  In  that  interval  they  had  seen  two  Roman  colonies  founded 
on  the  land  which  had  formerly  been  theirs ;  Sena,  immediately  after  the  war,34 
and  Ariminum,  about  fourteen  years  afterwards,  or  four  years  before  the  begin- 
ning of  the  war  with  Carthage.  But  neither  of  these  occupations  of  what  they 
must  have  considered  their  own  land,  provoked  them,  as  it  seems,  to  attack  the 
Romans  ;  and  they  remained  quiet  through  the  whole  of  the  first  Punic  war, 
when  the  Romans,  engaged  year  after  year  in  Sicily,  would  have  resisted  them 
at  the  greatest  disadvantage.  But  three  years  after  the  peace  with  Carthage, 
we  find  the  Roman  consuls  invading  the  territory  of  the  Gauls.  It  is  difficult  to 
behove  that  these  renewed  hostilities  were  wholly  owing,  as  Polybius  says,35  to 
the  innate  restlessness  of  the  Gaulish  character,  and  to  the  rising  up  of  a  new 
generation  who  had  forgotten  the  defeats  of  their  fathers.  But  tliis  new  gener- 
ation must  have  been  ready  for  war  at  least  ten  years  earlier ;  and  their  impa- 
tience would  scarcely  have  waited  so  long  only  to  break  forth  at  last  when  the 
favorable  opportunity  was  over. 

The  Cisalpine  Gauls  called  in  their  brethren  from  beyond  the  Alps  to  aid 
them;  but  these  new-comers  excited  jealousies  ;  and  on  one  occa-  prerara{\ont  of  th, 
sion  there  was  a  regular  battle  fought  between  them  and  the  Cis-  Gaulsforwiir- 
alpine  Gauls,  with  such  slaughter  on  both  sides  as  relieved  the  Romans  from  all 
present  danger.36  But  afterwards,  in  the  year  521,  when  Fcibius  Maximus  was 
for  the  first  time  consul,  an  agrarian  law  was  proposed  and  carried  by  C.  Fla- 

89  Potybius,  II.  13.    III.  27,  9.  33  A.  U.  C.  472.    Cliap.  XXXVII.  p.  890  of 

81  P'Jybius,  III.  15,  21,  30.  this  history. 

*  Polybius,  III.  21.  «  Polybius,  II.  19.  »  II.  21. 

38  Polybius,  II.  21. 


464  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLH 

minius,  one  of  the  tribunes,  for  a  general  assignation  of  the  land  between  Arimi- 
num  and  Sena,37  a  measure  which  not  only  ejected,  perhaps,  many  of  the  old 
Gaulish  inhabitants,  who  had  still  been  suffered  to  enjoy  their  former  possessions, 
but  seemed  an  earnest  of  the  intention  of  the  Romans  to  extirpate  the  Gauls  alto- 
A.  u.  c.  sag.  A.  c.  gether  from  every  portion  of  Gaulish  territory  which  the  fortune 
of  war  might  hereafter  give  them.  Accordingly,  there  was  now 
a  unanimous  cry  amongst  the  Gauls  for  war,  and  for  obtaining  the  aid  of  their 
Transalpine  countrymen.  Their  preparations  were  made  with  unusual  patience  ; 
there  was  no  premature  movement ;  but  they  endeavored  to  provide  themselves 
with  money,  of  which  they  had  none  of  their  own,  by  selling  various  commodi- 
ties, wool  and  hides,  and,  above  all,  captive  slaves,  to  merchants  who  would  pay  for 
them  in  gold  and  silver.38  Thus  they  were  enabled  to  engage  the  services  of  a 
large  body  of  Transalpine  Gaule,  whom  they  tempted  besides  with  the  prospect 
of  a  permanent  settlement  in  Italy ;  whilst  the  Romans,  knowing  full  well  that 
the  storm  was  gathering,  yet  unwilling  to  provoke  it  by  commencing  hostilities, 
were  kept  year  after  year  in  a  state  of  anxious  preparation,  till  the  invasion  at 
last,  as  it  seems,  actually  burst  upon  them  unexpectedly. 

In  this  state  of  suspense,  superstitious  terrors  possessed  men's  minds  readily. 
The  Capitol  was  struck  with  lightning,  an  unwonted  prodigy  ;  and 

Superstitious  terrors.         .1        cri      ir  11  ij.    J     •  rni         -L       1 

the  bibyllme  books  were  consulted  in  consequence.  The  books 
said,  "  When  the  lightning  shall  strike  the  Capitol  and  the  temple  of  Apollo,  then 
must  thou,  0  Roman,  beware  of  the  Gauls."39  And  another  prophecy  said  that 
a  time  should  come  "  when  the  race  of  the  Greeks  and  the  race  of  the  Gauls 
should  occupy  the  Forum  of  Rome."  It  is  characteristic  of  superstition  to  trans- 
fer to  its  idols  that  mockery  of  truth  which  itself  so  delights  in,  and  to  believe 
that  they  care  not  for  wickedness,  if  it  be  done  to  promote  their  service.  A  man 
and  woman  of  the  Gaulish  race,  with  a  Greek  man  and  woman,  were  buried  alive 
in  the  Forum  Boarium,  that  the  prophecy  might  be  fulfilled  in  word,  and  might, 
so  the  Romans  hoped,  be  proved  to  be  in  spirit  a  lie.39 

It  was  the  spring  of  the  year  529,  and  the  consuls  chosen  were  L.  ^Emilius  Papus 

and   C.  Atilius  Regulus,  son  of  that  Regulus  who  had  been  so 

-  famous  in  the  first  Punic  war.     The  Transalpine  Gauls  had  not 

yet  crossed  the  Alps  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  tidings  arrived  that  the  Sardinians, 

impatient  of  the  dominion  of  a  Roman  praetor,  to  which  they  had  now,  for  the 

first  time,  been  made  regularly  subject,  had  broken  out  into  a  general  revolt. 

Accordingly,  C.  Regulus,  with  one  consular  army,  was  sent  over  to  Sardinia  to 

put  down  the  revolt.40 

He  was  already  arrived  in  his  province,  when  the  Transalpine  Gauls,  on  the 
preparation*  for  the  first  melting  of  the  snows,  crossed  the  Alps ;  and  the  Cisalpine 
great  Gaulish  war.  Qauls,  joining  them  with  all  their  own  disposable  forces,  the  inva- 
sion of  Italy  was  no  longer  delayed.  The  alarm  was  given  at  Rome ;  and  then 
was  seen  with  what  vast  power  and  energy  the  Roman  government  could  meet 
an  emergency  of  real  danger.  The  whole  free  population  of  Italy,  of  an  age  to 
bear  arms,  was  reported  to  Rome  in  the  returns  of  the  census  of  the  several 
A.  u.  c.  527.  A.  c.  states ;  and  in  a  contest  with  barbarians  such  as  the  Gauls,  every 
state  and  every  man  could  be  depended  on ;  for  no  evil  could 
equal  the  victory  of  such  an  enemy.  Thus  knowing  the  whole  extent  of  its  re- 
sources, the  government  prepared  accordingly  its  active  armies,  and  its  armies  of 
reserve,  while  every  important  city  was  duly  provisioned,  and  provided  with 

87  Cicero,  De  Sencctute,  c.  4,  places  this  law  when  Fabius  was  consul  along  with  M'.  Porn- 

in  526,  when  Q.  Fabius,  consul  iterum,  C.  Fla-  ponius  Matho. 

minio,  quoad  potuit,  restitit,  agrum  Picentem  'M  Zonaras,  VIII.  19. 

ct  Gallicum  viritim  contra  senatus  auctoritatera  ™  See  the  fragments  of  Dion,  published  by 

dividend.     But  from  Polybius,  II.  21,  it  np-  Mai,  p.  185. 

pears  that  the  law  was  carried  into  effect  by  M.  w  Orosius,  IV.  13.   Plutarch,  Marcell.  3.   Zo- 

Lepidus,  who  was  consul  in  523;   so  that  it  naras,  VIII.  19. 

must  have  been  passed  in  the  previous  year,  40  Polybius,  II.  23.     Zonaras,  VIII.  18, 


CHAP.  XLIL]  POSITION  OF  THE  ROMAN  ARMIES.  465 


large  magazines  of  arms,  and  the  system  being  never  forgotten  of  securing 
to  act  on  the  enemy's  flank  or  rear,  the  friendship  of  the  Cenomanians  and  Vene- 
tians was  timely  obtained,  whose  country,  lying  along  the  lower  part  of  the  course 
of  the  Po,  and  on  the  shores  of  the  Adriatic,  was  in  direct  communication  with 
the  Romans  at  Ariminum,  and  commanded  the  whole  eastern  frontier  of  the  hos- 
tile Gauls,  so  as  to  threaten  their  territory  with  invasion,  as  soon  as  their  army 
should  begin  to  march  southwards.  In  fact,  this  desertion  of  the  Gaulish  cause 
by  the  Cenomanians  and  Venetians  crippled  the  invasion  at  the  very  outset  ;  for  a 
large  force  was  kept  at  home  to  cover  the  frontier,  and  the  invading  army,  ac- 
cording to  Polybius,  did  not  finally  amount  to  more  than  50,000  foot,  and  20,000 
cavalry  and  war-chariots.41 

Two  roads  led  from  Cisalpine  Gaul  into  the  heart  of  Italy  ;  the  one  by  Arimi- 
num and  Umbria,  the  other  by  Etruria.  Of  these  the  former  was  positionof  the  Roman 
covered  by  a  consular  army  of  27,000  men,  by  the  disposable  armies- 
force  of  the  Umbrians,  amounting  to  20,000  men,  and  by  the  Cenomanian  and 
Venetian  auxiliaries,  who  are  computed  at  20,000  men  more.  The  Cumbrians  and 
the  barbarian  auxiliaries  were  stationed  on  the  edge  of  the  Gaulish  frontier,  west- 
ward, probably,  of  Sarsina,  to  be  ready  to  pour  down  upon  the  Boian  country, 
near  the  modern  towns  of  Forli  and  Faenza  ;  while  the  consul,  L.  JEmilius,  was 
posted  at  some  point  in  the  direction  of  Ariminum  :  but  whether  he  was  actually 
at  Ariminum  to  defend  the  frontier,  or  in  some  position  nearer  to  Rome,  from 
whence  he  might  more  easily  co-operate  with  the  army  covering  Etruria,  the 
narrative  of  Polybius  does  not  state  clearly.42  On  the  other  line,  which  led 
through  Etruria,  there  lay  an  army  of  54,000  Sabines  and  Etruscans,  commanded 
by  a  Roman  praetor  ;  whilst  Rome  itself  was  covered  by  a  reserve  army  of  more 
than  50,000,  under  the  command,  we  may  suppose,  of  the  praetor  of  the  city.  These 
forces  were  actually  called  out  and  organized  ;  but  the  returns  of  the  population 
capable  of  bearing  arms,  and  which,  in  case  of  need,  might  recruit  and  support 
the  troops  already  in  the  field,  presented,  it  is  said,  a  sum  total,  inclusive  of  the 
soldiers  really  enlisted,  of  no  fewer  than  7oO,000.43 

The  invaders  seem  to  have  conducted  their  march  skilfully  ;  for  passing  be- 
tween the  Roman  armies,  they  descended  from  the  Apennines  A.  n.  c.  S89.  A.  c. 
into  the  valley  of  the  upper  Arno,  followed  it  down  nearly  to  SJ^2S*£*£ 
Arretium,  and  from  thence  advanced  towards  Clusium,  in  the  very  feated- 
heart  of  Etruria,  after  having  ravaged  the  whole  country  near  the  line  of  their 
march  without  any  opposition.  When  the  Roman  praetor  became  aware  that  the 
enemy  were  between  him  and  Rome,  he  put  his  army  in  motion  to  pursue  them. 
The  Gauls  met  him  and  defeated  him,  but  were  prevented  from  completing  the 
destruction  of  his  army  by  the  sudden  appearance  of  the  consul  L.  JEmilius,  who 
had  also  hastened  to  the  scene  of  action,  when  he  heard  that  the  enemy  were  in 
Etruria.44  Then  the  Gauls,  enriched,  but  at  the  same  time  encumbered,  with 
their  plunder,  and  having  been  entirely  successful  hitherto,  determined  to  carry 
off  their  prisoners  and  spoil  in  safety  to  their  own  country,  and  afterwards,  when 
their  army  was  again  fit  for  action,  to  repeat  their  invasion.  As  the  Roman 
armies  were  between  them  and  the  Apennines,  they  resolved  to  retreat  by  the 
coast  road  into  Liguria,  and  descended  into  the  valley  of  the  Ombrcne  with  that 
object.  But  when  they  had  reached  the  coast,  and  were  marching  northwards 
towards  the  mouth  of  the  Arno,  they  suddenly  encountered  a  new  enemy.  The 
consul,  C.  Regulus,  having  been  recalled  from  Sardinia;  had  just  landed  at  Pisa, 
and  was  now  on  his  march  by  the  very  same  coast  road  towards  Rome.45  The 
Gauls  were  thus  placed  between  two  enemies  ;  for  L.  ^Emilius  was  hanging  on 

f'P"1  ou;  'Avv//?a?  ,  f'Aarrowf  tx 

&C(IKIOV    Atfii\iov   .  .   .    l(alttffTtl\av    u>j    £^'     t/j  r>  MmAi'av. 
Lptlttvav.  «  Tolybius,  II.  25,  26. 

4S  Polybius,  II.  24.     Eutropius,  III.  5.      Po-        *  Poly  bias,  II.  27. 
lybius,  after  giving  this  enormous  muster,  adds, 
30 


466  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CIIAP.  LXH 

their  rear ;  and  they  were  obliged  to  engage  both  the  consular  armies  at  once. 
The  battle  was  long  and  bloody,  and  the  Romans  lost  one  of  their  consuls,  C. 
Regulus ;  but  in  the  end  they  won  a  complete  victory,  and  the  Gaulish  army 
was  almost  destroyed.46  Immediately  after  the  victory,  L.  ^Emilius  hastened  to 
invade  the  Gaulish  territory  by  the  same  road  which  the  Gauls  had  intended  to 
make  their  line  of  retreat ;  and  as  the  Gauls  were  mostly  on  their  other  frontier, 
to  oppose  the  Umbrians  and  their  barbarian  allies,  the  consul  overran  the  coun- 
try without  resistance.  He  returned  to  Rome  and  triumphed ;  and  the  golden 
chains  worn  by  the  Gauls  round  their  necks  and  arms  were  hung  up  as  a  splen- 
did monument  of  the  victory  in  the  temple  of  the  Capitoline  Jupiter.47 

This  great  success  encouraged  the  Romans  to  press  the  war  against  the  Gauls 
conquest  of  the  Bomns  ™ith  the  utmost  vigor,  in  the  hope  of  completing  their  destruction, 
ami  inaubnans.  an(j  effecting  the  conquest  of  their  country.  Trusting  to  their 

treaty  with  Hasdrubal,  they  thought  they  should  have  time  to  deal  with  their 
nearer  enemies,  before  they  turned  their  attention  seriously  to  the  affairs  of  Spain. 
Accordingly  for  the  next  three  years  both  consuls  were  each  year  employed  in 
Cisalpine  Gaul,  and  with  such  success,  that  the  Boian  Mid  Insubrian  nations, 
whose  country  stretched  from  the  Apennines  to  the  Alps  across  the  whole  plain 
of  Northern  Italy,  and  extended  from  the  neighborhood  of  Ariminum  westward 
as  far  as  the  Ticinus,  were  obliged  one  after  the  other  to  submit  at  discretion.48 

The  details  of  battles  fought  with  barbarians  are  rarely  worth  recording ;  but 

among  the  consuls  of  these  three  years  were  men  whose  personal 

fame  attracts  our  notice  ;  and  some  of  the  circumstances  connected 

with  their  military  proceedings  will  lead  us  naturally  to  a  subject  of  far  deeper 

interest,  the  political  state  of  Rome  on  the  eve  of  the  second  Punic  war. 

The  consuls  of  the  year  530,  who  succeeded  L.  JEmilius  and  C.  Regulus,  had 
both  of  them  been  consuls  before,  and  censors ;  and  in  their  censorship  they  had 
been  colleagues,  as  now  in  their  second  consulship.  These  were  T.  Manlius  Tor- 
quatus  and  Q.  Fulvius  Flaccus,  men  of  kindred  character ;  Manlius  possessing  all 
the  traditional  sternness  of  his  race,  and  Q.  Fulvius,  in  his  unyielding  and  unre- 
lenting nature,  rivalling  the  proudest  patricians  in  Rome.  They  were  made  con- 
suls together,  in  the  hope  that  the  Gaulish  war,  under  their  conduct,  would  be 
brought  to  a  speedy  conclusion ;  but  in  this  they  disappointed  their  countrymen  ; 
for  although  they  reduced  the  Boians  to  submission,  yet  they  could  do  nothing 
against  the  Insubrians,  owing  to  an  unusually  rainy  season,  which,  filling  all 
the  streams,  made  ihe  country  about  the  Po  impracticable,  and  occasioned  epi- 
A.  u.  c.  wo.  A.  c.  demic  diseases  among  the  soldiers.49  The  consuls  were  apparent- 
ly required  to  abdicate  before  the  end  of  the  year ;  for  the  old  and 
blind  L.  Metellus,  the  pontifex  maximus,  was  named  dictator,  to  hold  the  comitia  ; 
and  by  him  were  elected  the  consuls  of  the  following  year,  C.  Flaminius  Nepos 
and  P.  Furius  Philus. 

Flaminius,  as  we  have  seen,  had  been  tribune  ten  years  before,  and  had  then 
carried  an  agrarian  law  for  a  general  assignation  of  the  land  for- 
irain'^d  triumph.  fe  merly  conquered  from  the  Gauls  near  Ariminum.  It  was  perhaps 
from  some  expectation  that,  if  he  made  fresh  conquests,  he  would 
propose  a  similar  assignation  of  them,  that  the  people  elected  him  consul:  the 
senate,  on  the  other  hand,  used  their  utmost  endeavors  to  make  his  consulship 
wholly  inactive.  He  was  already  in  the  field  with  his  colleagues,  and  had  en- 
tered the  enemy's  country,  when  the  senate  sent  orders  to  both  the  consuls  to 
return  instantly  to  Rome.  Dreadful  prodigies  had  been  manifested  ;  three 
moons  had  been  seen  at  once  in  the  sky  ;  a  vulture  had  haunted  the  Forum  ;  and 
a  stream  in  Picenum  had  run  blood.51  The  augurs  declared  that  the  omens  had 

«•  Polvbius,  II.  28-31.  49  Polybius.  II.  81. 

47  Polybius,  II.  81.  "  Zonaras,  VIII.  20.     Orosius,  IV.  13. 

*  rofybiub,  II.  32-35.     Zonaras,  VIII.  19 
Orusius,  IV.  13. 


the 

I 


CHAP  XLII.]  FLAMINIUS  AND  MARCELLUS.  407 

not  been  duly  observed  at  the  election  of  the  consuls ;  they  must  therefore  be 
forthwith  recalled.  Flaminius,  guessing  the  purport  of  the  senate's  dispatches, 
and  receiving  them  when  he  was  on  the  very  eve  of  a  battle,  would  not  read 
them  till  the  action  was  over ;  and  having  gained  a  complete  victory,  he  declared, 
when  he  did  read  them,  that  the  gods  themselves  had  solved  the  AiU.  c.  531.  A.  c. 
senate's  scruples  as  to  the  lawfulness  of  his  appointment,  and  that  223> 
it  was  needless  for  him  now  to  return.  He  continued  his  operations  therefore  till 
the  end  of  the  season  with  much  success ;  he  took  a  great  many  prisoners,  and  a 
large  amount  of  plunder,  all  of  which  he  distributed  to  his  soldiers  ;  and  on  his 
return  to  Rome  he  demanded  a  triumph.  The  senate,  resenting  his  disobedience, 
refused  it ;  but  he  obtained  it,  as  the  popular  consuls  Horatius  and  Valerius  had 
done  220  years  before,  by  a  decree  of  the  comitia.52 

Flaminius  was  through  life  the  enemy  of  the  aristocratical  party ;  and  our 
accounts  of  these  times  come  from  writers  whose  feeling  was 
strongly  aristocratical.  Besides,  his  defeat  and  death  at  Thrasy- 
menus  made  the  Romans  in  general  unfriendly  to  his  memory ;  as  national  pride 
is  always  ready  to  ascribe  disasters  in  war  tc  *he  incapacity  either  of  the  general 
or  the  government.  But  Flaminius  was  a  brave  and  honest  man,  over-confident, 
it  is  true,  and  over- vehement,  but  neither  a  demagogue,  nor  a  mere  blind  parti- 
san. Like  many  others  of  the  noblest  of  the  plebeians,  he  was  impatient  of  that 
craft  of  augury,  which  he  well  knew  was  no  genuine  and  simple-hearted  super- 
stition, but  an  engine  of  aristocratical  policy  used  by  the  nobility  against  those 
whom  they  hated  or  feared.  Yet  the  time  was  not  come  when  the  people  at 
large  saw  this  equally ;  and  therefore  Flaminius  shared  the  fate,  and  incurred 
the  blame,  of  those  premature  reformers,  who,  putting  the  sickle  to  the  corn 

fore  it  is  ripe,  reap  only  mischief  to  themselves,  and  obtain  no  fruit  for  the  world. 

Flaminius  and  Furius  were  succeeded  in  the  consulship  by  M.  Claudius  Marcel- 
and  Cn.  Cornelius  Scipio.     Marcellus,  afterwards  so  famous,  A 

as  at  this  time  nearly  fifty  years  old,  and  in  his  natural  charac-  2^2.  bh/ir^urafM& 
ter  seems  greatly  to  have  resembled  Flaminius.     Like  him  he  was 
a  brave  and  hardy  soldier,  open  in  his  temper,  active  and  enterprising  in  the 
highest  degree ;    but  so  adventurous  and  imprudent,  that  even  in  old  age  he 

tained  the  thoughtlessness  of  a  boy,  and  perished  at  sixty  by  plunging  into  a 

are  which  a  stripling  mi^ht  have  expected  and  shunned.    But  he  attached  him- 

If  to  the  aristocracy,  which  Flaminius  opposed ;  and  all  his  military  successes 
met  with  their  full  share  of  honor  and  reward.  In  this  his  first  consulship  he 
encountered  Britomarus,  or  Viridomarus,  one  of  the  Gaulish  chiefs,  in  single  com- 
bat, and  slew  him  in  the  sight  of  his  army.  For  this  exploit  he  was  ranked  with 
Romulus  and  Cornelius  Cossus,  who,  like  him,  when  commanding  the  Roman 
armies,  had  slain  the  enemy's  general  with  their  own  hand  ;  and  he  offered  the 
Spolia  Opima,  or  choice  spoils,  of  the  slain  chief  to  Jupiter  Feretrius,  as  the  most 
striking  part  of  the  spectacle  of  his  splendid  triumph.53 

The  two  following  years,  533  and  534,  were  only  marked  by  wars  with  new 
barbarian  enemies  ;  the  Istrians,  whose  country  ran  out  like  a  pen-  A  n  c  533  A 
insula  into  the  Adriatic,  at  the  very  head  of  the  gulf,  to  the  east  gjj.  'gwar  with 'the 
of  the  country  of  the  Venetians,  and  the  Gaulish  or  mixed  Gaul- 
ish tribes,  which  lived  to  the  north  of  the  Insubrians,  on  the  very  roots  of  the 
Alps.  The  Istrians,  a  people  of  kindred  race  and  habits  to  the  Illyrians  of  the 
more  southern  parts  of  the  Adriatic,  were  accused  like  them  of  having  committed 
acts  of  piracy  on  the  Roman  merchant  vessels.  They  were  defeated,  but  not 
without  a  severe  loss  on  the  side  of  the  Romans.  One  of  the  consuls  employed 
against  them  was  M.  Minucius  Rufus,  so  famous  four  years  afterwards  as  master 
of  the  horse  to  the  dictator  Q.  Fabius.64 

61  Zonaras,  VIII.  20.  M  Zonaras,  VIII.  20.  Orosiu.3,  IV.  13.  Eutro- 

"  Plutarch,  Marcell.  7.  8.    Livy,  Er.it,  XX.    plus,  III.  7. 
Eutropius,  III.  6. 


468  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLI1 

The  year  of  Rome  534  was  marked  by  the  censorship  of  L.  JEmilius  Papua 
censorship  of  Fiamin-  an(l  C.  Flamimus ',  a  censorship  distinguished  by  several  memora- 
iu§-  ble  regulations  and  public  works,  and  which  throws  great  light 

on  the  character  of  Flaminius,  and  through  him  on  the  general  state  of  parties 
in  the  commonwealth.  In  the  first  place,  we  may  be  quite  certain  that  no  mere 
demagogue,  nor  any  one  who  was  considered  a  bad  or  unwise  man,  would  have 
been  elected  a  censor  at  this  period.  The  high  dignity  of  the  office  repelled  from 
it  all  but  citizens  of  the  very  first  reputation ;  nor  were  the  bravery  and  activity 
of  a  good  soldier  the  qualities  which  most  fitted  a  man  to  discharge  its  many 
important  duties.  Flaminius  had  carried  an  agrarian  law,  and  had  continued  to 
command  his  army  as  consul,  in  direct  opposition  to  the  majority  of  the  senate ; 
but  he  knew  how  to  distinguish  between  the  selfishness  and  jealousy  of  an  aris- 
tocracy, and  those  aristocratical  elements  which  are  essential  to  all  good  govern- 
ment ;  and  the  great  measure  of  his  censorship  was  a  repetition  of  the  regulation 
made  by  the  famous  censors  Q.  Fabius  Rullus  and  P.  Decius,  about  eighty  years 
before :  he  removed  all  freedmen  from  the  country  tribes,  and  enrolled  them  in 
the  four  city  tribes,  the  Palatine,  the  Esquiline,  the  Colline,  and  the  Suburran. 

A  single  line  in  the  epitome  of  Livy's  twentieth  book  contains  all  our  inforrna- 
Tranafer  of  the  freed-  tion  respecting  this  measure,  and  it  relates  the  fact  merely,  with- 
the  city  tribes.  out  a  word  of  explanation.  We  must  suppose  that  the  regulation 
of  Fabius  and  Decius  had  been  regarded  as  a  remedy  for  a  crying  evil  at  a  par- 
ticular time,  and  not  as  a  general  rule  to  be  observed  forever.  In  common 
times  the  freedman,  being  still  closely  connected  with  his  old  master,  who  was 
now  become  his  patron,  patronus,  would  be  enrolled  in  his  patron's  tribe ;  and 
this  would  seem  the  most  natural  course,  when  the  particular  case  was  con- 
sidered, without  reference  to  the  political  consequences  of  the  system,  so  soon  as 
it  was  generally  adopted.  These  consequences  would  be  to  give  political  influ- 
ence to  a  class  of  men  in  all  respects  unlike  the  old  agricultural  commons.  The 
class  of  freedmen  contained  many  rich  citizens,  and  many  poor  ones ;  but  rich 
and  poor  alike  lived  by  trade  rather  than  by  agriculture, — in  Rome,  rather  than 
in  the  country.  It  is  said  that  the  freed  negro  in  America  is  confined  by  public 
feeling  to  the  exercise  of  two  or  three  trades  or  callings  only,  and  these  humble 
ones  ;  but  the  freedman  of  the  ancient  world  labored  under  no  such  restriction. 
He  might  keep  a  little  stall  in  the  Forum,  or  he  might  be  a  merchant  trafficking 
with  Egypt  and  with  Carthage  :  or  again,  he  might  be  a  moneyed  man,  and  live 
on  the  interest  of  his  loans  ;  or  he  might  go  out  as  a  farmer  of  the  taxes  to  Sicily, 
and  acquire  an  immense  fortune  at  the  expense  of  the  province.  But  in  no  case 
were  his  habits  like  those  of  the  agricultural  citizen ;  and  Flaminius,  like  M. 
Curius,  and  P.  Decius,  and  like  C.  Marina  in  later  times,  was  an  enemy  to  every 
thing  which  might  elevate  the  mercantile  and  moneyed  classes,  and  still  more  the 
small  shopkeepers  and  low  populace  of  the  city,  above  the  proprietors  and  culti- 
vators of  the  land. 

It  was  probably  in  the  same  spirit  that  Flaminius  shortly  afterwards  supported 
BUI  to  cheek  the  the  bill  of  an  unknown  tribune,  Q.  Claudius,  which  forbade  all 
&\m0*r£™£*-  senators  and  sons  of  senators  from  being  the  owners  of  a  ship  of 
the  burden  of  more  than  300  amphorae.  The  express  object  of 
this  bill  was  to  hinder  the  Roman  aristocracy  from  becoming,  like  the  Venetian 
nobles,  a  company  of  wealthy  merchants.  The  corn  ships  which  the  Istrians 
were  accused  of  intercepting,  belonged,  no  doubt,  to  some  of  the  nobility,  and 
were  engaged  in  carrying  the  corn  grown  on  their  extensive  occupation  lands  in 
Picenum  and  the  coast  of  Umbria,  to  the  markets  of  Greece  and  Macedonia. 
Flaminius  thought  that  traffic  was  unworthy  of  the  Roman  nobility :  perhaps  he 
fancied  that  they  who  derived  their  wealth  from  foreign  trade  would  be  too  much 
afraid  of  offending  their  customers,  and  would  compromise  their  country's  honor 
for  the  sake  of  their  own  profit.  But  on  this  occasion  he  stood  alone  in  the  sen- 
ate :  neither  Q.  Fabius,  nor  T.  Manlius,  nor  M.  Marcellus,  nor  any  of  the  Atilii, 


CHAP.  XLIL]  HANNIBAL  SUCCEEDS  HASDRUBAL. 

or  Sempronn,  or  Sarvilii,  supported  him ;  but  as  the  comitia  by  the  Hortensiar 
law  enjoyed  the  supreme  legislative  power,  the  opposition  of  the  senate  was  vain, 
and  the  bill  was  passed.55 

Yet,  while  Flaminius  imitated  Fabius  and  Decius  in  their  political  regulations, 
he  rivalled  Appius  Claudius  in  the  greatness  of  his  public  works.  Pl?bjic works.  The Flv 
He  perfected  the  direct  communication  between  Rome  and  Ari-  miniaQWay- 
minum,56  the  great  road,  which,  turning  to  the  right  after  crossing  the  Milvian 
bridge,  ascended  the  valley  of  the  Tiber,  leaving  Soracte  on  its  left,  till  it  again 
joined  the  line  of  the  modern  road  where  it  recrosses  the  Tiber  and  ascends  to 
Ocriculum  ;  which  then  ascended  the  valley  of  the  Nar  to  Narnia  and  Interam- 
nia,  passed  over  the  lofty  ridge  of  the  Monte  Somma,  descended  on  the  newly 
founded  colony  of  Spoletum,  and  passed  through  the  magnificent  plain  beyond, 
till  it  reached  Fulginia ;  which  there  again  penetrating  into  the  green  valley  of 
the  Calcignolo,  wound  its  way  along  the  stream  to  Nuceria ;  which  then,  by  an 
imperceptible  ascent,  rose  through  the  wide  upland  plain  of  Helvillum  (Sigillo)  to 
the  central  ridge  of  the  Apennines  ;  which,  the  moment  it  had  crossed  the  ridge, 
plunged  precipitately  down  into  the  deep  and  narrow  gorge  of  the  Cantiano,  and, 
hemmed  in  between  gigantic  walls  of  cliff,  struggled  on  for  many  miles  through 
the  defile,  till  it  came  out  upon  the  open  country,  where  the  Cantiano  joins  the 
Metaurus ;  which  then,  through  a  rich  and  slightly  varied  plain,  followed  the  left 
bank  of  that  fateful  stream  till  it  reached  the  shores  of  the  Adriatic ;  and  which 
illy  kept  the  line  of  the  low  coast  to  Ariminum,  the  last  city  of  Italy,  on  the 
jry  edge  of  Cisalpine  Gaul.  This  great  road,  which  is  still  one  of  the  chief 
les  of  communication  in  Italy,  and  which  still  exhibits  in  its  bridges,  substruc- 
>ns,  and  above  all  in  the  magnificent  tunnel  of  Furlo,  splendid  monuments  of 
>man  greatness,  has  immortalized  the  name  of  C.  Flaminius,  and  was  known 
iroughout  the  times  of  the  Commonwealth  and  the  Empire  as  the  Flaminian 
7ay. 

His  other  great  work  was  the  building  of  a  circus  in  the  Campus  Martius, 
'hich  was  also  called  by  his  name,  and  which,  like  the  Greek 

-,  i  i        /•         ,i  i  'i  •   •  f  ij.1  The  Flaminian  Circua. 

leatres,  was  used  not  only  for  the  exhibition  of  games,  but  also 
occasionally  for  meetings  of  the  senate  and  assemblies  of  the  people,  when  they 
were  held  without  the  walls  of  the  city. 

Flaminius,  although  opposed  to  the  overbearing  rule  of  the  aristocracy,  stood 
aloof,  as  we  have  seen,  from  the  party  of  the  populace,  and  wished  Growth  of  ft  iower  de. 
to  do  no  more  than  to  tread  in  the  steps  of  the  best  citizens  of  niocraticitlParty- 
former  times,  of  Fabius  Rullus  and  Decius,  of  M.  Curius  and  Fabricius.  But  we 
find  symptoms  of  the  growth  of  another  party,  which,  in  the  later  times  of  the 
Commonwealth,  was  almost  the  sole  representative  of  the  popular  cause,  the  party 
of  the  poorer  classes  within  Rome  itself,  the  Forum  populace,  as  they  were  called, 
in  whom  the  ancient  political  writers  saw  the  worst  form  of  democracy.  By  the 
influence  of  this  party,  it  seems  C.  Tarentius  Varro,  a  butcher's  son,  had  already 
been  raised  to  the  qusestorship,  and  had  been  made  plebeian  and  curule  sedile, 
and  was  now  looking  forward  to  still  higher  distinctions.  But  the  war  with  Car- 
thage crushed  it  for  the  present,  and  delayed  its  revival  for  nearly  a  hundred 
years,  and  established  the  power  of  the  aristocracy  on  the  firmest  base,  that  of 
the  public  respect  and  love,  feelings  which  their  conduct  in  the  great  national 
struggle  had  justly  earned  for  them. 

Hasdrubal  had  died  in  the  year  before  Flaminius'  censorship,  having  been 
assassinated  in  his  tent  by  a  Gaulish  slave,  in  revenue  for  the  death 

f    i  •  ,,        nv,  .  f      i  i        i     •  !•     j     i  -MI     Death    of   Haidrubal  : 

ot  his  master.67     I  he  voice  of  the  army  had  immediately  called  «an»^ai   ^w   *• 
Hannibal  to  the  command,  and  the  government  of  Carthage  had  An.wulto  iMS 
ratified  their  choice.     He  had  made  two  campaigns,  and  had  so 
put  down  all  opposition  to  the  Carthaginian  dominion,  that  the  Saguntines,  ex- 

"  Livy,  XXI.  63.  "  Poly  bins,  II.  36.    Appian,  Hispan.  8. 

18  Livy,  Epit.  XX. 


470  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLIIl 

pecting  to  be  attacked  next,  as  the  only  people  still  left  independent,  sent  earnest 
embassies  to  Rome,  to  request  the  interference  of  the  Romans  in  their  behalf." 
Towards  the  close  of  the  year  534,  Roman  ambassadors  visited  Hannibal  in  his 
winter- quarters  at  New  Carthage,  warning  him  not  to  attack  Saguntum,  which 
was  an  ally  of  Rome,  nor  to  carry  his  arms  beyond  the  Iberus.  Receiving  unsat- 
isfactory answers,  they  proceeded  to  Carthage,  and  declared  to  the  government 
that  the  Romans  would  consider  any  attack  upon  Saguntum,  or  any  advance  of 
the  Carthaginians  beyond  the  Iberus,  as  acts  of  direct  hostility  against  Rome. 
They  could  not  imagine  that  Carthage  would  dare  to  incur  such  a  penalty ;  she 
had  paid  money  and  ceded  parts  of  her  territory  to  escape  the  resentment  of  the 
Romans  ;  would  she  now  voluntarily  brave  it  by  acts  of  aggression  ?  Hannibal's 
party  could  not  have  obtained  so  complete  an  ascendency ;  and  his  opponents 
would  surely  recover  their  influence,  when  his  policy  threatened  to  involve  his 
country  in  the  dreaded  evils  of  another  war  with  Rome.  So  L.  ^Emilius  Paullus 
and  M.  Livius  were  chosen  consuls  for  the  year  535,  as  if  the  peace  would  not 
be  broken ;  and  they  were  both  sent  over  to  Illyria  with  two  consular  armies  to 
chastise  the  revolt  of  Demetrius  of  Pharus,  who,  relying  on  his  intimate  connec- 
tion with  the  court  of  Macedon,  had  committed  various  breaches  of  treaty,  and 
was  setting  the  Romans  at  defiance.59 

L.  ^Emilius  was  a  brave  and  able  officer ;  and  he  and  his  colleague  did  their 
A.U.  c.  MS.  A.  c.  work  effectually  ;  they  reduced  all  the  enemy's  strongholds,  took 
219.  war  *  niyria.  pnarus  itself,  and  obliged  Demetrius  to  escape  for  his  life  to 
Macedonia,  and  finally  received  the  submission  of  all  Illyria,  and  settled  its 
affairs  at  their  discretion.  They  returned  to  Rome  at  the  end  of  the  season,  and 
obtained  a  triumph,  the  last  that  was  for  some  years  enjoyed  by  any  Roman 
officer ;  for  already  the  falsehood  of  the  Roman  calculations  was  manifest ;  Sa- 
guntum, unaided  by  Rome,  had  been  taken  and  destroyed :  war  with  Carthage 
was  no  longer  doubtful ;  and  the  seat  of  that  war  was  likely  to  be  no  longer 
Soain,  but  Italy. 


CHAPTER  XLIIL 

SECOND    PUNIC    WAR. 

HANNIBAL— MAECH  OF  HANNIBAL  FEOM  SPAIN  TO  ITALY— PASSAGE  OF  THE 
ALPS— BATTLES  OF  THE  TKEBIA,  AND  OF  THRASYMENUS— Q.  FABIUS  MAXI- 
MUS  DICTATOR— BATTLE  OF  CANNAE— A.  IL  C.  535  TO  538. 

TWICE  in  history  has  there  been  witnessed  the  struggle  of  the  highest  individ- 
ual genius  against  the  resources  and  institutions  of  a  great  nation ; 

A.  U.  C.  535.     A.  C.  ,  fo.       ,        ,  &  .    ,       . 

si9.     second   Punic  and,  in  both  cases,  the  nation  has  been  victorious,     r  or  seventeen 
years  Hannibal  strove  against  Rome ;  for  sixteen  years  Napoleon 
Bonaparte  strove  against  England :  the  efforts  of  the  first  ended  in  Zama,  those 
Df  the  second  in  Waterloo. 

True  it  is,  as  Polybius  has  said,  that  Hannibal  was  supported  by  the  zealous 
exertions  of  Carthage  :l  and  the  strength  of  the  opposition  to  his 

Greatness  of  Hannibal.  T          n  i  -11  j.     J    T_       j.1        T»  •  L 

policy  has  been  very  possibly  exaggerated  by  the  Roman  writers. 

M  Polvbius,   III.   15.     Appian,   Hispan.  11.        M  Polybius,  III.  16,  18.     Zonaras,  VIII.  SO. 
Livy,  X'XI.  10.  '  Polybius,  III.  10. 


CHAP.  XLIII.]  THE  GREATNESS  OF  ROME.  47] 

But  the  zeal  of  his  country  in  the  contest,  as  Polybius  himself  remarks  in  another 
place,8  was  itself  the  work  of  his  family.  Never  did  great  men  more  show  them- 
selves the  living  spirit  of  a  nation  than  Hamilcar,  and  Hasdrubal,  and  Hannibal, 
during  a  period  of  nearly  fifty  years,  approved  themselves  to  be  to  Carthage.  It 
is  not,  then,  merely  through  our  ignorance  of  the  internal  state  of  Carthage  that 
Hannibal  stands  so  prominent  in  all  our  conceptions  of  the  second  Punic  war : 
he  was  really  its  moving  and  directing  power ;  and  the  energy  of  his  country  was 
but  a  light  reflected  from  his  own.  History  therefore  gathers  itself  into  his  sin- 
gle person :  in  that  vast  tempest  which,  from  north  and  south,  from  the  west 
and  the  east,  broke  upon  Italy,  we  see  nothing  but  Hannibal. 

But  if  Hannibal's  genius  may  be  likened  to  the  Homeric  god,  who  in  his  hatred 
of  the  Trojans  rises  from  the  deep  to  rally  the  fainting  Greeks,  GreatneM  of  Ron)e. 
and  to  lead  them  against  the  enemy ;  so  the  calm  courage  with  S^i^jS  il*^ 
which  Hector  met  his  more  than  human  adversary  in  his  country's  °fminkind- 
cause,  is  no  unworthy  image  of  the  unyielding  magnanimity  displayed  by  the 
aristocracy  of  Rome.  As  Hannibal  utterly  eclipses  Carthage,  so  on  the  contrary 
Fabius,  Marcellus,  Claudius  Nero,  even  Scipio  himself,  are  as  nothing  when  com- 
pared to  the  spirit,  and  wisdom,  and  power  of  Rome.  The  senate  which  voted 
its  thanks  to  its  political  enemy,  Varro,  after  his  disastrous  defeat,  "  because  he 
had  not  despaired  of  the  Commonwealth,"  and  which  disdained  either  to  solicit, 
or  to  reprove,  or  to  threaten,  or  in  any  way  to  notice  the  twelve  colonies  which 
lad  refused  their  accustomed  supplies  of  men  for  the  army,  is  far  more  to  be 
mored  than  the  conqueror  of  Zama.  This  we  should  the  more  carefully  bear 
mind,  because  our  tendency  is  to  admire  individual  greatness  far  more  than 
tional ;  and  as  no  single  Roman  will  bear  comparison  with  Hannibal,  we  are 
ipt  to  murmur  at  the  event  of  the  contest,  and  to  think  that  the  victory  was 
warded  to  the  least  worthy  of  the  combatants.  On  the  contrary,  never  was  the 
wisdom  of  God's  providence  more  manifest  than  in  the  issue  of  the  struggle  be- 
tween Rome  and  Carthage.  It  was  clearly  for  the  good  of  mankind  that  Han- 
nibal should  be  conquered :  his  triumph  would  have  stopped  the  progress  of  the 
world.  For  great  men  can  only  act  permanently  by  forming  great  nations ;  and 
no  one  man,  even  though  it  were  Hannibal  himself,  can  in  one  generation  effect 
such  a  work.  But  where  the  nation  has  been  merely  enkindled  for  a  while  by  a 
great  man's  spirit,  the  light  passes  away  with  him  who  communicated  it ;  and  the 
nation,  when  he  is  gone,  is  like  a  dead  body,  to  which  magic  power  had  for  a 
moment  given  an  unnatural  life :  when  the  charm  has  ceased,  the  body  is  cold 
and  stiff  as  before.  He  who  grieves  over  the  battle  of  Zama,  should  carry  on 
his  thoughts  to  a  period  thirty  years  later,  when  Hannibal  must,  in  the  course 
of  nature,  have  been  dead,  and  consider  how  the  isolated  Phoenician  city  of  Car- 
tage was  fitted  to  receive  and  to  consolidate  the  civilization  of  Greece,  or  by  its 
iws  and  institutions  to  bind  together  barbarians  of  every  race  and  language  into 
i  organized  empire,  and  prepare  them  for  becoming,  when  that  empire  was  dis- 
)lved,  the  free  members  of  the  commonwealth  of  Christian  Europe. 
Hannibal  was  twenty-six  years  of  age  when  he  was  appointed  commander-in- 
chief  of  the  Carthaginian  armies  in  Spain,  upon  the  sudden  death  Hann;bai  take«  sag™. 
of  Hasdrubal.  Two  years,  we  have  seen,  had  been  employed  in  tum- 
expeditions  against  the  native  Spaniards ;  the  third  year  was  devoted  to  the  siege 
of  Saguntum.  Hannibal's  pretext  for  attacking  it  was,  that  the  Saguntines  had 
oppressed  one  of  the  Spanish  tribes  in  alliance  with  Carthage  ;3  but  no  caution  in 
the  Saguntine  government  could  have  avoided  a  quarrel,  which  their  enemy  was 
determined  to  provoke.  Saguntum,  although  not  a  city  of  native  Spaniards,  re- 
sisted as  obstinately  as  if  the  very  air  of  Spain  had  breathed  into  foreign  settlers 
on  its  soil  the  spirit  so  often,  in  many  different  ages,  displayed  by  the  Spanish 
people.  Saguntum  was  defended  like  Numantia  and  Gerona :  the  siege  lasted 

a  Polybius,  IX.  22.  3  Polybius,  III.  15.    Appian,  Hispan.  XI. 


472  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLII1 

eight  months ;  and  when  all  hope  was  gone,  several  of  the  chiefs  kindled  a  fire 
in  the  market-place,  and  after  having  thrown  in  their  most  precious  effects,  leapt 
into  it  themselves,  and  perished.  Still  the  spoil  found  in  the  place  was  very  con- 
siderable :  there  was  a  large  treasure  of  money,  which  Hannibal  kept  for  his  wai 
expenses ;  there  were  numerous  captives,  whom  he  distributed  amongst  his  sol- 
diers as  their  share  of  the  plunder ;  and  there  was  much  costly  furniture  from 
the  public  and  private  buildings,  which  he  sent  home  to  decorate  the  temples 
and  palaces  of  Carthage.4 

It  must  have  been  towards  the  close  of  the  year,  but  apparently  before  the 

consuls  were  returned  from  Illyria,  that  the  news  of  the  fall  of  Sa- 
eclare  guntum  reached  Rome.     Immediately  ambassadors  were  sent  to 

Carthage ;  M.  Fabius  Buteo,  who  had  been  consul  seven-and- 
twenty  years  before,  C.  Licinius  Varus,  and  Q.  Baebius  Tamphilus.  Their  orders 
were  simply  to  demand  that  Hannibal  and  his  principal  officers  should  be  given 
up  for  their  attack  upon  the  allies  of  Rome,  in  breach  of  the  treaty,  and,  if  this 
were  refused,  to  declare  war.  The  Carthaginians  tried  to  discuss  the  previous 
question,  whether  the  .attack  on  Saguntum  was  a  breach  of  the  treaty ;  ^ut  to 
this  the  Romans  would  not  listen.  At  length  M.  Fabius  gathered  up  hie  toga, 
as  if  he  was  wrapping  up  something  in  it,  and  holding  it  out  thus  folded  together, 
he  said,  "  Behold,  here  are  peace  and  war  ;  take  which  you  choose  !"  The  Car- 
thaginian suffete,  or  judge,  answered,  "  Give  whichever  thou  wilt."  Hereupon 
Fabius  shook  out  the  folds  of  his  toga,  saying,  "  Then  here  we  give  you  war ;" 
to  which  several  members  of  the  council  shouted  in  answer,  "  With  all  our  hearts 
we  welcome  it."  Thus  the  Roman  ambassadors  left  Carthage,  and  returned 
straight  to  Rome. 

But  before  the  result  of  this  embassy  could  be  known  in  Spain,  Hannibal  had 
Hanniboi?! preparation,  been  making  preparations  for  his  intended  expedition,  in  a  manner 

which  showed,  not  only  that  he  was  sure  of  the  support  of  his 
government,  but  that  he  was  able  to  dispose  at  his  pleasure  of  all  the  military 
resources  of  Carthage.  At  his  suggestion  fresh  troops  from  Africa  were  sent 
over  to  Spain  to  secure  it  during  his  absence,  and  to  be  commanded  by  his  own 
brother,  Hasdrubal ;  and  their  place  was  to  be  supplied  by  other  troops  raised 
in  Spain  ;6  so  that  Africa  was  to  be  defended  by  Spaniards,  and  Spain  by  Afri- 
cans, the  soldiers  of  each  nation,  when  quartered  amongst  foreigners,  being  cut 
off  from  all  temptation  or  opportunity  to  revolt.  So  completely  was  he  allowed 
to  direct  every  military  measure,  that  he  is  said  to  have  sent  Spanish  and 
Numidian  troops  to  garrison  Carthage  itself;  in  other  words,  this  was  a  part 
of  his  general  plan,  and  was  adopted  accordingly  by  the  government.  Mean- 
while he  had  sent  ambassadors  into  Gaul,  and  even  across  the  Alps,  to  the  Gauls 
who  had  so  lately  been  at  war  with  the  Romans,  both  to  obtain  information  as  to 
the  country  through  which  his  march  lay,  and  to  secure  the  assistance  and  guid- 
ance of  the  Gauls  in  his  passage  of  the  Alps,  and  their  co-operation  in  arms  when 
he  should  arrive  in  Italy.  His  Spanish  troops  he  had  dismissed  to  their  several 
homes  at  the  end  of  the  last  campaign,  that  they  might  carry  their  spoils  with 
them,  and  tell  of  their  exploits  to  their  countrymen,  and  enjoy,  during  the  winter, 
that  almost  listless  ease  which  is  the  barbarian's  relief  from  war  and  plunder.  At 
length  he  received  the  news  of  the  Roman  embassy  to  Carthage,  and  the  actual 
declaration  of  war;  his  officers  also  had  returned  from  Cisalpine  Gaul.  "The 
natural  difficulties  of  the  passage  of  the  Alps  were  great,"  they  said,  "  but  by  no 
A.  u.  c.  536.  A.  c.  means  insuperable  ;  while  the  disposition  of  the  Gauls  was  most 

friendly,  and  they  were  eagerly  expecting  his  arrival."7  Then 
Hannibal  called  his  soldiers  together,  and  told  them  openly  that  he  was  going  to 
lead  them  into  Italy.  "  The  Romans,"  he  said,  "  have  demanded  that  I  and  my 

4  Livy,  XXT.  14.    Polybius.  III.  18.  *  Polybius,  III.  33.    Livy,  XXI.  21. 

5  Livy,  XXI.  18    ^Wbius,  III.  20.    Zonaras,        7  Polybius,  III.  34. 

an.  32. 


.  XLIIL]  HANNIBAL'S  SACRIFICE  AND  VISION.  473 

principal  officers  should  be  delivered  up  to  them  as  malefactors.  Soldiers,  will 
you  suffer  such  an  indignity  ?  The  Gauls  are  holding  out  their  arms  to  us,  in- 
viting us  to  come  to  them,  and  to  assist  them  in  revenging  their  manifold  injuries. 
And  the  country  which  we  shall  invade,  so  rich  in  corn,  and  wine,  and  oil,  so  full 
of  flocks  and  herds,  so  covered  with  flourishing  cities,  will  be  the  richest  prize 
that  could  be  offered  by  the  gods  to  reward  your  valor."  One  common  shout 
from  the  soldiers  assured  him  of  their  readiness  to  follow  him.  He  thanked  them, 
fixed  the  day  on  which  they  were  to  be  ready  to  march,  and  then  dismissed  them. 

In  this  interval,  and  now  on  the  very  eve  of  commencing  his  appointed  work, 
to  which  for  eighteen  years  he  had  been  solemnly  devoted,  and  Hannibal,s ^^^ 
to  which  he  had  so  long  been  looking  forward  with  almost  sicken- 
ing hope,  he  left  the  head-quarters  of  his  army  to  visit  Gades,  and  there,  in  the 
.temple  of  the  supreme  god  of  Tyre,  and  all  the  colonies  of  Tyre,  to  offer  his 
prayers  and  vows  for  the  success  of  his  enterprise.8  He  was  attended  only  by 
those  immediately  attached  to  his  person ;  and  amongst  these  was  a  Sicilian 
Greek,  Silenus,  who  followed  him  throughout  his  Italian  expedition,  and  lived  at 
his  table.  When  the  sacrifice  was  over,  Hannibal  returned  to  his  army  at  New 
Carthage ;  and  every  thing  being  ready,  and  the  season  sufficiently  advanced,  for 
it  was  now  late  in  May,  he  set  out  on  his  march  for  the  Iberus. 

And  here  the  fulness  of  his  mind,  and  his  strong  sense  of  being  the  devoted 
instrument  of  his  country's  gods  to  destroy  their  enemies,  haunted  Higv.Eion 
him  by  night  as  they  possessed  him  by  day.     In  his  sleep,  sc  he 
told  Silenus,  he  fancied  that  the  supreme  god  of  his  fathers  had  called  him  into 

t  presence  of  all  the  gods  of  Carthage,  who  were  sitting  on  their  thrones  in 
ncil.     There  he  received  a  solemn  charge  to  invade  Italy  ;  and  one  of  the 
venly  council  went  with  him  and  with  his  army,  to  guide  him  on  his  way. 
went  on,  and  his  divine  guide  commanded  him,  "  See  that  thou  look  not  be- 
I  thee."     But  after  a  while,  impatient  of  the  restraint,  he  turned  to  look  back ; 
and  there  he  beheld  a  huge  and  monstrous  form,  thick-set  all  over  with  serpents  ; 
wherever  it  moved,  orchards,  and  woods,  and  houses  fell  crashing  before  it.    He 
asked  his  guide  in  wonder,  what  that  monster  form  was  ?     The  god  answered, 
"  Thou  seest  the  desolation  of  Italy ;  go  on  thy  way,  straight  forward,  and  cast 
look  behind."9     Thus,  with  no  divided  heart,  and  with  an  entire  resignation 
all  personal  and  domestic  enjoyments  forever,  Hannibal  went  forth,  at  the  age 
twenty-seven,10  to  do  the  work  of  his  country's  gods,  and  to  redeem  his  early 
vow. 

The  consuls  at  Rome  came  into  office  at  this  period  on  the  fifteenth  of  March : 
it  was  possible  therefore  for  a  consular  army  to  arrive  on  the  scene  Miscalculations  of  &•> 
of  action  in  time  to  dispute  with  Hannibal  not  only  the  passage  of  Romans- 
the  Rhone,  but  that  of  the  Pyrenees.  But  the  Romans  exaggerated  the  difficul- 
ties of  his  march,  and  seem  to  have  expected  that  the  resistance  of  the  Spanish 
tribes  between  the  Iberus  and  the  Pyrenees,  and  of  the  Gauls  between  the  Pyr- 
enees and  the  Rhone,  would  so  delay  him  that  he  would  not  reach  the  Rhone 
till  the  end  of  the  season.  They  therefore  made  their  preparations  leisurely. 

Of  the  consuls  for  this  year,  the  year  of  Rome  536,  and  218  before  the  Chris- 
tian era,  one  was  P.  Cornelius  Scipio,  the  son  of  L.  Scipio,  who  Their  preparations  for 
had  been  consul  in  the  sixth  year  of  the  first  Punic  war,  and  the  war- 
grandson  of  L.  Scipio  Barbatus,  whose  services  in  the  third  Samnite  war  are  re- 
corded in  his  famous  epitaph.  The  other  was  Ti.  Sempronius  Longus,  probably, 
but  not  certainly,  the  son  of  that  C.  Sempronius  Blaesus  who  had  been  consul  in 
the  year  501.  The  consuls'  provinces  were  to  be  Spain  and  Sicily  ;  Scipio,  with 
two  Roman  legions,  and  15,600  of  the  Italian  allies,  and  with  a  fleet  of  sixty 
quinqueremes,  was  to  command  in  Spain ;  Sempronius,  with  a  somewhat  larger 

8  Li vy,  XXI.  21.  Compare  Polybius,  XXXIV.    Valerius  Maximus,  I.  7,1,  Externa.    Zonaras, 
9-  VIII.  22. 

*  Cicero  de  Liv.  I.  24.     Livy,  XXIV.  22.        10  Nepos,  Hannibal,  c.  3. 


474  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [Cnxp.XLin 

army,  and  a  fleet  of  160  quinqueremes,  was  to  cross  over  to  Lilybseum,  and  from 
thence,  if  circumstances  favored,  to  make  a  descent  on  Africa.  A  third  army, 
consisting  also  of  two  Roman  legions,  and  11,000  of  the  allies,  was  stationed  in 
Cisalpine  Gaul,  under  the  praetor,  L.  Manilas  Vulso.11  The  Romans  suspected 
that  the  Gauls  would  rise  in  arms  ere  long ;  and  they  hastened  to  send  out  the 
colonists  of  two  colonies,  which  had  been  resolved  on  before,  but  not  actually 
founded,  to  occupy  the  important  stations  of  Placentia  and  Cremona  on  the  op- 
posite banks  of  the  Po.  The  colonists  sent  to  each  of  these  places  were  no  fewer 
than  six  thousand ;  and  they  received  notice  to  be  at  their  colonies  in  thirty  days. 
Three  commissioners,  one  of  them,  C.  Lutatius  Catulus,  being  of  consular  rank, 
were  sent  out,  as  usual,  to  superintend  the  allotment  of  lands  to  the  settlers  ;  and 
these  12,000  men,  together  with  the  praetor's  army,  were  supposed  to  be  capa- 
ble of  keeping  the  Gauls  quiet.12 

It  is  a  curious  fact,  that  the  danger  on  the  side  of  Spain  was  considered  to  be 
Revolt  of  the  Gauis.  so  much  the  less  urgent,  that  Scipio's  army  was  raised  the  last, 
after  those  of  his  colleague  and  of  the  praetor,  L.  Manlius.13  In- 
deed, Scipio  was  still  at  Rome,  when  tidings  came  that  the  Boians  and  Insubrians 
had  revolted,  had  dispersed  the  new  settlers  at  Placentia  and  Cremona,  and 
driven  them  to  take  refuge  at  Mutina,  had  treacherously  seized  the  three  com- 
missioners at  a  conference,  and  had  defeated  the  praetor,  L.  Manlius,  and  obliged 
him  also  to  take  shelter  in  one  of  the  towns  of  Cisalpine  Gaul,  where  they  were 
blockading  him.14  One  of  Scipio's  legions,  with  five  thousand  of  the  allies,  was 
immediately  sent  off  into  Gaul  under  another  praetor,  C.  Atillus  Sen-anus ;  and 
Scipio  waited  till  his  own  army  should  again  be  completed  by  new  levies.  Thus, 
he  cannot  have  left  Rome  till  late  in  the  summer ;  and  when  he  arrived  with  his 
fleet  and  army  at  the  mouth  of  the  eastern  branch  of  the  Rhone,  he  found  that 
Hannibal  had  crossed  the  Pyrenees ;  but  he  still  hoped  to  impede  his  passage 
of  the  river. 

Hannibal  meanwhile,  having  set  out  from  New  Carthage  with  an  army  of 
Hanmbni  conquers  the  90,000  foot  and  12,000  horse,  crossed  the  Iberus;15  and  from 
north  of  spam.  thenceforward  the  hostile  operations  of  his  march  began.  He 

might,  probably,  have  marched  through  the  country  between  the  Iberus  and  the 
Pyrenees,  had  that  been  his  sole  object,  as  easily  as  he  made  his  way  from  the 
Pyrenees  to  the  Rhone ;  a  few  presents  and  civilities  would  easily  have  induced 
the  Spanish  chiefs  to  allow  him  a  free  passage.  But  some  of  the  tribes  north- 
ward of  the  Iberus  were  friendly  to  Rome :  on  the  coast  were  the  Greek  cities 
of  Rhoda  and  Emporiae,  Massaliot  colonies,  and  thus  attached  to  the  Romans  as 
the  old  allies  of  their  mother  city :  if  this  part  of  Spain  were  left  unconquered, 
the  Romans  would  immediately  make  use  of  it  as  the  base  of  their  operations, 
and  proceed  from  thence  to  attack  the  whole  Carthaginian  dominion.  Accord- 
ingly, Hannibal  employed  his  army  in  subduing  the  whole  country,  which  he 
effected  with  no  great  loss  of  time,  but  at  a  heavy  expense  of  men,  as  he  was 
obliged  to  carry  the  enemy's  strongholds  by  assault,  rather  than  incur  the  delay 
of  besieging  'them.  He  left  Hanno  with  eleven  thousand  men  to  retain  posses- 
sion of  the  newly  conquered  country ;  and  he  further  diminished  his  army  by 
sending  home  as  many  more  of  his  Spanish  soldiers,  probably  those  who  had 
most  distinguished  themselves,  as  an  earnest  to  the  rest,  that  they  too,  if  they 
did  their  duty  well,  might  expect  a  similar  release,  and  might  look  forward  to 
return  ere  long  to  their  homes  full  of  spoil  and  of  glory.  These  detachments, 
together  with  the  heavy  loss  sustained  in  the  field,  reduced  the  force  with  which 
Hannibal  entered  Gaul  to  no  more  than  50,000  foot  and  9000  horse.16 

From  the  Pyrenees  to  the  Rhone  his  progress  was  easy.  Here  he  had  no'  wish 
to  make  regular  conquests ;  and  presents  to  the  chiefs  mostly  succeeded  in  con- 

-1  Polybius,  III.  40,  41.  "  Polybius,  III.  40. 

12  Polybius,  III.  40.  w  Polybius,  III.  35.    Livy,  XXI.  23. 

»  Livy,  XXI.  26.  M  Polybius,  III.  35. 


?.XL1IL]  HANNIBAL'S  PREPARATIONS.  475 

lilting  their  friendship,  so  that  he  was  allowed  to  pass  freely.  Ho  marcho,   to  th, 

ut  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhone  the  influence  of  the  Massaliots  Rhone- 

ith  the  Gaulish  tribes  had  disposed  them  to  resist  the  invader ;  and  the  passage 

the  Rhone  was  not  to  be  effected  without  a  contest. 

Scipio,  by  this  time,  had  landed  his  army  near  the  eastern  mouth  of  the  Rhone ; 

d  his  information  of  Hannibal's  movements  was  vague  and  imper- 

TT.  i       J         n?         J  r  •    1  ii      •  c  Scipio's  movements. 

jt.     His  men  had  suffered  irom  sea-sickness  on  their  voyage  from 
isa  to  the  Rhone ;  and  he  wished  to  give  them  a  short  time  to  recover  their 
rength  and  spirits,  before  he  led  them  against  the  enemy.     He  still  felt  confi- 
nt  that  Hannibal's  advance  from  the  Pyrenees  must  be  slow,  supposing  that  he 
ould  be  obliged  to  fight  his  way ;  so  that  he  never  doubted  that  he  should  have 
ample  time  to  oppose  his  passage  of  the  Rhone.     Meanwhile  he  sent  out  300 
horse,  with  some  Gauls,  who  were  in  the  service  of  the  Massaliots,  ordering  them 
to  ascend  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhone,  and  discover,  if  possible,  the  situation  of 
"  e  enemy.     He  seems  to  have  been  unwilling  to  place  the  river  on  his  rear,  and 
erefore  never  to  have  thought  of  conducting  his  operations  on  the  right  bank, 
even  of  sending  out  reconnoitring  parties  in  this  direction.17 
The  resolution  which  Scipio  formed  a  few  days  afterwards,  of  sending  his  army 
Spain,  when  he  himself  returned  to  Italy,  was  deserving  of  such 

«     i  •  ,-t  il'iij.  i  •  e  i'  Hnnnibnl's       prepara. 

igh  praise,  that  we  must  hesitate  to  accuse  him  of  over  caution  tion.  for  pu&g  th« 
or  needless  delay  at  this  critical  moment.     Yet  he  was  sitting  idle  R 
.t  the  mouth  of  the  Rhone,  while  the  Gauls  were  vainly  endeavoring  to  oppose 
"  imibal's  passage  of  the  river.     We  must  understand  that  Hannibal  kept  his 
y  as  far  away  from  the  sea  as  possible,  in  order  to  conceal  his  movements  from 

e  Romans ;  therefore  he  came  upon  the  Rhone,  not  on  the  line  of  the  later 

man  road  from  Spain  to  Italy,  which  crossed  the  river  at  Tarasco,  between 
Avignon  and  Aries,  but  at  a  point  much  higher  up,  above  its  confluence  with  the 
Durance,  and  nearly  half  way,  if  we  can  trust  Polybius'  reckoning,  from  the  sea 

its  confluence  with  the  Isere.18  Here  he  obtained  from  the  natives  on  the 
right  bank,  by  paying  a  fixed  price,  all  their  boats  and  vessels  of  every  descrip- 
tion with  which  they  were  accustomed  to  traffic  down  the  river :  they  allowed 
him  also  to  cut  timber  for  the  construction  of  others  ;  and  thus  in  two  days  he 
was  provided  with  the  means  of  transporting  his  army.  But  finding  that  the 
Gauls  were  assembled  on  the  eastern  bank  to  oppose  his  passage,  he  sent  off  a 
detachment  of  his  army  by  night  with  native  guides,  to  ascend  the  right  bank, 
for  about  two-and-twenty  miles,  and  there  to  cross  as  they  could,  where  there 
was  no  enemy  to  stop  them.  The  woods,  which  then  lined  the  river,  supplied 
this  detachment  with  the  means  of  constructing  barks  and  rafts  enough  for  the 
passage ;  they  took  advantage  of  one  of  the  many  islands  in  this  part  of  the 
Rhone,  to  cross  where  the  stream  was  divided ;  and  thus  they  all  reached  the 
ft  bank  in  safety.  There  they  took  up  a  strong  position,  probably  one  of  those 
-ange  masses  of  rock  which  rise  here  and  there  with  steep  cliffy  sides  like  islands 

t  of  the  vast  plain,  and  rested  for  four-a-nd-twenty  hours  after  their  exertions 

the  march  and  the  passage  of  the  river. 

Hannibal  allowed  eight-and-forty  hours  to  pass  from  the  time  when  the  de- 

shment  left  his  camp ;  and  then,  on  the  morning  of  the  fifth  day  The  anny  crosjes  the 
after  his  arrival  on  the  Rhone,  he  made  his  preparations  for  the  river> 
passage  of  his  main  army.  The  mighty  stream  of  the  river,  fed  by  the  snows  of 
the  high  Alps,  is  swelled  rather  than  diminished  by  the  heats  of  summer ;  so 
that,  although  the  season  was  that  when  the  southern  rivers  are  generally  at  their 
lowest,  it  was  rolling  the  vast  mass  of  its  waters  along  with  a  startling  fulness 
and  rapidity.  The  heaviest  vessels  were  therefore  placed  on  the  left,  highest  up 
the  stream,  to  form  something  of  a  breakwater  for  the  smaller  craft  crossing  be* 
1rtm  •  the  small  boats  held  the  flower  of  the  light-armed  foot,  while  the  cavalry 

17  Polybius,  II.  41.    Livy,  XXI.  26.  »  Polybius,  III.  42. 


476  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLIfL 

were  in  the  larger  vessels ;  most  of  the  horses  being  towed  .astern  swimming,  and 
a  single  soldier  holding  three  or  four  together  by  their  bridles.  Every  thing  was 
ready,  and  the  Gauls  on  the  opposite  side  had  poured  out  of  their  camp,  and 
lined  the  bank  in  scattered  groups  at  the  most  accessible  points,  thinking  that 
their  task  of  stopping  the  enemy's  landing  would  be  easily  accomplished.  At 
length  Hannibal's  eye  observed  a  column  of  smoke  rising  on  the  farther  shore, 
above  or  on  the  right  of  the  barbarians.  This  was  the  concerted  signal  which 
assured  him  of  the  arrival  of  his  detachment ;  and  he  instantly  ordered  his  men 
to  embark,  and  to  push  across  with  all  possible  speed.  They  pulled  vigorously 
against  the  rapid  stream,  cheering  each  other  to  the  work ;  while  behind  them 
were  their  friends,  cheering  them  also  from  the  bank ;  and  before  them  were  the 
Gauls  singing  their  war-songs,  and  calling  them  to  come  on  with  tones  and  ges- 
tures of  defiance.  But  on  a  sudden  a  mass  of  fire  was  seen  on  the  rear  of  the 
Barbarians ;  the  Gauls  on  the  bank  looked  behind,  and  began  to  turn  away  from 
the  river  ;  and  presently  the  bright  arms  and  white  linen  coats  of  the  African  and 
Spanish  soldiers  appeared  above  the  bank,  breaking  in  upon  the  disordtily  ?ine 
of  the  Gauls.  Hannibal  himself,  who  was  with  the  party  crossing  the  river, 
leapedon  shore  amongst  the  first,  and  forming  his  men  as  fast  as  they  landed,  led 
them  instantly  to  the  charge.  But  the  Gauls,  confused  and  bewildered,  made 
little  resistance  ;  they  fled  in  utter  rout ;  whilst  Hannibal,  not  losing  a  moment, 
sent  back  his  vessels  and  boats  for  a  fresh  detachment  of  his  army ;  and  before 
night  his  whole  force,  with  the  exception  of  his  elephants,  was  safely  established 
on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Rhone.19 

As  the  river  was  no  longer  between  him  and  the  enemy,  Hannibal  early  on  the 
next  morning  sent  out  a  party  of  Numidian  cavalry  to  discover 

Arrival    of    emissane*      n  ..  .  /•    r?   •     •    i        7  1,1  11     i     i  • 

GauL  tbe  Ci*alpimj  ^ne  position  and  number  of  fecipio  k  forces,  and  then  called  his 
army  together,  to  see  and  hear  the  communications  of  some  chiefs  of 
the  Cisalpine  Gauls,  who  were  just  arrived  from  the  other  side  of  the  Alps.  Their 
words  were  explained  to  the  Africans  and  Spaniards  in  the  army  by  interpreters ; 
but  the  very  sight  of  the  chiefs  was  itself  an  encouragement ;  for  it  told  the  soldiers 
that  the  communication  with  Cisalpine  Gaul  was  not  impracticable,  and  that  the 
Gauls  had  undertaken  so  long  a  journey  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  the  aid  of 
the  Carthaginian  army  against  their  old  enemies,  the  Romans.  Besides,  the  in- 
terpreters explained  to  the  soldiers  that  the  chiefs  undertook  to  guide  them  into 
Italy  by  a  short  and  safe  route,  on  which  they  would  be  able  to  find  provisions ; 
and  spoke  strongly  of  the  great  extent  and  richness  of  Italy,  when  they  did 
arrive  there,  and  how  zealously  the  Gauls  would  aid  them.  Hannibal  then  came 
forward  himself  and  addressed  his  army  :  their  work,  he  said,  was  more  than 
half  accomplished  by  the  passage  of  the  Rhone ;  their  own  eyes  and  ears  had 
witnessed  the  zeal  of  their  Gaulish  allies  in  their  cause ;  for  the  rest,  their  busi- 
ness was  to  do  their  duty,  and  obey  his  orders  implicitly,  leaving  every  thing 
else  to  him.  The  cheers  and  shouts  of  the  soldiers  again  satisfied  him  how  fully 
he  might  depend  upon  them ;  and  he  then  addressed  his  prayers  and  vows  to 
the  gods  of  Carthage,  imploring  them  to  watch  over  the  army,  and  to  prosper  its 
work  to  the  end,  as  they  had  prospered  its  beginning.  The  soldiers  were  now 
dismissed,  with  orders  to  prepare  for  their  march  on  the  morrow.20 

Scarcely  was  the  assembly  broken  up,  when  some  of  the  Numidians  who  had 

•ends  hi*         keen  sent  out  in  the  morning,  were  seen  riding  for  their  lives  to 

£spain?and  re'tu".^  the  camp,  manifestly  in  flight  from  a  victorious  enemy.     Not  half 

of  the  original  party  returned  ;  for  they  had  fallen  in  with  Scipio's 

detachment  of  Roman  and  Gaulish  horse,  and,  after  an  obstinate  conflict,  had  been 

completely  beaten.    Presently  after,  the  Roman  horsemen  appeared  in  pursuit ;  but 

when  they  observed  the  Carthaginian  camp,  they  wheeled  about  and  rode  off,  to 

carry  back  word  to  their  general.    Then  at  last  Scipio  put  his  army  in  motion,  and 

w  Polybius,  III.  42,  43.  "  Polybius,  III.  44. 


?.  XLIII]  MARCH  THROUGH  GAUL.  47^ 

nded  the  left  bank  of  the  river  to  find  and  engage  the  enemy.21  But  when 
arrived  at  the  spot  where  his  cavalry  had  seen  the  Carthaginian  camp,  he 
und  it  deserted,  and  was  told  that  Hannibal  had  been  gone  three  days,  having 
rched  northwards,  ascending  the  left  bank  of  the  river.  To  follow  him  seemed 
perate  :  it  was  plunging  into  a  country  wholly  unknown  to  the  Romans,  where 
ey  had  neither  allies  nor  guides,  nor  resources  of  any  kind ;  and  where  the 
ves,  over  and  above  the  common  jealousy  felt  by  all  barbarians  towards  a 
ign  army,  were  likely,  as  Gauls,  to  regard  the  Romans  with  peculiar  hostility. 
ut  if  Hannibal  could  not  be  followed  now,  he  might  easily  be  met  on  his  first 
rival  in  Italy ;  from  the  mouth  of  the  Rhone  to  Pisa  was  the  chord  of  a  circle, 
hile  Hannibal  was  going  to  make  a  long  circuit ;  and  the  Romans  had  an  army 
ready  in  Cisalpine  Gaul ;  while  the  enemy  would  reach  the  scene  of  action  ex- 
hausted with  the  fatigues  and  privations  of  his  march  across  the  Alps.  Accord- 
ingly, Scipio  descended  the  Rhone  again,  embarked  i.is  army  and  sent  it  on  to 
Spain  under  the  command  of  his  brother,  Cneeus  Scipio,  as  his  lieutenant ;  while 
he  himself,  in  his  own  ship,  sailed  for  Pisa,  and  immediately  crossed  the  Apennines 
take  the  command  of  the  forces  of  the  two  praetors,  Manlius  and  Atilius,  who, 
we  have  seen,  had  an  army  of  about  25,000  men,  over  and  above  the  colonists 
of  Placentia  and  Cremona,  still  disposable  in  Cisalpine  Gaul.22 

This  resolution  of  Scipio  to  send  his  own  army  on  to  Spain,  and  to  meet  Han- 
bal  with  the  army  of  the  two  praetors,  appears  to  show  that  he  ^-.^om  o{  iVia  resolu. 

sessed  the  highest  qualities  of  a  general,  which  involve  the  tion< 
isdom  of  a  statesman  no  less  than  of  a  soldier.  As  a  mere  military  question, 
calculation,  though  baffled  by  the  event,  was  sound ;  but  if  we  view  it  in  a 
igher  light,  the  importance  to  the  Romans  of  retaining  their  hold  on  Spain 
would  have  justified  a  far  greater  hazard  ;  for  if  the  Carthaginians  were  suffered 
to  consolidate  their  dominion  in  Spain,  and  to  avail  themselves  of  its  immense 
resources,  not  in  money  only,  but  in  men,  the  hardiest  and  steadiest  of  barbari- 
ans, and,  under  the  training  of  such  generals  as  Hannibal  and  his  brother,  equal 
*  the  best  soldiers  in  the  world,  the  Romans  would  hardly  have  been  able  to 
aintain  the  contest.  Had  not  P.  Scipio  then  dispatched  his  army  to  Spain  at 
this  critical  moment,  instead  of  carrying  it  home  to  Italy,  his  son  in  all  probability 
would  never  have  'won  the  battle  of  Zama. 

Meanwhile  Hannibal,  on  the  day  after  the  skirmish  with  Scipio's  horse,  had 
sent  forward  his  infantry,  keeping  the  cavalry  to  cover  his  opera-  Tho  ei0,)hantg  are  car. 
tions,  as  he  still  expected  the  Romans  to  pursue  him;  while  he  ried over the Rhone- 
himself  waited  to  superintend  the  passage  of  the  elephants.  These  were  thirty- 
seven  in  number ;  and  their  dread  of  the  water  made  their  transport  a  very  diffi- 
cult operation.  It  was  effected  by  fastening  to  the  bank  large  rafts  of  200  feet 
in  length,  covered  carefully  with  earth:  to  the  end  of  these  smaller  rafts  were 
tached,  covered  with  earth  in  the  same  manner,  and  with  towing  lines  extended 
a  number  of  the  largest  barks,  which  were  to  tow  them  over  the  stream.  The 
ephants,  two  females  leading  the  way,  were  brought  upon  the  rafts  by  their 
vers  without  difficulty ;  and  as  soon  as  they  came  upon  the  smaller  rafts,  these 
re  cut  loose  at  once  from  the  larger,  and  towed  out  into  the  middle  of  the 
ver.  Some  of  the  elephants,  in  their  terror,  leaped  overboard,  and  drowned 
eir  drivers ;  but  they  themselves,  it  is  said,  held  their  huge  trunks  above  water, 
d  struggled  to  the  shore ;  so  that  the  whole  thirty-seven  were  landed  in 
fety.23  Then  Hannibal  called  in  his  cavalry,  and  covering  his  march  with  them 
d  with  the  elephants,  set  forward  up  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhone  to  overtake 
the  infantry. 

In  four  days  they  reached  the  spot  where  the  Isere,24  coming  down  from  the 
lin  Alps,  brings  to  the  Rhone  a  stream  hardly  less  full  or  mighty  Hannibai>.  maro» 
an  his  own.  In  the  plains  above  the  confluence  two  Gaulish  through  Gaul- 

"  Polybius,  III.  45.  »  Polybius,  III.  46.     Livy,  XXI.  28. 

82  Polybius,  III.  47.  ™  Polybius,  III.  49. 


478  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLIII 

brothers  were  contending  which  should  be  chief  of  their  tribe ;  and  the  elder 
called  in  the  stranger  general  to  support  his  cause.  Hannibal  readily  com- 
plied, established  him  firmly  on  the  throne,  and  received  important  aid  from  him 
in  return.  He  supplied  the  Carthaginian  army  plentifully  with  provisions,  fur- 
nished them  with  new  arms,  gave  them  new  clothing,  especially  shoes,  which 
were  found  very  useful  in  the  subsequent  march,  and  accompanied  them  to  the 
first  entrance  on  the  mountain  country,  to  secure  them  from  attacks  on  the  part 
of  his  countrymen. 

The  attentive  reader,  who  is  acquainted  with  the  geography  of  the  Alps  and 
Difficulty  of  detennm-  their  neighborhood,  will  perceive  that  this  account  of  Hannibal's 
iug  lifeline  of  man*.  marc^  Js  vague.  It  does  not  appear  whether  the  Carthaginians 
ascended  the  left  bank  of  the  Isere,  or  the  right  bank ;  or  whether  they  continued 
to  ascend  the  Rhone  for  a  time,  and  leaving  it  only  so  far  as  to  avoid  the  great 
angle  which  it  makes  at  Lyons,  rejoined  it  again  just  before  they  entered  the 
mountain  country,  a  little  to  the  left  of  the  present  road  from  Lyons  to  Cham- 
berri.  But  these  uncertainties  cannot  now  be  removed,  because  Polybius  neither 
possessed  a  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  bearings  of  the  country,  nor  sufficient 
liveliness  as  a  painter,  to  describe  the  line  of  the  march  so  as  to  be  clearly  recog- 
nized. I  believe,  however,  that  Hannibal  crossed  the  Isere,  and  continued  tc 
ascend  the  Rhone ;  and  that  afterwards,  striking  off  to  the  right  across  the  plains 
of  Dauphine,  he  reached  what  Polybius  calls  the  first  ascent  of  the  Alps,  at  the 
northern  extremity  of  that  ridge  of  limestone  mountains,  which,  rising  abruptly 
from  the  plain  to  the  height  of  4000  or  5000  feet,  and  filling  up  the  whole  space 
between  the  Rhone  at  Belley  and  the  Isere  below  Grenoble,  first  introduces  the 
traveller  coming  from  Lyons  to  the  remarkable  features  of  Alpine  scenery. 

At  the  end  of  the  lowland  country,  the  Gaulish  chief,  who  had  accompanied 
„  ..  ,  ,  Hannibal  thus  far,  took  leave  of  him :  his  influence  probably  did 

HanniDru      finds      tho  ,  I  •/ 

moantajneen  ready  to  not  extend  to  the  Alpine  valleys ;  and  the  mountaineers,  far  from 
respecting  his  safe-conduct,  might  be  in  the  habit  of  making  plun- 
dering inroads  on  his  own  territory.  Here  then  Hannibal  was  left  to  himself ;  and  he 
found  that  the  natives  were  prepared  to  beset  his  passage.  They  occupied  all  such 
points  as  commanded  the  road ;  which,  as  usual,  was  a  sort  of  terrace  cut  in  the 
mountain  side,  overhanging  the  valley  whereby  it  penetrated  to  the  central  ridge. 
But  as  the  mountain  line  is  of  no  great  breadth  here,  the  natives  guarded  the 
defile  only  by  day,  and  withdrew  when  night  came  on  to  their  own  homes,  in  a 
town  or  village  among  the  mountains,  and  lying  in  the  valley  behind  them.25  Han- 
nibal, having  learnt  this  from  some  of  his  Gaulish  guides  whom  he  sent  among 
them,  encamped  in  their  sight  just  below  the  entrance  of  the  defile;  and  as  soon 
as  it  was  dusk,  he  set  out  with  a  detachment  of  light  troops,  made  his  way 
through  the  pass,  and  occupied  the  positions  which  the  barbarians,  after  their 
usual  practice,  had  abandoned  at  the  approach  of  night. 

Day  dawned ;  the  main  army  broke  up  from  its  camp,  and  began  to  enter  the 
defile ;  while  the  natives,  finding  their  positions  occupied  by  the 

He  baffles  them.  ,   *   n  ,.    l 

enemy,  at  first  looked  on  quietly,  and  offered  no  disturbance  to 
the  march.  But  when  they  saw  the  long  narrow  line  of  the  Carthaginian  army 
winding  along  the  steep  mountain  side,  and  the  cavalry  and  baggage- cattle 
struggling  at  every  step  with  the  difficulties  of  the  road,  the  temptation  to  plun- 
der was  too  strong  to  be  resisted  ;  and  from  many  points  of  the  mountain  above 
the  road  they  rushed  down  upon  the  Carthaginians.  The  confusion  was  terrible  ; 
for  the  road  or  track  was  so  narrow,  that  the  least  crowd  or  disorder  pushed 
the  heavily  loaded  baggage-cattle  down  the  steep  below;  and  the  horses, 
wounded  by  the  barbarians'  missiles,  and  plunging  about  wildly  in  their  pain 
and  terror,  increased  the  mischief.  At  last  Hannibal  was  obliged  to  charge 
down  from  his  position,  which  commanded  the  whole  scene  of  confusion,  and 

Polybius,  III.  50. 


CHAP,  XLIIL]  PASSAGE  OF  THE  ALPS.  479 

to  drive  the  barbarians  off.  This  he  effected ;  yet  the  conflict  of  so  many  men 
on  the  narrow  road  made  the  disorder  worse  for  a  time ;  and  he  unavoidably 
occasioned  the  destruction  of  many  of  his  own  men.26  At  last,  the  barbarians 
being  quite  beaten  off,  the  army  wound  its  way  out  of  the  defile  in  safety,  and 
rested  in  the  wide  and  rich  valley  which  extends  from  the  lake  of  Bourget,  with 
scarcely  a  perceptible  change  of  level,  to  the  Isere  at  Montmeillan.  Hannibal 
meanwhile  attacked  and  stormed  the  town,  which  was  the  barbarians'  principal 
stronghold  ;  and  here  he  not  only  recovered  a  great  many  of  his  own  men,  horses, 
and  baggage-cattle,  but  also  found  a  large  supply  of  corn  and  cattle  belonging 
to  the  barbarians,  which  he  immediately  made  use  of  for  the  consumption  of  his 
soldiers. 

In  the  plain  which  he  had  now  reached,  he  halted  for  a  whole  day,  and  then, 
resuming  his  march,  proceeded  for  three  days  up  the  valley  of  the  Diffi(,un;e3  of  tho 
Isere  on  the  right  bank,  without  encountering  any  difficulty.  Then  milrch> 
the  natives  met  him  with  branches  of  trees  in  their  hands,  and  wreaths  on  their 
heads  in  token  of  peace :  they  spoke  fairly,  offered  hostages,  and  wished,  they 
said,  neither  to  do  the  Carthaginians  any  injury,  nor  to  receive  any  from  them. 
Hannibal  mistrusted  them,  yet  did  not  wish  to  offend  them ;  he  accepted  their 
terms,  received  their  hostages,  and  obtained  large  supplies  of  cattle ;  and  their 
whole  behavior  seemed  so  trustworthy,  that  at  last  he  accepted  *heir  guidance, 
it  is  said,  through  a  difficult  part  of  the  country,  which  he  was  now  approach- 
ing.27 For  all  the  Alpine  valleys  become  narrower,  as  they  draw  nearer  to  the 
central  chain ;  and  the  mountains  often  come  so  close  to  the  stream,  that  the 
,ds  in  old  times  were  often  obliged  to  leave  the  valley  and  ascend  the  hills  by 
.ny  accessible  point,  to  descend  again  when  the  gorge  became  wider,  and  follow 
"  e  stream  as  before.  If  this  is  not  done,  and  the  track  is  carried  nearer  the 
iver,  it  passes  often  through  denies  of  the  most  formidable  character,  being  no 
ore  than  a  narrow  ledge  above  a  furious  torrent,  with  cliffs  rising  above  it  ab- 
lutely  precipitous,  and  coming  down  on  the  other  side  of  the  torrent  abruptly 
to  the  water,  leaving  no  passage  by  which  man  or  even  goat  could  make  its 
way. 

It  appears  that  the  barbarians  persuaded  Hannibal  to  pass  through  one 
of  these  defiles,  instead  of  going  round  it ;  and  while  his  army  was  Attacks  of  the  mount- 
involved  in  it,  they  suddenly,  and  without  provocation,  as  we  are  uineurs- 
told,  atacked  him.  Making  their  way  along  the  mountain  sides  above  the  defile, 
they  rolled  down  masses  of  rock  on  the  Carthaginians  below,  or  even  threw 
stones  upon  them  from  their  hands,  stones  and  rocks  being  equally  fatal  against 
an  enemy  so  entangled.  It  was  well  for  Hannibal,  that,  still  doubting  the  bar- 
barians' faith,  he  had  sent  forward  his  cavalry  and  baggage,  and  covered  the 
march  with  his  infantry,  who  thus  had  to  sustain  the  brunt  of  the  attack.  Foot 
soldiers  on  such  ground  were  able  to  move,  where  horses  would  be  quite  help- 
less ;  and  thus  at  last  Hannibal,  with  his  infantry,  forced  his  way  to  the  summit 
of  one  of  the  bare  cliffs  overhanging  the  defile,  and  remained  there  during  the 
night,  whilst  the  cavalry  and  baggage  slowly  struggled  out  of  the  defile.23  Thus 
again  baffled,  the  barbarians  made  no  more  general  attacks  on  the  army ;  some 
partial  annoyance  was  occasioned  at  intervals,  and  some  baggage  was  carried  off; 
but  it  was  observed,  that  wherever  the  elephants  were,  the  line  of  march  was 
secure  ;  for  the  barbarians  beheld  those  huge  creatures  with  terror,  having  never 
had  the  slightest  knowledge  of  them,  and  not  daring  to  approach  when  they  saw 
them. 

Without  any  further  recorded  difficulty,  the  army  on  the  ninth  day  after  they 
had  left  the  plains  of  Dauphine  arrived  at  the  summit  of  the  Hanmbai  ie»ciie«  UM 
central  ridge  of  the  Alps.  Here  there  is  always  a  plain  of  some  <iimraUoftl«»A1P*- 

"  Polybius,  III.  51.  28  Polybius,  ill.  58. 

*  Polybius!  III.  52. 


480  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLII1 

extent,  immediately  overhung  by  the  snowy  summits  of  the  high  mountains,  but 
itself  in  summer  presenting  in  many  parts  a  carpet  of  the  freshest  grass,  *with 
the  chalets  of  the  shepherds  scattered  over  it,  and  gay  with  a  thousand  flowers. 
But  far  different  is  its  aspect  through  the  greatest  part  of  the  year :  then  it  is 
one  unvaried  waste  of  snow ;  and  the  little  lakes,  which  on  many  ot  the  passes 
enliven  the  summer  landscape,  are  now  frozen  over  and  covered,  with  snow,  so  as 
to  be  no  longer  distinguishable.  Hannibal  was  on  the  summit  of  the  Alps  about 
jhe  end  of  October :  the  first  winter  snows  had  already  fallen  ;  but  two  hundred 
years  before  the  Christian  era,  when  all  Germany  was  one  vast  forest,  the  climate 
of  the  Alps  was  far  colder  than  at  present,  and  the  snow  lay  on  the  passes  all 
through  the  year.  Thus  the  soldiers  were  in  dreary  quarters ;  they  remained 
two  days  on  the  summit,  resting  from  their  fatigues,  and  giving  opportunity  to 
many  of  the  stragglers,  and  of  the  horses  and  cattle,  to  rejoin  them  by  following 
their  track ;  but  they  were  cold,  and  worn,  and  disheartened  ;  and  mountains  still 
rose  before  them,  through  which,  as  they  knew  too  well,  even  their  descent 
might  be  perilous  and  painful. 

But  their  great  general,  who  felt  that  he  now  stood  victorious  on  the  ramparts 

of  Italy,  and  that  the  torrent  which  rolled  before  him  was  carry- 
Looks  down  upon  Italy.  .  .  •»  ,,i  •  i  i  •  /•  /-i-  i  •  r*  i  i  i 

ing  its  waters  to  the  rich  plains  of  Cisalpine  Gaul,  endeavored  to 
kindle  his  soldiers  with  his  own  spirit  of  hope.  He  called  them  together ;  he 
pointed  out  the  valley  beneath,  to  which  the  descent  seemed  the  work  of  a  mo- 
ment :  "  That  valley,"  he  said,  "  is  Italy  ;  it  leads  us  to  the  country  of  our  friends 
the  Gauls ;  and  yonder  is  our  way  to  Rome."  His  eyes  were  eagerly  fixed  on 
that  point  of  the  horizon ;  and  as  he  gazed,  the  distance  between  seemed  to  van- 
ish, till  he  could  almost  fancy  that  he  was  crossing  the  Tiber,  and  assailing  the 
capitol.29 

After  the  two  days'  rest  the  descent  began.     Hannibal  experienced  no  more 
Desoent  open  hostility  from  the  barbarians,  only  some  petty  attempts  here 

and  there  to  plunder ;  a  fact  strange  in  itself,  but  doubly  so,  if  he 
was  really  descending  the  valley  of  the  Doria  Baltea,  through  the  country  of  the 
Salassians,  the  most  untamable  robbers  of  all  the  Alpine  barbarians.  It  is  possible 
that  the  influence  of  the  Insubrians  may  partly  have  restrained  the  mountaineers  ; 
and  partly  also  they  may  have  been  deterred  by  the  ill  success  of  all  former 
attacks,  and  may  by  this  time  have  regarded  the  strange  army  and  its  monstrous 
beasts  with  something  of  superstitious  terror.  But  the  natural  difficulties  of  the 
ground  on  the  descent  were  greater  than  ever.  The  snow  covered  the  track  so 
that  the  men  often  lost  it,  and  fell  down  the  steep  below :  at  last  they  came  to  a 
place  where  an  avalanche  had  carried  it  away  altogether  for  about  three  hundred 
yards,  leaving  the  mountain  side  a  mere  wreck  of  scattered  rocks  and  snow.  To 
go  round  was  impossible ;  for  the  depth  of  the  snow  on  the  heights  above  ren- 
dered it  hopeless  to  scale  them  ;  nothing  therefore  was  left  but  to  repair  the  road. 
A  summit  of  some  extent  was  found,  and  cleared  of  the  snow ;  and  here  the 
army  was  obliged  to  encamp,  whilst  the  work  went  on.  There  was  no  want  of 
hands  ;  and  every  man  was  laboring  for  his  life  ;  the  road  therefore  was  restored, 
and  supported  with  solid  substructions  below ;  and  in  a  single  day  it  was  made 
practicable  for  the  cavalry  and  baggage- cattle,  which  were  immediately  sent  for- 
ward, and  reached  the  lower  valley  in  safety,  where  they  were  turned  out 
to  pasture.  A  harder  labor  was  required  to  make  a  passage  for  the  elephants : 
the  way  for  them  must  be  wide  and  solid ;  and  the  work  could  not  be  accom- 
plished in  less  than  three  days.  The  poor  animals  suffered  severely  in  the  inter- 
val from  hunger ;  for  no  forage  was  to  be  found  in  that  wilderness  of  snow,  nor 
any  trees  whose  leaves  might  supply  the  place  of  other  herbage.  At  last  they 
too  were  able  to  proceed  with  safety  :30  Hannibal  overtook  his  cavalry  and  bag- 
gage ;  and  in  three  days  more  the  whole  army  had  got  clear  of  the  Alpine  val- 

"  Polybius,  III.  54.    Livy,  XXI.  35.  80  Polybius,  III.  54,  55. 


CHAP.  XLIIL]  HANNIBAL  ARRIVES  IN  ITALY.  48] 

leys,  and  entered  the  country  of  their  friends,  the  Insubrians,  on  the  wide  plain 
of  northern  Italy. 

Hannibal  was  arrived  in  Italy,  but  with  a  force  so  weakened  by  its  losses  in 
men  and  horses,  and  by  the  exhausted  state  of  the  survivors,  that  Arrival  in  itaiy.  LOWM* 
he  might  seem  to  have  accomplished  his  great  march  in  vain.  °nthcraarch- 
According  to  his  own  statement,  which  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt,  he  brought 
out  of  the  Alpine  valleys  no  more  than  12,000  African  and  8000  Spanish  in- 
fantry, with  6000  cavalry;31  so  that  his  march  from  the  Pyrenees  to  the  plains 
of  northern  Italy  must  have  cost  him  33,000  men ;  an  enormous  loss,  which 
proves  how  severely  the  army  must  have  suffered  from  the  privations  of  the  march 
and  the  severity  of  the  Alpine  climate ;  for  not  half  of  these  33,000  men  can 
have  fallen  in  battle.  With  his  army  in  this  condition,  some  period  of  repose 
was  absolutely  necessary  ;  accordingly,  Hannibal  remained  in  the  country  of  the 
Insubrians,  till  rest,  and  a  more  temperate  climate,  and  wholesome  food,  with 
which  the  Gauls  plentifully  supplied  him,  restored  \he  bodies  and  spirits  of  his 
soldiers,  and  made  them  again  ready  for  action.38  His  first  movement  was  against 
the  Taurinians,  a  Ligurian  people,  who  were  constant  enemies  of  the  Insubrians, 
and  therefore  would  not  listen  to  Hannibal,  when  he  invited  them  to  join  his 
cause.  He  therefore  attacked  and  stormed  their  principal  town,  put  the  gar- 
rison to  the  sword,  and  struck  such  terror  into  the  neighboring  tribes,  that  they 
submitted  immediately,  and  became  his  allies.  This  was  his  first  accession  of 
strength  in  Italy,  the  first  fruits,  as  he  hoped,  of  a  long  succession  of  defections 
among  the  allies  of  Rome,  so  that  the  swords  of  the  Italians  might  effect  for  him 
the  conquest  of  Italy. 

Meanwhile  Scipio  had  landed  at  Pisa,  had  crossed  the  Apennines,  and  taken 
the  command  of  the  praetors'  army,  sending  the  praetors  themselves  Scipio  marc]ie8  to  meet 
back  to  Rome,  had  crossed  the  Po  at  Placentia,  and  was  ascending  him- 
its  left  bank,  being  anxious  to  advance  with  all  possible  haste,  in  order  to  hinder 
a  general  rising  of  the  Gauls  by  his  presence.33  Hannibal,  for  the  opposite  rea- 
son, was  equally  anxious  to  meet  him,  being  well  aware  that  the  Gauls  were 
only  restrained  from  revolting  to  the  Carthaginians  by  fear,  and  that  on  his  first 
success  in  the  field  they  would  join  him.34  He  therefore  descended  the  left  bank 
of  the  Po,  keeping  the  river  on  his  right ;  and  Scipio  having  thrown  a  bridge 
over  the  Ticinus,  had  entered  what  are  now  the  Sardinian  dominions,  and  was 
still  advancing  westward,  with  the  Po  on  his  left,  although,  as  the  river  here 
makes  a  bend  to  the  southward,  he  was  no  longer  in  its  immediate  neighborhood.35 

Each  general  was  aware  that  his  enemy  was  at  hand,  and  both  pushed  for- 
ward with  their  cavalry  and  light  troops  in  advance  of  their  main  K 
armies,  to  reconnoiter  each  other's  position  and  numbers.  Thus  Ticinu8- 
was  brought  on  accidentally  the  first  action  between  Hannibal  and  the  Romans 
in  Italy,  which,  with  some  exaggeration,  has  been  called  the  battle  of  the  Tici* 
nus.36  The  Numidians  in  Hannibal's  army,  being  now  properly  supported  by 
heavy  cavalry,  were  able  to  follow  their  own  manner  of  fighting,  and,  falling  on 
the  flanks  and  rear  of  the  Romans,  who  were  already  engaged  in  front  with 
Hannibal's  heavy  horsemen,  took  ample  vengeance  for  their  defeat  on  the  Rhone. 
The  Romans  were  routed ;  and  the  consul  himself  was  severely  wounded,  and 
owed  his  life,  it  is  said,  to  the  courage  and  fidelity  of  a  Ligurian  slave.37  With 
their  cavalry  thus  crippled,  it  was  impossible  to  act  in  such  an  open  country ;  the 
Romans  therefore  hastily  retreated,  recrossed  the  Ticinus,  and  broke  down  the 
bridge,  yet  with  so  much  hurry  and  confusion,  that  600  men  were  left  on  the 
right  bank,  and  fell  into  the  enemy's  hands  ;  and  then,  crossing  the  Po  also,  estab- 
lished themselves  under  the  walls  of  their  colony,  Placentia. 

81  Polybius,  III.  5(5.  ao  .Poly bins,  111.  64. 

82  Polybius,  III.  60.  30  Polybius,  III.  65. 

33  Polybius,  III.  56.  w  Polybius,  III.  66.    Livy,  XXI.  46. 

"  Polybius,  III.  60. 

31 


482  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLIH 

Hannibal,  finding  the  bridge  over  the  Ticinus  destroyed,  reascended  the  left 
H«nmbai'.  ad  a          bank  of  the  Po  till  he  found  a  convenient  point  to  cross,  and  then, 

having  constructed  a  bridge  with  the  river  boats,  carried  over  his 
army  in  safety.  Immediately,  as  he  had  expected,  the  Gauls  on  the  right  bank 
received  him  with  open  arms ;  and  again  descending  the  river,  he  arrived  on  the 
second  day  after  his  passage  in  sight  of  the  Roman  army,  and  on  the  following 
day  offered  them  battle.  But  as  the  Romans  did  not  move,  he  chose  out  a  spot 
for  his  camp,  and  posted  his  army  five  or  six  miles  from  the  enemy,  and  appa- 
rently on  the  east  of  Placentia,  cutting  off  their  direct  communication  with  Ari- 
minum  and  Rome.38 

On  the  first  news  of  Hannibal's  arrival  in  Italy,  the  senate  had  sent  orders  to 

the  other  consul,  Ti.  Sempronius,  to  return  immediately  to  rein- 
hu  Toma'sci-  force  his  colleague.39     No  event  of  importance  had  marked  the 

first  summer  of  the  war  in  Sicily.  Hannibal's  spirit  so  animated 
the  Carthaginian  government,  that  they  were  everywhere  preparing  to  act  on 
the  offensive ;  and  before  the  arrival  of  Sempronius,  M.  JEmilius,  the  praetor, 
had  already  had  to  fight  a  naval  action  with  the  enemy,  in  order  to  defend  Lily- 
baeum.40  He  had  defeated  them,  and  prevented  their  landing,  but  the  Cartha- 
ginian fleets  still  kept  the  sea;  and  whilst  Sempronius  was  employing  his  whole 
force  in  the  conquest  of  the  island  of  Melita,  the  enemy  were  cruising  on  the 
northern  side  of  Sicily,  and  making  descents  on  the  coast  of  Italy.  On  his  return 
to  Lilybaeum  he  was  going  in  pursuit  of  them,  when  he  received  orders  to  return 
home  and  join  his  colleague.  He  accordingly  left  part  ef  his  fleet  with  the  prae- 
tor in  Sicily,  and  part  he  committed  to  Sex.  Pomponius,  his  lieutenant,  for  the 
protection  of  the  coasts  of  Lucania  and  Campania ;  while,  from  a  dread  of  the 
dangers  and  delays  of  the  winter  navigation  of  the  Adriatic,  his  army  was  to 
march  from  Lilybaeum  to  Messana,  and,  after  crossing  the  strait,  to  go  by  land 
through  the  whole  length  of  Italy,  the  soldiers  being  bound  by  oath  to  appear 
on  a  certain  day  at  Ariminum.  They  completed  their  long  march,  it  is  said,  in 
forty  days ;  and  from  Ariminum  they  hastened  to  the  scene  of  action,  and  effected 
their  junction  with  the  army  of  Scipio.41 

Serapronius  found  his  colleague  no  longer  in  his  original  position,  close 
Position  of  the  Roman  Placentia  and  the  Po,  but  withdrawn  to  the  first  hills  which  bourn 

the  great  plain  on  the  south,  and  leave  an  interval  here  of  aboi 
six  miles  between  themselves  and  the  river.4'2  But  Hannibal's  army  lying,  as  it 
seems,  to  the  eastward,  the  Roman  consul  retreated  westward,  and  leaving  Pla- 
centia to  its  own  resources,  crossed  to  the  left  bank  of  the  Trebia,  and  there  lay 
encamped,  just  where  the  stream  issues  from  the  last  hills  of  the  Apennines.  It 
appears  that  the  Romans  had  several  magazines  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Po 
above  Placentia,  on  which  the  consul  probably  depended  for  his  subsistence ;  and 
these  posts,  together  with  the  presence  of  his  army,  kept  the  Gauls  on  the  im- 
mediate bank  of  the  river  quiet,  so  that  they  gave  Hannibal  no  assistance.  When 
the  Romans  fell  back  behind  the  Trebia,  Hannibal  followed  them,  and  encamped 
about  five  miles  off  from  them,  directly  between  them  and  Placentia.43  But  his 
powerful  cavalry  kept  his  communications  open  in  every  direction  ;  and  the  Gauls 
who  lived  out  of  the  immediate  control  of  the  Roman  army  and  garrisons,  sup- 
plied him  with  provisions  abundantly. 

It  is  not  explained  by  any  existing  writer  how  Sempronius  was  able  to  effec 
nannibai-.poiic          kis  junction  with  his  colleague  without  any  opposition  from  Hai 

nibal.  The  regular  road  from  Ariminum  to  Placentia 
through  a  country  unvaried  by  a  single  hill ;  and  the  approach  of  a  large  arnr 
should  have  been  announced  to  Hannibal  by  his  Numidian  cavalry,  soon  enougl 
to  allow  him  to  interrupt  it.  But  so  much  in  war  depends  upon  trifling  accident 

88  Polybius,  TIT.  66.  41  Polybius,  ITT.  61,  68.    Livy,  XXL  51. 

**  Polybius,  TIL  61.  «  Polybius,  III.  67. 

40  Livy,  XXI.  49,  50.  *»  Polybius,  III.  68. 


wh 

J 


CHAP.  XLIIL]  SEMPRONIUS  ATTACKS  HANNIBAL.  493 

that  it  is  in  vain  to  guess  where  we  are  without  information.  We  only  know 
that  the  two  consular  armies  were  united  in  Scipio's  position  on  the  left  bank  of 
the  Trebia ;  that  their  united  forces  amounted  to  40,000  men ;  and  that  Hanni- 
bal, with  an  army  so  reinforced  by  the  Gauls  since  his  arrival  in  Italy,  that  it  was 
little  inferior  to  his  enemy's,44  was  so  far  from  fearing  to  engage  either  consul 
singly,  that  he  wished  for  nothing  so  much  as  to  bring  on  a  decisive  battle  with 
the  combined  armies  of  both.  Depending  on  the  support  of  the  Gauls  for  Jiis_ 
subsistence,  he  must  not  be  too  long  a  burden  to  them ;  they  had  hoped  to  be 
led  to  live  on  the  plunder  of  the  enemy's  country,  not  to  maintain  him  at  the 
expense  of  their  own.  In  order  to  force  the  Romans  to  a  battle,  he  began  to 
attack  their  magazines.  Clastidium,  now  Castiggio,  a  small  town  on  the  right 
bank  of  the  Po,  nearly  opposite  to  the  mouth  of  the  Ticinus,  was  betrayed  into 
his  hands  by  the  governor ;  and  he  here  found  large  supplies  of  corn.45 

On  the  other  hand,  Sempronius,  having  no  fears  for  the  event  of  a  battle,  was 
longing  for  the  glory  of  a  triumph  over  such  an  enemy  as  Hanni-     sempromus     com 
bal  ;46  and  as  Scipio  was  still  disabled  by  his  wound,  he  had  the  mv^nd'u^nx'fo^to 
command  of  the  whole  Roman  army.     Besides,  the  Gauls  who  en^age- 
lived  in  the  plain  between  the  Trebia  and  Placentia,  not  knowing  which  side  to 
espouse,  had  been  plundered  by  Hannibal's  cavalry,  and  besought  the  consuls  to 
rotect  them.     This  was  no  time,  Sempronius  thought,  to  neglect  any  ally  who 
ill  remained  faithful  to  Rome :  he  sent  out  his  cavalry  and  light  troops  over  the 
bia  to  drive  off  the  plunderers ;  and  in  such  skirmishes  he  obtained  some 
rtial  success,  which  made  him  the  more  disposed  to  risk  a  general  battle.47 
For  this,  as  a  Roman  officer,  and  before  Hannibal's  military  talents  were  fully 
nown,  he  ought  not  to  be  harshly  judged  ;  but  his  manner  of  en-  TT 

,  .          JfJ        °ii  i          TT         11  i     His  rashness. 

igmg  was  rash,  and  unworthy  of  an  able  general.  He  allowed 
e  attacks  of  Hannibal's  light  cavalry  to  tempt  him  to  follow  them  to  their  own 
Id  of  battle.  Early  in  the  morning  the  Numidians  crossed  the  river,  and  skir- 
ished  close  up  to  the  Roman  camp :  the  consul  first  sent  out  his  cavalry,  and 
en  his  light  infantry,  to  repel  them  ;48  and  when  they  gave  way  and  recrossed 
e  river,  he  led  his  regular  infantry  out  of  his  camp,  and  gave  orders  for  the 
whole  army  to  advance  over  the  Trebia  and  attack  the  enemy. 

It  was  mid-winter,  and  the  wide  pebbly  bed  of  the  Trebia,  which  the  summer 
veller  may  almost  pass  dry-shod,  was  now  filled  with  a  rapid  commencement  of  the 
stream  running  breast-high.  In  the  night  it  had  rained  or  snowed  batlle  °" the  Trebilu 
heavily  ;  and  the  morning  was  raw  and  chilly,  threatening  sleet  or  snow.49  Yet 
Sempronius  led  his  soldiers  through  the  river,  before  they  had  eaten  any  thing ; 
and  wet,  cold,  and  hungry  as  they  were,  he  formed  them  in  order  of  battle  on 
the  plain.  Meanwhile  Hannibal's  men  had  eaten  their  breakfast  in  their  tents, 
and  had  oiled  their  bodies,  and  put  on  their  armor  around  their  fires.  Then, 
when  the  enemy  had  crossed  the  Trebia,  and  were  advancing  in  the  open  plain, 
the  Carthaginians  marched  out  to  meet  them ;  and  about  a  mile  in  front  of  their 
camp,  they  formed  in  order  of  battle.  Their  disposition  was  simple :  the  heavy 
infantry,  Gauls,  Spaniards,  and  Africans,  to  the  number  of  20,000,  were  drawn 
up  in  a  single  line  ;  the  cavalry,  10,000  strong,  was,  with  the  elephants,  on  the 
two  wings ;  the  light  infantry  and  Balerian  slingers  were  in  the  front  of  the 
whole  army.  This  was  all  Hannibal's  visible  force.  But  near  the  Trebia,  and 
now  left  in  their  rear  by  the  advancing  Roman  legions,  were  lying  close  hid  in 
the  deep  and  overgrown  bed  of  a  small  water-course,  two  thousand  picked  sol- 
diers, horse  and  foot,  commanded  by  Hannibal's  younger  brother,  Mago,  whom 
he  had  posted  there  during  the  night,  and  whose  ambush  the  Romans  passed 
with  no  suspicion.  Arrived  on  the  field  of  battle,  the  legions  were  formed  in 
their  usual  order,  with  the  allied  infantry  on  the  wings ;  and  their  weak  cavalry 

44  Polybius,  III.  72.    Livy,  XXI.  52.  «  Polybius,  III.  69. 

46  Polybius,  III.  69.  48  Polybius,  III.  71. 

0  Polybius,  III.  70.  48  Polybius,  111.  72. 


484  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XL1I1 

of  4000  men,  ill  able  to  contend  with  the  numerous  horsemen  of  Hannibal,  were 
on  the  flanks  of  the  whole  line. 

The  Roman  velites,  or  light  infantry,  who  had  been  in  action  since  daybreak, 

and  had  already  shot  away  half   their  darts  and  arrows,  were 
ryeand°^v-  soon  driven  back  upon    the  hastati  and  principes,  and  passed 

through  the  intervals  of  the  maniples  to  the  rear.  With  no  less 
ease  were  the  cavalry  beaten  on  both  wings,  by  Hannibal's  horse  and  elephants. 
But  when  the  heavy  infantry,  superior  in  numbers  and  better  armed  both  for 
offence  and  defence,  closed  with  the  enemy,  the  confidence  of  Sempronius  seemed 
to  be  justified :  and  the  Romans,  numbed  and  exhausted  as  they  were,  yet,  by 
their  excellence  in  all  soldierly  qualities,  maintained  the  fight  with  equal  ad- 
vantage.50 

On  a  sudden  a  loud  alarm  was  heard  ;  and  Mago,  with  his  chosen  band,  broke, 
Rout  of  the  whole  ou^  from  his  ambush,  and  assaulted  them  furiously  in  the  rear. 

Meantime  both  wings  of  the  Roman  infantry  were  broken  down 
by  the  elephants,  and  overwhelmed  by  the  missiles  of  the  light  infantry,  till  the) 
were  utterly  routed,  and  fled  towards  the  Trebia.  The  legions  in  the  centre, 
finding  themselves  assailed  on  the  rear,  pushed  desperately  forwards,  forced  theii 
way  through  the  enemy's  line,  and  marched  off  the  field  straight  to  Placentia. 
Many  of  the  routed  cavalry  made  off  in  the  same  direction,  and  so  escaped.  But 
those  who  fled  towards  the  river  were  slaughtered  unceasingly  by  the  conquerors 
till  they  reached  it ;  and  the  loss  here  was  enormous.  The  Carthaginians,  how- 
ever, stopped  their  pursuit  on  the  brink  of  the  Trebia :  the  cold  was  piercing,  and 
to  the  elephants  so  intolerable  that  they  almost  all  perished  ;  even  of  the  men  and 
horses  many  were  lost,  so  that  the  wreck  of  the  Roman  army  reached  their  camp 
in  safety ;  and  when  night  came  on,  Scipio  again  led  them  across  the  river,  and, 
passing  unnoticed  by  the  camp  of  the  enemy,  took  refuge  with  his  colleague 
within  the  walls  of  Placentia.51 

So  ended  Hannibal's  first  campaign  in  Italy.  The  Romans,  after  their  defeat, 
Hanmbai  winters  in  despaired  of  maintaining  their  ground  on  the  Po ;  and  the  two 
Gaul-  consular  armies  retreated  in  opposite  directions,  Scipio's  upon 

Ariminum,  and  that  of  Sempronius  across  the  Apennines  into  Etruria.  Hannibal 
remained  master  of  Cisalpine  Gaul ;  but  the  season  did  not  allow  him  to  besiege 
Placentia  and  Cremona ;  and  the  temper  of  the  Gauls  rendered  it  evident  that 
he  must  not  make  their  country  the  seat  of  war  in  another  campaign.  Already 
they  bore  the  burden  of  supporting  his  army  so  impatiently,  that  he  made  an  at- 
tempt, in  the  dead  of  the  winter,  to^cross  the  Apennines  into  Etruria,  and  was  only 
driven  back  by  the  extreme  severity  of  the  weather,  the  wind  sweeping  with  such 
fury  over  the  ridges,  and  through  the  passes  of  the  mountains,  that  neither  man 
nor  beast  could  stand  against  it.52  He  was  forced  therefore  to  winter  in  Gaul ; 
but  the  innate  fickleness  and  treachery  of  the  people  led  him  to  suspect  that 
attempts  would  be  made  against  his  life,  and  that  a  Gaulish  assassin  might  hope 
to  purchase  forgiveness  from  the  Romans  for  his  country's  revolt,  by  destroying 
the  general  who  had  seduced  them.  He  therefore  put  on  a  variety  of  disguises 
to  baffle  such  designs ;  he  wore  false  hair,  appearing  sometimes  as  a  man  of 
mature  years,  and  sometimes  with  the  gray  hairs  of  old  age  ;53  and  if  he  had  that 
taste  for  humor  which  great  men  are  seldom  without,  and  which  some  anecdotes 
of  him  imply,  he  must  have  been  often  amused  by  the  mistakes  thus  occasioned, 
and  have  derived  entertainment  from  that  which  policy  or  necessity  had  dictated. 
We  should  be  glad  to  catch  a  distinct  view  of  the  state  of  Rome,  when  the 

choaen  news  first  arrived  of  the  battle  of  tlie  Trebia-     Since  the  Disaster  of 
"akes  °the  Caudium,  more  than  a  hundred  years  before,,  there   had   been 
known  no  defeat  of  two  consular  armies  united  ;  and  the  surprise 

60  Polybius,  III.  73.  w  Livy,  XXI.  58. 

"  Polybius,  III.  74.  M  Polybius,  III.  78. 


CHAP.  XLIIL]  HANNIBAL  ENTERS  ETRURIA.  455 

and  vexation  must  have  been  great.  Sempronius,  it  is  said,  returned  to  Rome 
to  hold  the  comitia ;  and  the  people  resolved  to  elect  as  consul  a  man  who,  how- 
ever unwelcome  to  the  aristocracy,  had  already  distinguished  himself  by  brilliant 
victories  in  the  very  country  which  was  now  the  seat  of  war.  They  accordingly 
chose  C.  Flaminius  for  the  second  time  consul ;  and  with  him  was  elected  Cn.  Ser- 
vilius  Geminus,  a  man  of  an  old  patrician  family,  and  personally  attached  to  the 
aristocratical  party,  but  unknown  to  us  before  his  present  consulship.  Flaminius' 
election  was  most  unpalatable  to  the  aristocracy ;  and  as  numerous  prodigies  were 
reported,  and  the  Sibylline  books  consulted,  and  it  was  certain  that  various  rites 
would  be  ordered  to  propitiate  the  favor  of  the  gods,54  he  had  some  A  n  c  537  A  c  217 
reason  to  suspect  that  his  election  would  again  be  declared  null 
and  void,  and  he  himself  thus  deprived  of  his  command.  He  was  anxious  there- 
fore to  leave  Rome  as  soon  as  possible :  as  his  colleague  was  detained  by  the 
religious  ceremonies,  and  by  the  care  of  superintending  the  new  levies,  Flaminius, 
it  is  said,  left  the  city  before  the  15th  of  March,  when  his  consulship  was  to  be- 
gin, and  actually  entered  upon  his  office  at  Ariminum,  whither  he  had  gone  to 
superintend  the  formation  of  magazines,  and  to  examine  the  state  of  the  army.55 
But  the  aristocracy  thought  it  was  no  time  to  press  party  animosities ;  they  made 
no  attempt  to  disturb  Flaminius'  election ;  and  he  appears  to  have  had  his  prov- 
ince assigned  him  without  opposition,  and  to  have  been  appointed  to  command 
Sempronius'  army  in  Etruria,  while  Servilius  succeeded  Scipio  at  Ariminum. 
The  levies  of  soldiers  went  on  vigorously ;  two  legions  were  employed  in  Spain ; 
one  was  sent  to  Sicily,  another  to  Sardinia,  and  another  to  Tarentum ;  and  four 
legions,  more  or  less  thinned  by  the  defeat  at  the  Trebia,  still  formed  the  nucleus 
of  two  armies  in  Ariminum  and  in  Etruria.  It  appears  that  four  new  legions 
were  levied,  with  an  unusually  large  proportion  of  soldiers  from  the  Italian  allies 
and  the  Latin  name ;  and  these  being  divided  between  the  two  consuls,  the  ar- 
mies opposed  to  Hannibal  on  either  line,  by  which  he  might  advance,  must  have 
been,  in  point  of  numbers,  exceedingly  formidable.  Servilius,  as  we  have  seen, 
had  his  head-quarters  at  Ariminum ;  and  Scipio,  whom  he  superseded,  sailed  as 
proconsul  into  Spain,  to  take  command  of  his  original  army  there.  Flaminius 
succeeded  to  Sempronius  in  Etruria,  and  lay  encamped,  it  is  said,  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Arretium.56 

Thus  the  main  Roman  armies  lay  nearly  in  the  same  positions  which  they  had 
held  eight  years  before,  to  oppose  the  expected  invasion  of  the  Hanmbai  enter.  Etru- 
Gauls.  But  as  the  Gauls  then  broke  into  Etruria  unperceived  by  ria- 
either  Roman  army,  so  the  Romans  were  again  surprised  by  Hannibal  on  a  line 
where  they  had  not  expected  him.  He  crossed  the  Apennines,  not  by  the  or- 
dinary road  to  Lucca,  descending  the  valley  of  the  Macra,  but,  as  it  appears,  by 
a  straighter  line  down  the  valley  of  the  Anser  or  Serchio ;  and  leaving  Lucca  on 
his  right,  he  proceeded  to  struggle  through  the  low  and  flooded  country  which 
lay  between  the  right  bank  of  the  Arno  and  the  Apennines  below  Florence,  and 
of  which  the  marsh  or  lake  of  Fucecchio  still  remains  a  specimen.  Here  again 
the  sufferings  of  the  army  were  extreme ;  but  they  were  rewarded  when  they 
reached  the  firm  ground  below  Fcesulae,  and  were  let  loose  upon  the  plunder  of 
the  rich  valley  of  the  upper  Arno.57 

Flaminius  lay  quietly  at  Arretium,  and  did  not  attempt  to  give  battle,  but  sent 
messengers  to  his  colleague,  to  inform  him  of  the  enemy's  appear-  Advance,  toward.  P«. 
ance  in  Etruria.  Hannibal  was  now  on  the  south  of  the  Apen-  rugi*- 
nines,  and  in  the  heart  of  Italy ;  but  the  experience  of  the  Samnites  and  of  Pyr- 
rhus  had  shown  that  the  Etruscans  were  scarcely  more  to  be  relied  on  than  the 
Gauls  ;  and  it  was  in  the  south,  in  Samnium,  and  Lucania,  and  Apulia,  that  the 
only  materials  existed  for  organizing  a  new  Italian  war  against  Rome.  Accord- 

"  Livy,  XXI.  62.  "  Livy,  XXII.  2. 

M  Livy,  XXI.  63.  «  Polybius,  III.  78,  79. 


486  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLIU 

ingly  Hannibal  advanced  rapidly  into  Etruria,  and  finding  that  Flaminius  still  did 
not  move,  passed  by  Arretium,  leaving  the  Roman  army  in  his  rear,  and  march- 
ing, as  it  seemed,  to  gain  the  great  plain  of  central  Italy,  which  reaches  from 
Perusia  to  Spoletum,  and  was  traversed  by  the  great  road  from  Ariminum  tc 
Rome. 

The  consul  Flaminius  now  at  last  broke  up  from  his  position,  and  followed  the 
„  . .  ,  „  enemy.  Hannibal  laid  waste  the  country  on  every  side  with  fire 

FJainimus  follows  him.  i  _i      .  IJ-IT*  i  -11  -i    i  • 

and  sword,  to  provoke  the  Romans  to  a  hasty  battle ;  and  leaving 
Cortona  on  his  left  untouched  on  its  mountain  seat,  he  approached  the  lake  of 
Thrasymenus,  and  followed  the  road  along  its  northeastern  shore,  till  it  ascended 
the  hills  which  divide  the  lake  from  the  basin  of  the  Tiber.58  Flaminius  was  fully 
convinced  that  Hannibal's  object  was  not  to  fight  a  battle,  but  tc  lay  waste  the 
richest  part  of  Italy :  had  he  wished  to  engage,  why  had  he  no;  attacked  him 
when  he  lay  at  Arretium,  and  while  his  colleague  was  far  away  at  Ariminum  ? 
With  this  impression  he  pressed  on  his  rear  closely,  never  dreamirg  that  the  lion 
would  turn  from  the  pursuit  of  his  defenceless  prey,  to  spring  on  the  shepherds 
who  were  dogging  his  steps  behind. 

The  modern  road  along  the  lake,  after  passing  the  village  of  Passignano,  runs 
Difficulty  of  marking  for  some  way  close  to  the  water's  edge  on  the  right,  hemmed  in 
out  the  ^eid  of  bauie.  on  fae  left  ^y  &  line  of  c^^  ^ich  make  it  an  absolute  defile. 

Then  it  turns  from  the  lake  and  ascends  the  hills ;  yet,  although  they  form  some- 
thing of  a  curve,  there  is  nothing  to  deserve  the  name  of  valley ;  and  the  road, 
after  leaving  the  lake,  begins  to  ascend  almost  immediately,  so  that  there  is  a  very 
short  distance  during  which  the  hills  on  the  right  and  left  command  it.  The 
ground  therefore  does  not  well  correspond  with  the  description  of  Polybius,  who 
states  that  the  valley  in  which  the  Romans  were  caught  was  not  the  narrow 
interval  between  the  hills  and  the  lake,  but  a  valley  beyond  this  defile,  and  run- 
ning down  to  the  lake,  so  that  the  Romans,  when  engaged  in  it,  had  the  water, 
not  on  their  right  flank,  but  on  their  rear.59  Livy's  account  is  different,  and 
represents  the  Romans  as  caught  in  the  defile  beyond  Passignano,  between  the 
cliff  and  the  lake.  It  is  possible  that  if  the  exact  line  of  the  ancient  road  could 
be  discovered,  it  might  assist  in  solving  the  difficulty :  in  the  mean  time  the  bat- 
tle of  Thrasymenus  must  be  one  of  the  many  events  in  ancient  military  history, 
where  the  accounts  of  historians,  differing  either  with  each  other  or  with  the 
actual  appearances  of  the  ground,  are  to  us  inexplicable. 

The  consul  had  encamped  in  the  evening  on  the  side  of  the  lake,  just  within 
Flan,™™  advances  to  ^e  present  Roman  frontier,  and  on  the  Tuscan  side  of  Passignano : 
he  had  made  a  forced  march,  and  had  arrived  at  his  position  so 
late  that  he  could  not  examine  the  ground  before  him.60  Early  the  next  morn- 
ing he  set  forward  again ;  the  morning  mist  hung  thickly  over  the  lake  and  the 
low  grounds,  leaving  the  heights,  as  is  often  the  case,  quite  clear.  Flaminius, 
anxious  to  overtake  his  enemy,  rejoiced  in  the  friendly  veil  which  thus  concealed 
his  advance,  and  hoped  to  fall  upon  Hannibal's  army  while  it  was  still  in  march- 
ing order,  and  its  columns  encumbered  with  the  plunder  of  the  valley  of  the 
Arno.  He  passed  through  the  defile  of  Passignano,  and  found  no  enemy  ;  this 
confirmed  him  in  his  belief  that  Hannibal  did  not  mean  to  fight.  Already  the 
Numidian  cavalry  were  on  the  edge  of  the  basin  of  the  Tiber :  unless  he  could 
overtake  them  speedily,  they  would  have  reached  the  plain ;  and  Africans,  Span- 
iards, and  Gauls,  would  be  rioting  in  the  devastation  of  the  garden  of  Italy.  So 
the  consul  rejoiced  as  the  heads  of  his  columns  emerged  from  the  defile,  and,  turn- 
ing to  the  left,  began  to  ascend  the  hills,  where  he  hoped  at  least  to  find  the 
rear-guard  of  the  enemy. 

At  this  moment  the  stillness  of  the  mist  was  broken  by  barbarian  war-cries  on 

68  Polybius,  III.  82.     Livy.  XXII.  3.  "  Polybius,  III.  83,  84. 

"111.88. 


CHAT.  XLI1I.]  BATTLE  OF  THR AS YMENUS.  48T 

every  side ;  and  both  flanks  of  the  Roman  column  were  assailed  Detraction  Of  the  maiz 
at  once.  Their  right  was  overwhelmed  by  a  storm  of  javelins  and  **y  of  the  Rcnmn'- 
arrows,  shot  as  if  from  the  midst  of  darkness,  and  striking  into  the  soldier's  un- 
guarded side,  where  he  had  no  shield  to  cover  him ;  while  ponderous  stones, 
against  which  no  shield  or  helmet  could  avail,  came  crashing  down  upon  their 
heads.  On  the  left  were  heard  the  trampling  of  horse,  and  the  well-known  war- 
cries  of  the  Gauls  ;  and  presently  Hannibal's  dreaded  cavalry  emerged  from  the 
mist,  and  were  in  an  instant  in  the  midst  of  their  ranks;  and  the  huge  forms  ot 
the  Gauls  and  their  vast  broadswords  broke  in  upon  them  at  the  same  mo- 
ment. The  head  of  the  Roman  column,  which  was  already  ascending  to  the 
higher  ground,  found  its  advance  also  barred  ;  for  here  was  the  enemy  whom 
they  had  so  longed  to  overtake  ;  here  were  some  of  the  Spanish  and  African  foot 
of  Hannibal's  army  drawn  up  to  wait  their  assault.  The  Romans  instantly  at- 
tacked these  troops,  and  cut  their  way  through  :  these  must  be  the  covering 
parties,  they  thought,  of  Hannibal's  main  battle  ;  and,  eager  to  bring  the  contest 
to  a  decisive  issue,  they  pushed  forward  up  the  heights,  not  doubting  that  on  the 
summit  they  should  find  the  whole  force  of  the  enemy.  And  now  they  were  on 
the  top  of  the  ridge,  and  to  their  astonishment  no  enemy  was  there ;  but  the 
mist  drew  up,  and,  as  they  looked  behind,  they  saw  too  plainly  where  Hannibal 
was :  the  whole  valley  was  one  scene  of  carnage,  while  on  the  sides  of  the  hills 
above  were  the  masses  of  the  Spanish  and  African  foot  witnessing  the  destruc- 
of  the  Roman  army,  which  had  scarcely  cost  them  a  single  stroke. 

The  advanced  troops  of  the  Roman  column  had  thus  escaped  the  slaughter ; 

t  beinof  too  few  to  retrieve  the  day,  they  continued  their  advance, 

,.,°  /I'-i.xi  f  •  r-xi         Of  the  rear-guard. 

nich  was  now  become  a  flight,  and  took  refuge  in  one  of  the 
eighboring  villages.  Meantime,  while  the  centre  of  the  army  was  cut  to  pieces 
in  the  valley,  the  rear  was  still  winding  through  the  defile  beyond,  between  the 
cliffs  and  the  lake.  But  they  too  were  attacked  from  the  heights  above  by  the 
Gauls,  and  forced  in  confusion  into  the  water.  Some  of  the  soldiers,  in  despera- 
tion, struck  out  into  the  deep  water  swimming,  and,  weighed  down  by  their 
armor,  presently  sank :  others  ran  in  as  far  as  was  within  their  depth,  and  there 
stood  helplessly,  till  the  enemy's  cavalry  dashed  in  after  them.  Then  they  lifted 
up  their  hands,  and  cried  for  quarter ;  but  on  this  day  of  sacrifice,  the  gods  of 
Carthage  were  not  to  be  defrauded  of  a  single  victim ;  and  the  horsemen  piti- 
lessly fulfilled  Hannibal's  vo\v. 

1'hus,  with  the  exception  of  the  advanced  troops  of  the  Roman  column,  who 
were  about  6000  men,  the  rest  of  the  army  was  utterly  destroyed. 
The  consul  himself  had  not  seen  the  wreck  consummated.  On 
.ding  himself  surrounded,  he  had  vainly  endeavored  to  form  his  men  amidst  the 
fusion,  and  to  offer  some  regular  resistance :  when  this  was  hopeless,  he  con- 
ued  to  do  his  duty  as  a  brav?  soldier,  till  one  of  the  Gaulish  horsemen,  who  is 
aid  to  have  known  him  by  sight  from  his  former  consulship,  rode  up  and  ran 
'  n  through  the  body  with  his  lance,  crying  out,  "  So  perish  the  man  who 
ughtered  our  brethren,  and  robbed  us  of  the  lands  of  our  fathers."61  In  these 
t  words  we  probably  rather  read  the  unquenchable  hatred  of  the  Roman  aris- 
jracy  to  the  author  of  an  agrarian  law,  than  the  genuine  language  of  the  Gaul, 
laminius  died  bravely,  sword  in  hand,  having  committed  no  greater  military 
error  than  many  an  impetuous  soldier,  whose  death  in  his  country's  cause  has 
been  felt  to  throw  a  veil  over  his  rashness,  and  whose  memory  is  pitied  and  hon- 
ored. The  party  feelings  which  have  so  colored  the  language  of  the  ancient 
writers  respecting  him,  need  not  be  shared  by  a  modern  historian :  Flaminius  was 
indeed  an  unequal  antagonist  to  Hannibal ;  but  in  his  previous  life,  as  consul  and  as 
censor,  he  had  served  his  country  well ;  and  if  the  defile  of  Thrasymenus  witnessed 
his  rashness,  it  also  contains  his  honorable  grave. 

«  Livy,  XXII.  6. 


488  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAr.XLIIl 

The  battle  must  have  been  ended  before  noon ;  and  Hannibal's  indefatigable 
captnre  of  the  ad-  cavalry,  after  having  destroyed  the  centre  and  rear  of  the  Roman 
duct*odf  Hgaumdbai  to  the  armv>  hastened  to  pursue  the  troops  who  had  broken  off  from  the 
pri«men..  front,  and  had  for  the  present  escaped  the  general  overthrow. 

They  were  supported  by  the  light-armed  foot  and  the  Spaniards,  and  finding  the 
Romans  in  the  village  to  which  they  had  retreated,  proceeded  to  invest  it  on 
every  side.  The  Romans,  cut  off  from  all  relief,  and  with  no  provisions,  sur- 
rendered to  Maharbal,  who  commanded  the  party  sent  against  them.  They  were 
brought  to  Hannibal :  with  the  other  prisoners  taken  in  the  battle,  the  whole 
number  amounted  to  15,000.  The  general  addressed  them  by  an  interpreter; 
he  told  the  soldiers  who  had  surrendered  to  Maharbal,  that  their  lives,  if  he 
pleased,  were  still  forfeited,  for  Maharbal  had  no  authority  to  grant  terms  with- 
out his  consent :  then  he  proceeded  with  the  vehemence  often  displayed  by  Na- 
poleon in  similar  circumstances,  to  inveigh  against  the  Roman  government  and 
people,  and  concluded  by  giving  all  his  Roman  prisoners  to  the  custody  of  the 
several  divisions  of  his  army.  Then  he  turned  to  the  Italian  allies :  they  were 
not  his  enemies,  he  said ;  on  the  contrary,  he  had  invaded  Italy  to  aid  them  in 
casting  off  the  yoke  of  Rome ;  he  should"  still  deal  with  them  as  he  had  treated 
his  Italian  prisoners  taken  at  the  Trebia ;  they  were  fice  from  that  moment,  and 
without  ransom.62  This  being  done,  he  halted  for  a  shat  time  to  rest  his  army, 
and  buried  with  great  solemnity  thirty  of  the  most  distinguished  of  those  who 
had  fallen  on  his  own  side  in  the  battle.  His  whole  loss  had  amounted  only  to 
1500  men,  of  whom  the  greater  part  were  Gauls.  It  is  said  also  that  he  caused 
careful  search,  but  in  vain,  to  be  made  for  the  body  of  the  consul,  Flaminius, 
being  anxious  to  give  him  honorable  burial.63  So  he  acted  afterwards  to  L. 
^Emilius  and  to  Marcellus ;  and  these  humanities  are  worthy  of  notice,  as  if  he 
had  wished  to  show  that,  though  his  vow  bound  him  to  unrelenting  enmity 
towards  the  Romans  while  living,  it  was  a  pleasure  to  him  to  feel  that  he  might 
honor  them  when  dead. 

The  army  of  Hannibal  now  broke  up  from  the  scene  of  its  victory,  and,  leaving 
H«»  e.uinbria  Perusia  unassailed,  crossed  the  infant  stream  of  the  Tiber,  and  en- 
tered upon  the  plains  of  Umbria.  Here  Maharbal,  with  the  cav- 
alry and  light  troops,  obtained  another  victory  over  a  party  of  some  thousand 
men,  commanded  by  C.  Centenius,  and  killed,  took  prisoners,  or  dispersed  the 
whole  body.64  Then  that  rich  plain,  extending  from  the  Tiber  under  Perusia.to 
Spoletum,  at  the  foot  of  the  Monte  Somma,  was  laid  waste  by  the  Carthaginians 
without  mercy.  The  white  oxen  of  the  Clitumnus,  so  often  offered  in  sacrifice  to 
the  gods  of  Rome  by  her  triumphant  generals,  were  now  the  spoil  of  the  enemy, 
and  were  slaughtered  on  the  altars  of  the  gods  of  Carthage,  amidst  prayers  for 
the  destruction  of  Rome.  Tb.3  left  bank  of  the  Tiber  again  heard  the  Gaulish 
war-cry ;  and  the  terrified  inhabitants  fled  to  the  mountains  or  into  the  fortified 
cities  from  this  unwonted  storm  of  barbarian  invasion.  The  figures  and  arms  of 
the  Gauls,  however  formidable,  might  be  familiar  to  many  of  the  Umbrians ;  but 
they  gazed  in  wonder  on  the  slingers  from  the  Baleanan  islands,  on  the  hardy 
Spanish  foot,  conspicuous  by  their  white  linen  coats  bordered  with  scarlet  ;65  on 
the  regular  African  infantry,  who  had  not  yet  exchanged  their  long  lances  and 
small  shields  for  the  long  shield  and  stabbing  sword  of  the  Roman  soldier ;  on 
the  heavy  cavalry,  so  numerous,  and  mounteid  on  horses  so  superior  to  those  of 
Italy  ;  above  all,  on  the  bands  of  wild  Numidians,  who  rode  without  saddle  or 
bridle,  as  if  the  rider  and  his  horse  were  one  creature,  and  who  scoured  over  the 
country  with  a  speed  and  impetuosity  defying  escape  or  resistance.  Amidst  such 
a  scene  the  colonists  of  Spoletum  deserved  well  of  their  country,  for  shutting 
their  gates  boldly,  and  not  yielding  to  the  general  panic;  and  when  the  ISIumid- 

•  Polybius,  III.  85.  M  Polybius,  III.  8G. 

w  Livy,  XXII.  7.      Compare  Valerius  Mu*i-        w  Polybius,  III.  114.    Livy,  XXII.  46. 
«ius,  V.  1,  Ext.  6. 


ROME  ON  HEARING  OF  THE  BATTLE.  439 

ian  horsemen  reined  up  their  horses,  and  turned  away  from  its  well -manned  walls, 
the  colonists,  with  an  excusable  boasting,  might  claim  the  glory  of  having  repulsed 
Hannibal.66 

But  Hannibal's  way  lay  not  over  the  Monte  Somma,  although  its  steep  pass, 
rising  immediately  behind  Spoletum,  was  the  last  natural  obstacle  IIe  maich<:.9  into  APU- 
between  him  and  Rome.  Beyond  that  pass  the  country  was  full,  Utu 
not  of  Roman  colonies  merely,  but  of  Roman  citizens  :  he  would  soon  have  en-, 
tered  on  the  territory  of  the  thirty-five  Roman  tribes,  where  every  man  whom  he 
would  have  met  was  his  enemy.  His  eyes  were  fixed  elsewhere :  the  south  was 
entirely  open  to  him ;  the  way  to  Apulia  and  Samnium  was  cleared  of  every  im- 
pediment. He  crossed  the  Apennines  in  the  direction  of  Ancona,  and  invaded 
Picenum  :  he  then  followed  the  coast  of  the  Adriatic,  through  the  country  of  the 
Marrucinians  and  Frentanians,  till  he  arrived  in  the  northern  part  of  Apulia,  in 
the  country  called  by  the  Greeks  Daunia.67  He  advanced  slowly  and  leisurely, 
encamping  after  short  marches,  and  spreading  devastation  far  and  wide :  the 
plunder  of  slaves,  cattle,  corn,  wine,  oil,  and  valuable  property  of  every  descrip- 
tion, was  almost  more  than  the  army  could  carry  or  drive  along.  The  soldiers, 
who,  after  their  exhausting  march  from  Spain  over  the  Alps,  had  ever  since  been 
in  active  service,  or  in  wretched  quarters,  and  who  from  cold  and  the  want  of  oil 
for  anointing  the  skin  had  suffered  severely  from  scorbutic  disorders,  were  now 
revelling  in  plenty  in  a  land  of  corn  and  olives  and  vines,  where  all  good  things 
were  in  such  abundance  that  the  very  horses  of  the  army,  so  said  report,  were 
bathed  in  old  wines  to  improve  their  condition.68  Meanwhile,  wherever  the  army 
passed,  all  Romans  or  Latins,  of  an  age  to  bear  arms,  were,  by  Hannibal's  ex- 
ress  orders,  put  to  the  sword.69  Many  an  occupier  of  domain  land,  many  a 
er  of  the  taxes,  or  of  those  multiplied  branches  of  revenue  which  the  Roman 

vernment  possessed  all  over  Italy,  collectors  of  customs  and  port  duties,  sur- 
veyors and  farmers  of  the  forests,  farmers  of  the  mountain  pastures,  farmers  of 
the  salt  on  the  sea-coast,  and  of  the  mines  in  the  mountains,  were  cut  off  by  the 
vengeance  of  the  Carthaginians  ;  and  Rome,  having  lost  thousands  of  her  poorer 
citizens  in  battle,  and  now  losing  hundreds  of  the  richer  classes  in  this  extermi- 
nating march,  lay  bleeding  at  every  pore. 

But  her  spirit  was  invincible.  When  the  tidings  of  the  disaster  of  Thrasyme- 
nus  reached  the  city,  the  people  crowded  to  the  Forum,  and  called 
upon  the  magistrates  to  tell  them  the  whole  truth.70  The  prcetor 
peregrinus,  M.  Pomponius  Matho,  ascended  the  rostra,  and  said 
to  the  assembled  multitude,  "  We  have  been  beaten  in  a  great  battle  ;  our  army 
is  destroyed  ;  and  C.  Flaminius,  the  consul,  is  killed."  Our  colder  temperaments 
scarcely  enable  us  to  conceive  the  effect  of  such  tidings  on  the  lively  feelings  of 
the  people  of  the  south,  or  to  image  to  ourselves  the  cries,  the  tears,  the  hands 
uplifted  in  prayer,  or  clenched  in  rage,  the  confused  sounds  of  ten  thousand 
voices,  giving  utterance  with  breathless  rapidity  to  their  feelings  of  eager  inter- 
est, of  terror,  of  grief,  or  of  fury.  All  the  northern  gates  of  the  city  were  beset 
with  crowds  of  wives  and  mothers,  imploring  every  fresh  fugitive  from  the  fatal 
field  for  some  tidings  of  those  most  dear  to  them.  The  praetors,  M.  ^Emilius  and 
M.  Pomponius,  kept  the  senate  sitting  for  several  days  from  sunrise  to  sunset, 
without  adjournment,  in  earnest  consultation  on  the  alarming  state  of  their 
country. 

Peace  was  not  thought  of  for  a  moment :  nor  was  it  proposed  to  withdraw  a 
single  soldier  from  Spain,  or  Sicily,  or  Sardinia ;    but  it  was  re-  Fftbillg  Maximil. ;,  ap. 
solved  that  a  dictator  ought  to  be  appointed,  to  secure  unity  of  v0'1"** dictHtor- 
command.     There  had  been  no  dictatorship  for  actual  service  since  that  of  A. 
Atilius  Colatinus,  two-and-thirty  years  before,  in  the  disastrous  consulship  of 

68  Livy,  XXII.  9.  «  Polybius,  III.  86. 

r  Polybius,  III.  86.    Livy,  XXII.  9.  *>  Polybius,  III.  85.    Livy,  XXII.  1. 

•  Polybius,  III.  87,  88.     * 


State  of  Rome 
tie! 


490  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLIH 

P.  Claudius  Pulcher  and  L.  Junius  Pullus.  But  it  is  probable  that  some  jeal 
ousy  was  entertained  of  the  senate's  choice,  if,  in  the  absence  of  the  consul,  On 
Servilius,  the  appointment,  according  to  ancient  usage,  had  rested  with  them : 
nor  was  it  thought  safe  to  leave  the  dictator  to  nominate  his  master  of  the  horse. 
Hence  an  unusual  course  was  adopted :  the  centuries  in  their  comitia  elected 
both  the  one  and  the  other,  choosing  one  from  each  of  the  two  parties  in  the 
state ;  the  dictator,  Q.  Fabius  Maximus,  from  one  of  the  noblest,  but  at  the  same 
time  the  most  moderate  families  of  the  aristocracy,  and  himself  a  man  of  a  nature 
no  less  gentle  than  wise ;  the  master  of  the  horse,  M.  Minucius  Rufus,  as  repre- 
senting the  popular  party.71 

Religion  in  the  mind  of  Q.  Fabius  was  not  a  mere  instrument  for  party  pur- 
Measures  to  propitiate  poses  i  although  he  may  have  had  little  belief  in  its  truth,  he  was 
^  god8'  convinced  of  its  excellence,  and  that  a  reverence  for  the  gods  was 

an  essential  element  in  the  character  of  a  nation,  without  which  it  must  assuredly 
degenerate.  Therefore,  on  the  very  day  that  he  entered  on  his  office,  he  sum- 
moned the  senate,  and  dwelling  on  the  importance  of  propitiating  the  gods,  moved 
that  the  sibylline  books  should  forthwith  be  consulted.72  They  directed,  among 
other  things,  that  the  Roman  people  should  vow  to  the  gods  what  was  called 
"  a  holy  spring ;"  that  is  to  say,  that  every  animal  fit  for  sacrifice  born  in  the 
spring  of  that  year,  between  the  first  day  of  March  and  the  thirtieth  of  April, 
and  reared  on  any  mountain  or  plain  or  river-bank  or  upland  pasture  throughout 
Italy,  should  be  offered  to  Jupiter.73  Extraordinary  games  were  also  vowed  to 
be  celebrated  in  the  Circus  Maximus;  prayers  were  put  up  at  all  the  temples; 
new  temples  were  vowed  to  be  built ;  and  for  three  days  those  solemn  sacrifices 
were  performed,  in  which  the  images  of  the  gods  were  taken  down  from  their 
temples,  and  laid  on  couches  richly  covered,  with  tables  full  of  meat  and  wine  set 
before  them,  in  the  sight  of  all  the  people,  as  if  the  gods  could  not  but  bless  the 
city  where  they  had  deigned  to  receive  hospitality. 

Then  the  dictator  turned  his  attention  to  the  state  of  the  war.  A  long  cam- 
pian  of  Fabius  for  the  paign  was  in  prospect ;  for  it  was  still  so  early  in  the  season  that 
campaign.  ^Q  praetors  had  not  yet  gone  out  of  their  provinces  ;  and  Hannibal 

was  already  in  the  heart  of  Italy.  All  measures  were  taken  for  the  defence  of 
the  country ;  even  the  walls  and  towers  of  Rome  were  ordered  to  be  made  good 
against  an  attack.  Bridges  were  to  be  broken  down ;  the  inhabitants  of  open 
towns  were  to  withdraw  into  places  of  security ;  and  in  the  expected  line  of  Han- 
nibal's march,  the  country  was  to  be  laid  waste  before  him,  the  corn  destroyed, 
and  the  houses  burnt.74  This  would  probably  be  done  effectually  in  the  Roman 
territory ;  but  the  allies  were  not  likely  to  make  such  extreme  sacrifices  ;  and  this 
of  itself  was  a  reason  why  Hannibal  did  not  advance  directly  upon  Rome. 

More  than  thirty  thousand  men,  in  killed  and  prisoners,  had  been  lost  to  the 
Romans  in  the  late  battle.  The  consul  Cn.  Servilius  commanded 
above  thirty  thousand  in  Cisalpine  Gaul ;  and  he  was  now  retreat- 
ing in  all  haste,  after  having  heard  of  the  total  defeat  of  his  colleague.  Two 
new  legions  were  raised,  besides  a  large  force  out  of  the  city  tribes,  which  was 
employed  partly  for  the  defence  of  Rome  itself,  and  partly,  as  it  consisted  largely 
of  the  poorer  citizens,  for  the  service  of  the  fleet.  This  last  indeed  was  become 
a  matter  of  urgent  necessity  ;  for  the  Carthaginian  fleet  was  already  on  the  Italian 
coast,  and  had  taken  a  whole  convoy  of  corn-ships,  off  Cosa,  in  Etruria,  carrying 
supplies  to  the  army  in  Spain ;  while  the  Roman  ships,  both  in  Sicily  and  at 
Ostia,  had  not  yet  been  launched  after  the  winter.75  Now  all  the  ships  at  Ostia 
and  in  the  Tiber  were  sent  to  sea  in  haste,  and  the  consul  Cn.  Servilius  com- 
manded them ;  whilst  the  dictator  and  master  of  the  horse,  having  added  the 
two  newly  raised  legions  to  the  consul's  army,  proceeded  through  Campania  and 

71  Polybius,  III.  87.    Livy,  XXII.  8.  4  Livy,  XXII.  11, 

"  Livy,  XXII.  9.  M  Livy,  XXII.  11. 

"  Livy,  XXII.  10. 


\JC 

5 

th! 


CHAP  XLIII]  FABIUS  FOLLOWS  HANNIBAL.  491 

Samnium  into  Apulia,  and,  with  an  array  greatly  superior  in  numbers,  encamped 
at  the  distance  of  about  five  or  six  miles  from  Hannibal.76 

Besides  the  advantage  of  numbers,  the  Romans  had  that  of  being  regularlj 
and  abundantly  supplied  with  provisions.  They  had  no  occasion  Hannibalravft  pggftm 
to  scatter  their  forces  in  order  to  obtain  subsistence  ;  but  keeping  ninTanV«ffic££ 
their  army  together,  and  exposing  no  weak  point  to  fortune,  they 
followed  Hannibal  at  a  certain  distance,  watched  their  opportunity  to  cut  off  his 
detached  parties,  and  above  all,  by  remaining  in  the  field  with  so  imposing  an 
army,  overawed  the  allies,  and  checked  their  disposition  to  revolt."  Thus  Han- 
nibal, finding  that  the  Apulians  did  not  join  him,  recrossed  the  Apennines,  and 
moved  through  the  country  of  the  Hirpinians  into  that  of  the  Caudinian  Samnites. 
But  Beneventum,  once  a  great  Samnite  city,  was  now  a  Latin  colony ;  and  its 
gates  were  close  shut  against  the  invader.  Hannibal  laid  waste  its  territory  with 
fire  and  sword,  then  moved  onwards  under  the  south  side  of  the  Matese,  and 
took  possession  of  Telesia,  the  native  city  of  C.  Pontius,  but  now  a  decayed  and 
defenceless  town :  thence  descending  the  Calor  to  its  junction  with  the  Vulturnus, 
and  ascending  the  Vulturnus  till  he  found  it  easily  fordable,  he  finally  crossed  it 
near  AllifaB,  and  passing  over  the  hills  behind  Calatia,  descended  by  Gales  into 
the  midst  of  the  Falernian  plain,  the  glory  of  Campania.78 

Fabius  steadily  followed  him,  not  descending  into  the  plain,  but  keeping  his 
army  on  the  hills  above  it,  and  watching  all  his  movements.    Again 

J  .  ,.  °  .  °  Fabius  follows  him. 

e  .Numidian  cavalry  were  seen  scouring  the  country  on  every 
ide ;  and  the  smoke  of  burning  houses  marked  their  track.  The  soldiers  in  the 
man  army  beheld  the  sight  with  the  greatest  impatience :  they  were  burning 
r  battle,  and  the  master  of  the  horse  himself  shared  and  encouraged  the  gen- 
,1  feeling.  But  Fabius  was  firm  in  his  resolution;  he  sent  parties  to  secure 
en  the  pass  of  Tarracina,  lest  Hannibal  should  attempt  to  advance  by  the  Ap- 
pian  road  upon  Rome ;  he  garrisoned  Casilinum  on  the  enemy's  rear ;  the  Vul- 
turnus from  Casilinum  to  the  sea  barred  all  retreat  southwards ;  the  colony  of 
Cales  stopped  the  outlet  from  the  plain  by  the  Latin  road  ;  while  from  Gales  to 
Casilinum  the  hills  formed  an  unbroken  barrier,  steep  and  wooded,  the  few  paths 
>ver  which  were  already  secured  by  the  Roman  soldiers.79  Thus  Fabius  thought 
,hat  Hannibal  was  caught  as  in  a  pitfall ;  that  his  escape  was  cut  off,  while  his 
army,  having  soon  wasted  its  plunder,  could  not  possibly  winter  where  it  was, 
without  magazines,  and  without  a  single  town  in  its  possession.  For  himself,  he 
had  all  the  resources  of  Campania  and  Samnium  on  his  rear ;  while  on  his  right 
the  Latin  road,  secured  by  the  colonies  of  Cales,  Casinum,  and  Fregellse,  kept 
his  communications  with  Rome  open. 

Hannibal,  on  his  part,  had  no  thought  of  wintering  where  he  was ;  but  he  had 
carefully  husbanded  his  plunder,  that  it  might  supply  his  winter 

,,       ,     .,  .  ,&.  -,         rr    •        Hannibal's    artifice    tc 

consumption,  so  that  it  was  important  to  him  to  carry  it  off  in  wcnpe  the  Roman 
safety.  He  had  taken  many  thousand  cattle  ;  and  his  army  be- 
sides was  encumbered  with  its  numerous  prisoners,  over  and  above  the  corn,  wine, 
oil,  and  other  articles,  which  had  been  furnished  by  the  ravage  of  one  of  the 
richest  districts  in  Italy.  Finding  that  the  passes  in  the  hills  between  Cales  and 
the  Vulturnus  were  occupied  by  the  enemy,  he  began  to  consider  how  he  could 
surprise  or  force  his  passage  without  abandoning  any  of  his  plunder.  He  first 
thought  of  his  numerous  prisoners ;  and  dreading  lest  in  a  night  march  they 
should  either  escape  or  overpower  their  guards  and  join  their  countrymen  in 
attacking  him,  he  commanded  them  all,  to  the  number  it  is  said  of  5000  men,  to 
be  put  to  the  sword.  Then  he  ordered  2000  of  the  stoutest  oxen  to  be  selected 
from  the  plundered  cattle,  and  pieces  of  split  pine  wood,  or  dry  vine  wood,  to  be 
fastened  to  their  horns.  About  two  hours  before  midnight  the  drovers  began  to 

«  Polybius,  III.  88.  "  Polybius,  III.  90.    Livy,  XXII.  18. 

"  Polybius,  III.  90.  "  Livy,  XXII.  15. 


492  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLIIL 

drive  them  straight  to  the  hills,  having  first  set  on  fire  the  bundles  of  wood  about 
their  heads ;  while  the  light  infantry  following  them  till  they  began  to  run  wild, 
then  made  their  own  way  to  the  hills,  scouring  the  points  just  above  the  pass 
occupied  by  the  enemy.  Hannibal  then  commenced  his  march  ;  his  African  in- 
fantry led  the  way,  followed  by  the  cavalry ;  then  came  all  the  baggage ;  and 
the  rear  was  covered  by  the  Spaniards  and  Gauls.  In  this  order  he  followed 
the  road  in  the  defile,  by  which  he  was  to  get  out  into  the  upper  valley  of  the 
Vulturnus,  above  Casilinum  and  the  enemy's  army.80 

He  found  the  way  quite  clear ;  for  the  Romans  who  had  guarded  it,  seeing  the 
hills  above  them  illuminated  on  a  sudden  with  a  multitude  of  mov- 
ing lights,  and  nothing  doubting  that  Hannibal's  army  was  attempt- 
ing to  break  out  over  the  hills  in  despair  of  forcing  the  road,  quitted  their  position 
in  haste,  and  ran  towards  the  heights  to  interrupt  or  embarrass  his  retreat.  Mean- 
while Fabius,  with  his  main  army,  confounded  at  the  strangeness  of  the  sight, 
and  dreading  lest  Hannibal  was  tempting  him  to  his  ruin  as  he  had  tempted  Fla- 
minius,  kept  ck)se  within  his  camp  till  the  morning.  Day  dawned  only  to  show 
him  his  own  troops  who  had  been  set  to  occupy  the  defile,  engaged  on  the  hills 
above  with  Hannibal's  light  infantry.  But  presently  the  Spanish  foot  were  seen 
scaling  the  heights  to  reinforce  the  enemy  ;  and  the  Romans  were  driven  down 
to  the  plain  with  great  loss  and  confusion ;  while  the  Spaniards  and  the  light 
troops,  having  thoroughly  clone  their  work,  disappeared  behind  the  hills,  and 
followed  their  main  army.81  Thus  completely  successful,  and  leaving  his  shamed 
and  baffled  enemy  behind  him,  Hannibal  no  longer  thought  of  returning  to  Apulia 
by  the  most  direct  road,  but  resolved  to  extend  his  devastations  still  further 
before  the  season  ended.  He  mounted  the  valley  of  the  Vulturnus  towards  Ve- 
nafrum,  marched  from  thence  into  Samnium,  crossed  the  Apennines,  and  de- 
scended into  the  rich  Pelignian  plain  by  Sulmo,  which  yielded  him  an  ample 
harvest  of  plunder,  and  thence  retracing  his  steps  into  Samnium,  he  finally  re- 
turned to  the  neighborhood  of  his  old  quarters  in  Apulia. 

The  summer  was  far  advanced ;  Hannibal  had  overrun  the  greater  part  of 
His  plan  for  the  win-  Italy '.  the  meadows  of  the  Clitumnus  and  the  Vulturnus,  and  the 
forest  glades  of  the  high  Apennines,  had  alike  seen  their  cattle 
driven  away  by  the  invading  army ;  the  Falernian  plain  and  the  plain  of  Sulmo 
had  alike  yielded  their  tribute  of  wine  and  oil ;  but  not  a  single  city  had  as  yet 
opened  its  gates  to  the  conqueror,  not  a  single  state  of  Samnium  had  welcomed 
him  as  its  champion,  under  whom  it  might  revenge  its  old  wrongs  against  Rome. 
Everywhere  the  aristocratical  party  had  maintained  its  ascendency,  and  had  re- 
pressed all  mention  of  revolt  from  Rome.  Hannibal's  great  experiment  therefore 
had  hitherto  failed.  He  knew  that  his  single  army  could  not  conquer  Italy ;  as 
easily  might  king  William's  Dutch  guards  have  conquered  England :  and  six 
months  had  brought  Hannibal  no  fairer  prospect  of  aid  within  the  country  itself, 
than  the  first  week  after  his  landing  in  Torbay  brought  to  king  William.  But 
among  Hannibal's  greatest  qualities  was  the  patience  with  which  he  knew  how 
to  abide  his  time ;  if  one  campaign  had  failed  of  its  main  object,  another  mu./t  be 
tried ;  if  the  fidelity  of  the  Roman  allies  had  been  unshaken  by  the  disaster  of 
Thrasymenus,  it  must  be  tried  by  a  defeat  yet  more  fatal.  Meantime  he  would 
take  undisputed  possession  of  the  best  winter-quarters  in  Italy;  his  men  would 
be  plentifully  fed ;  his  invaluable  cavalry  would  have  forage  in  abundance ;  and 
this  at  no  cost  to  Carthage,  but  wholly  at  the  expense  of  the  enemy.  The  point 
which  he  fixed  upon  to  winter  at  was  the  very  edge  of  the  Apulian  plain,  where 
it  joins  the  mountains :  on  one  side  was  a  boundless  expanse  of  corn,  intermixed 
with  open  grass  land,  burnt  up  in  summer,  but  in  winter  fresh  and  green ;  whilst 
on  the  other  side  were  the  wide  pastures  of  the  mountain  forests,  where  his  nu- 
merous cattle  might  be  turned  out  till  the  first  snows  of  autumn  fell,  These  were 

"  Polybius,  III.  93.    Livy,  XXII.  16, 17.  81  Polybius,  III.  94.    Livy,  XXII.  18. 


CHAP.  XLIII.]'  UNPOPULARITY  OF  FABIUS.  493 

as  yet  far  distant ;  for  the  corn  in  the  plain,  although  ripe,  was  still  standing ; 
and  the  rich  harvests  of  Apulia  were  to  be  gathered  this  year  by  unwonted 
reapers. 

Descending  from  Samnium,  Hannibal  accordingly  appeared  before  the  little 
town  of  Geronium,  which  was  situated  somewhat  more  than  twenty 

_..  .  .,  -_.  ..,.  ...      ^      He  takes  Gerouium. 

miles  northwest  of  the  Latin  colony  of  Lucena,  m  the  immediate 
neighborhood  of  Larinum.82  The  town,  refusing  to  surrender,  was  taken,  and  the 
inhabitants  put  to  the  sword ;  but  the  houses  and  walls  were  left  standing,  to 
serve  as  a  great  magazine  for  the  army ;  and  the  soldiers  were  quartered  in  a 
regularly  fortified  camp  without  the  town.  Here  Hannibal  posted  himself;  and, 
keeping  a  third  part  of  his  men  under  arms  to  guard  the  camp  and  to  cover  his 
foragers,  he  sent  out  the  other  two-thirds  to  gather  in  all  the  corn  of  the  sur- 
rounding country,  or  to  pasture  his  cattle  on  the  adjoining  mountains.  In  this 
manner  the  storehouses  of  Geronium  were  in  a  short  time  filled  with  corn. 

Meanwhile  the  public  mind  at  Rome  was  strongly  excited  against  the  dictator. 
He  seemed  like  a  man  who,  having  played  a  cautious  game,  at 

'.      ,          °    "    /.        ,  ,     .,         .      °  Unpopularity  of  Fabioi. 

last  makes  a  false  move,  and  is  beaten ;  his  slow  defensive  system, 
unwelcome  in  itself,  seemed  rendered  contemptible  by  Hannibal's  triumphant 
escape  from  the  Falernian  plain.  But  here  too  Fabius  showed  a  patience  worthy 
of  all  honor.  Vexed  as  he  must  have  been  at  his  failure  in  Campania,  he  still 
felt  sure  that  his  system  was  wise ;  and  again  he  followed  Hannibal  into  Apulia, 
and  encamped,  as  before,  on  the  high  grounds  in  his  neighborhood.  Certain  reli- 
ious  offices  called  him  at  this  time  to  Rome ;  but  he  charged  Minucius  to  ob- 
rve  his  system  strictly,  and  on  no  account  to  risk  a  battle.83 
The  master  of  the  horse  conducted  his  operations  wisely :  he  advanced  his 
p  to  a  projecting  ridge  of  hills,  immediately  above  the  plain,  MimwiM  adopt™  bow, 
d  sending  out  his  cavalry  and  light  troops  to  cut  off  Hannibal's  erBystem- 
ragers,  obliged  the  enemy  to  increase  his  covering  force,  and  to  restrict  the 
nge  of  his  harvesting.  On  one  occasion  he  cut  off  a  great  number  of  the  for- 
agers, and  even  advanced  to  attack  Hannibal's  camp,  which,  owing  to  the  neces- 
sity of  detaching  so  many  men  all  over  the  country,  was  left  with  a  very  inferior 
force  to  defend  it.  The  return  of  some  of  the  foraging  parties  obliged  the  Ro- 
ns to  retreat ;  but  Minucius  was  greatly  elated,  and  sent  home  very  encour- 
ing  reports  of  his  success.84 

The  feeling  against  Fabius  could  no  longer  be  restrained.  Minucius  had  known 
how  to  manage  his  system  more  ably  than  he  had  done  himself ;  Hia  Ruthority  »  mad* 
such  merit  at  such  a  crisis  deserved  to  be  rewarded  ;  nor  was  it  equal  to  Ul°  «Iictalor>fc 
fit  that  the  popular  party  should  continue  to  be  deprived  of  its  share  in  the. con- 
duct of  the  war.  Even  among  his  own  party  Fabius  was  not  universally  popu- 
lar :  he  had  magnified  himself  and  his  system  somewhat  offensively,  and  had 
spoken  too  harshly  of  the  blunders  of  former  generals.  Thus  it  does  not  appear 
that  the  aristocracy  offered  any  strong  resistance  to  a  bill  brought  forward  by 
the  tribune  M.  Metilius,  for  giving  the  master  of  the  horse  power  equal  to  the 
dictator's.  The  bill  was  strongly  supported  by  C.  Terentius  Varro,  who  had  been 
praetor  in  the  preceding  year,  and  was  easily  carried.85 

The  dictator  and  master  of  the  horse  now  divided  the  army  between  them, 
and  encamped  apart,  at  more  than  a  mile's  distance  from  each  other.  He  ;s  routed,  and  Fa. 
Their  want  of  co-operation  was  thus  notorious  ;  and  Hannibal  was  *"«*»«•  him. 
not  slow  to  profit  by  it.  He  succeeded  in  tempting  Minucius  to  an  engagement 
on  his  own  ground ;  and  having  concealed  about  5000  men  in  some  ravines  and 
hollows  close  by,  he  called  them  forth  in  the  midst  of  the  action  to  fall  on  the 
enemy's  rear.  The  rout  of  the  Trebia  was  well-nigh  repeated  ;  but  Fabius  was 
lear  enough  to  come  up  in  time  to  the  rescue  ;  and  his  fresh  legions  checked  the 

*  Polybius,  III.  100.    Livy,  XXII.  23.  M  Polybius,  III.  101,  102.    Livy,  XXII.  84. 

*  Polybius,  III.  94.    Livy,  XXII.  18.  b5  Polybius,  III.  103.    Livy,  XXII.  25,  26. 


494  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.XLIIL 

pursuit  of  the  conquerors,  and  enabled  the  broken  Romans  (o  rally.  Still  the 
loss  already  sustained  was  severe  ;  and  it  was  manifest  that  Fabius  had  saved  his 
colleague  from  total  destruction.  Minucius  acknowledged  this  generously :  he 
instantly  gave  up  his  equal  and  separate  command,  and  placed  himself  and  his 
army  under  the  dictator's  orders.86  The  rest  of  the  season  passed  quietly  ;  and 
the  dictator  and  master  of  the  horse  resigning  their  offices  as  usual  at  the  end  of 
six  months,  the  army  during  the  winter  was  put  under  the  command  of  the  con- 
suls ;  Cn.  Servilius  having  brought  home  and  laid  up  the  fleet,  which  he  had 
commanded  during  the  summer,  and  M.  Atilius  Regulus  having  been  elected  to 
fill  the  place  of  Flaminius. 

Meanwhile  the  elections  for  the  following  year  were  approaching  ;  and  it  was 
state  of  feeling  at  evident  that  they  would  be  marked  by  severe  party  struggles. 
The  mass  of  the  Roman  people  were  impatient  of  the  continuance 
of  the  war  in  Italy ;  not  only  the  poorer  citizens,  \v  L  Dm  it  obliged  to  constant 
military  service  through  the  winter,  and  with  no  prospect  of  plunder,  but  still 
more  perhaps  the  moneyed  classes,  whose  occupation  as  farmers  of  the  revenue 
was  so  greatly  curtailed  by  Hannibal's  army.  Again,  the  occupiers  of  domain 
lands  in  remote  parts  of  Italy  could  get  no  returns  from  their  property ;  the 
wealthy  graziers,  who  fed  their  cattle  on  the  domain  pastures,  saw  their  stock 
carried  off  to  furnish  winter  provisions  for  the  enemy.  Besides,  if  Hannibal  were 
allowed  to  be  unassailable  in  the  field,  the  allies,  sooner  or  later,  must  be  ex- 
pected to  join  him  ;  they  would  not  sacrifice  every  thing  for  Rome,  if  Rome  could 
neither  protect  them  nor  herself.  The  excellence  of  the  Roman  infantry  was 
undisputed  :  if  \nth  equal  numbers  they  could  not  conquer  Hannibal's  veterans, 
let  their  numbers  be  increased,  and  they  must  overwhelm  him.  These  were,  no 
doubt,  the  feelings  of  many  of  the  nobility  themselves,  as  well  as  of  the  majority 
of  the  people ;  but  they  were  imbittered  by  party  animosity  :  the  aristocracy,  it 
was  said,  seemed  bent  on  throwing  reproach  on  all  generals  of  the  popular  party, 
as  if  none  but  themselves  were  fit  to  conduct  the  war ;  Minucius  himself  ha( 
yielded  to  this  spirit  by  submitting  to  be  commanded  by  Fabius,  when  the 
had  made  him  his  equal :  one  consul,  at  least,  must  be  chosen,  who  would  ac 
firmly  for  himself  and  for  the  people ;  and  such  a  man,  to  whose  merits  the  bit 
ter  hatred  of  the  aristocratical  party  bore  the  best  testimony,  was  to  be  found  ii 
C.  Tcrentius  Varro.87 

Varro,  his  enemies  said,  was  a  butcher's  son ;  nay,  it  was  added,  that  he  hac 
A.  u.  c.  533.  A.  c.  himself  been  a  butcher's  boy,88  and  had  only  been  enabled  by  tin 
nlwcinsuurvarl^  fortune  which  his  father  had  left  him  to  throw  aside  his  ignoble 
cabling,  and  to  aspire  to  public  offices.  So  Cromwell  was  called 
a  brewer ;  but  Varro  had  been  successively  elected  quaestor,  plebeian  and  curule 
aedile,  and  praetor,  while  we  are  not  told  that  he  was  ever  tribune ;  and  it  is 
without  example  in  Roman  history,  that  a  mere  demagogue,  of  no  family,  with 
no  other  merits,  civil  or  military,  should  be  raised  to  such  nobility.  Varro  was 
eloquent,  it  is  true ;  but  eloquence  alone  would  scarcely  have  so  recommended 
him ;  and  if  in  his  prsetorship,  as  is  probable,  he  had  been  one  of  the  two  home 
praetors,  he  must  have  possessed  a  competent  knowledge  of  law.  Besides,  even 
after  his  defeat  at  Cannae,  he  was  employed  for  several  years  in  various  important 
offices,  civil  and  military ;  which  would  never  have  been  the  case  had  he  been 
the  mere  factious  braggart  that  historians  have  painted  him.  The  aristocracy 
tried  in  vain  to  prevent  his  election :  he  was  not  only  returned  consul,  but  he  was 
returned  alone,  no  other  candidate  obtaining  a  sufficient  number  of  votes  to  en- 
title him  to  the  suffrage  of  a  tribe.89  Thus  he  held  the  comitia  for  the  election 
of  his  colleague ;  and  considering  the  great  influence  exercised  by  the  magistrate 
so  presiding,  it  is  creditable  to  him,  and  to  the  temper  of  the  people  generally, 

es  Polybius,  III.  104,  105.      Livy,   XXI.  28,        88  Valerius  Maximus,  III.  4,  4. 
29.    Plularcb,  Fabius,  13.  *  Livy.  XXII.  05. 

"  Livy,  XXII.  34. 


01 

ina 


CDAP.  XLIIL]  HANNIBAL.  495 

that  the  other  consul  chosen  was  L.  ^Emilius  Paullus,  who  was  not  only  &  known 
partisan  of  the  aristocracy,  but  having  been  consul  three  years  before,  had  been 
brought  to  trial  for  an  alleged  misappropriation  of  the  plunder  taken  in  the  Illyrian 
war,  and,  although  acquitted,  was  one  of  the  most  unpopular  men  in  Rome.  Yet 
he  was  known  to  be  a  good  soldier ;  and  the  people,  having  obtained  the  election 
of  Varro,  did  not  object  to  gratify  the  aristocracy  by  accepting  the  candidate  of 
their  choice. 

No  less  moderate  and  impartial  was  the  temper  shown  in  the  elections  of  prae- 
tors.    Two  of  the  four  were  decidedly  of  the  aristocratical  party, 
M.  Marcellus  and  L.  Postumius  Albinus ;  the  other  two  were  also 
men  of  consular  rank,  and  no  way  known  as  opponents  of  the  nobility,  P.  Furius 
Philus  and  M.  Pomponius  Matho.     The  two  latter  were  to  have  the  home  prae- 
torships ;  Marcellus  was  to  command  the  fleet,  and  take  charge  of  the  southern 
coast  of  Italy;  L.  Postumius  was  to  watch 'the  frontier  of  Cisalpine  Gaul. 

The  winter  and  spring  passed  without  any  military  events  of  importance.    Ser- 
vilius  and  Regfulus  retained  their  command  as  proconsuls  for  some 

P,  i      •  11  •    i          /Y»  i      j  ii  •  i  Position  of  the  armies. 

time  after  their  successors  had  come  into  office  ;  but  nothing  be- 
yond occasional  skirmishes  took  place  between  them  and  the  enemy.  Hannibal 
was  at  Geronium,  maintaining  his  army  on  the  supplies  which  he  had  so  carefully 
collected  in  the  preceding  campaign :  the  consuls  apparently  were  posted  a  little 
to  the  southward,  receiving  their  supplies  from  the  country  about  Canusium,  and 
immediately  from  a  large  magazine,  which  they  had  established  at  the  small  town 
of  Cannae,  near  the  Aufidus.90 

Never  was  Hannibal's  genius  more  displayed  than  during  this  long  period  of 
ictivity.  More  than  half  of  his  army  consisted  of  Gauls,  of  all 
barbarians  the  most  impatient  and  uncertain  in  their  humor,  whose  HwmfSi  dun"g  the 
fidelity,  it  was  said,  could  only  be  secured  by  an  ever  open  hand ; 
no  man  was  their  friend  any  longer  than  he  could  gorge  them  with  pay  or  plun- 
der. Those  of  his  soldiers  who  were  not  Gauls  were  either  Spaniards  or  Afri- 
cans ;  the  Spaniards  were  the  newly  conquered  subjects  of  Carthage,  strangers 
to  her  ra?3  and  language,  and  accustomed  to  divide  their  lives  between  actual 
battle  and  the  most  listless  bodily  indolence ;  so  that,  when  one  of  their  tribes 
first  saw  the  habits  of  a  Roman  camp,  and  observed  the  centurions  walking  up 
and  down  before  the  praetorium  for  exercise,  the  Spaniards  thought  them  mad, 
and  ran  up  to  guide  them  to  their  tents,  thinking  that  he  who  was  not  fighting 
could  do  nothing  but  lie  at  his  ease  and  enjoy  himself.91  Even  the  Africans  were 
foreigners  to  Carthage :  they  were  subjects  harshly  governed,  and  had  been  en- 
gaged within  the  last  twenty  years  in  a  war  of  extermination  with  their  masters. 
Yet  the  long  inactivity  of  winter-quarters,  trying  to  the  discipline  of  the  best 
national  armies,  was  borne  patiently  by  Hannibal's  soldiers :  there  was  neither 
desertion  nor  mutiny  amongst  them ;  even  the  fickleness  of  the  Gauls  seemed 
spell-bound  ;  they  remained  steadily  in  their  camp  in  Apulia,  neither  going  home 
to  their  own  country,  nor  over  to  the  enemy.  On  the  contrary,  it  seems  that 
fresh  bands  of  Gauls  must  have  joined  the  Carthaginian  army  after  the  battle  of 
Thrasymenus,  and  the  retreat  of  the  Roman  army  from  Ariminum.  For  the 
Gauls  and  the  Spaniards  and  the  Africans  were  overpowered  by  the  ascendency 
of  Hannibal's  character  :  under  his  guidance  they  felt  themselves  invincible  :  with 
such  a  general  the  yoke  of  Carthage  might  seem  to  the  Africans  and  Spaniards 
the  natural  dominion  of  superior  beings ;  in  such  a  champion  the  Gauls  beheld 
the  appointed  instrument  of  their  country's  gods  to  lead  them  once  more  to  as- 
sault the  capitol. 

Silanus,  the  Greek  historian,  was  living  with  Hannibal  daily  ;92  and  though  not 
intrusted  with  his  military  and  political  secrets,  he  must  have  seen 
and  known  him  as  a  man ;  he  must  have  been  familiar  with  his 

90  Polybius,  III.  107.  w  Nepos,  Hannib.  c.  XIII. 

81  Strabo,  p.  164. 


496  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.XLIII 

habits  of  life,  and  must  have  heard  his  conversation  in  those  unrestrained  moments 
when  the  lightest  words  of  great  men  display  the  character  of  their  minds  so 
strikingly.  His  work  is  lost  to  us ;  but  had  it  been  worthy  of  his  opportunities, 
anecdotes  from  it  must  have  been  quoted  by  other  writers,  and  we  should  know 
what  Hannibal  was.  Then,  too,  the  generals  who  were  his  daily  companions 
would  be  something  more  to  us  than  names  :  we  should  know  Maharbal,  the  best 
cavalry  officer  of  the  finest  cavalry  service  in  the  world :  and  Hasdrubal,  who 
managed  the  commissariat  of  the  army  for  so  many  years  in  an  enemy's  country ; 
and  Hannibal's  young  brother,  Mago,  so  full  of  youthful  spirit  and  enterprise, 
who  commanded  the  ambush  at  the  battle  of  the  Trebia.  We  might  learn  some- 
thing, too,  of  that  Hannibal,  surnamed  the  Fighter,  who  was  the  general's  coun- 
sellor, ever  prompting  him,  it  was  said,  to  deeds  of  savage  cruelty,93  but  whose 
counsels  Hannibal  would  not  have  listened  to,  had  they  been  merely  cruel,  had 
they  not  breathed  a  spirit  of  deep  devotion  to  the  cause  of  Carthage,  and  of 
deadly  hatred  to  Rome,  such  as  possessed  the  heart  of  Hannibal  himself.  But 
Silanus  saw  and  heard  without  heeding  or  recording ;  and  on  the  tent  and  camp 
of  Hannibal  there  hangs  a  veil,  which  the  fancy  of  the  poet  may  penetrate ;  but 
the  historian  turns  away  in  deep  disappointment ;  for  to  him  it  yields  neither 
sight  nor  sound. 

Spring  was  come,  and  well-nigh  departing ;  and  in  the  warm  plains  of  Apulia 
the  corn  was  ripening;  fast,  while  Hannibal's  winter  supplies  were 

Opening:    of    the   cam-  ,  ,    *•  ,°        TT      ,        ,  -  ,  .  -  *  _^ 

paign;  Hannibal  takes  now  nearly  exhausted.  He  broke  up  irom  his  camp  before  Gero- 
nium,  descended  into  the  Apulian  plains,  and  whilst  the  Roman 
army  was  still  in  its  winter  position,  he  threw  himself  on  its  rear,  and  surprised  its 
great  magazine  at  Cannae.94  The  citadel  of  Cannee  was  a  fortress  of  some  strength ; 
this,  accordingly,  he  occupied,  and  placed  himself,  on  the  very  eve  of  harvest, 
between  the  Roman  army  and  its  expected  resources,  while  he  secured  to  himself 
all  the  corn  of  southern  Apulia.  It  was  only  in  such  low  and  warm  situations 
that  the  corn  was  nearly  ready ;  the  higher  country,  in  the  immediate  neighbor- 
hood of  Apulia,  is  cold  and  backward  ;  and  the  Romans  were  under  the  necessity 
of  receiving  their  supplies  from  a  great  distance,  or  else  of  retreating,  or  of  offer- 
ing battle.  Under  these  circumstances  the  proconsuls  sent  to  Rome,  to  ask  what 
they  were  to  do. 

The  turning  point  of  this  question  lay  in  the  disposition  of  the  allies.  We  can- 
not doubt  that  Hannibal  had  been  busy  during  the  winter  in  sound- 
ing their  feelings ;  and  now  it  appeared  that,  if  Italy  was  to  be 
ravaged  by  the  enemy  for  a  second  summer  without  resistance,  their  patience 
would  endure  no  longer.  The  Roman  government  therefore  resolved  to  risk  a 
battle ;  but  they  sent  orders  to  the  proconsuls  to  wait  till  the  consuls  should  join 
them  with  their  newly  raised  army ;  for  a  battle  being  resolved  upon,  the  senate 
hoped  to  secure  success  by  an  overwhelming  superiority  of  numbers.  We  do  not 
exactly  know  the  proportion  of  the  new  levies  to  the  old  soldiers  ;  but  when  the 
two  consuls  arrived  on  the  scene  of  action,  and  took  the  supreme  command  of 
the  whole  army,  there  were  no  fewer  than  eight  Roman  legions  under  their 
orders,  with  an  equal  force  of  allies ;  so  that  the  army  opposed  to  Hannibal  must 
have  amounted  to  90,000  men.95  It  was  evident  that  so  great  a  multitude  could 
not  long  be  fed  at  a  distance  from  its  resources ;  and  thus  a  speedy  engagement 
was  inevitable. 

But  the  details  of  the  movements  by  which  the  two  armies  were  brought  in 
varro  resolves  to  bring  presence  of  each  other  on  the  banks  of  the  Aufidus,  are  not  easy 
to  discover.  It  appears  that  the  Romans,  till  the  arrival  of  the 
new  consuls,  had  not  ventured  to  follow  Hannibal  closely ;  for  when  they  did 
follow  him,  it  took  them  two  days'  march  to  arrive  in  his  neighborhood,  where 
they  encamped  at  about  six  miles  distance  from  him.96  They  found  him  on  the 

93  Polybius,  IX.  24,  5.  85  Polybius.  III.  107. 

94  Polvbius,  III.  107.  96  Poly  bins,  III.  110. 


CHAP.  XLI1LJ  MANOEUVRES  AND  SKIRMISHES.  497 

left  bank  of  the  Aufidus,  about  eight  or  nine  miles  from  the  sea,  and  busied, 
probably,  in  collecting  the  corn  from  the  early  district  on  the  coast,  the  season 
being  about  the  middle  of  June.  The  country  here  was  so  level  and  open,  that 
the  consul,  L.  ^Emilius,  was  unwilling  to  approach  the  enemy  more  closely,  but 
wished  to  take  a  position  on  the  hilly  ground  further  from  the  sea,  and  to  bring 
on  the  action  there.97  But  Varro,  impatient  for  battle,  and  having  the  supreme 
command  of  the  whole  army  alternately  with  ^Emilius  every  other  day,  decided 
the  question  irrevocably  on  the  very  next  day,  by  interposing  himself  between 
the  enemy  and  the  sea,  with  his  left  resting  on  the  Aufidus,  and  his  right  com- 
municating with  the  town  of  Salapia. 

From  this  position  ^Emilius,  when  he  again  took  the  command  in  chief,  found 
it  impossible  to  withdraw.  But  availing  himself  of  his  great  supe-  ^mi!illi  cros308  tho 
riority  in  numbers,  he  threw  a  part  of  his  army  across  the  river,  Aufidu»- 
and  posted  them  in  a  separate  camp  on  the  right  bank,  to  have  the  supplies  of 
the  country  south  of  the  Aufidus  at  command,  and  to  restrain  the  enemy's  par- 
ties who  might  attempt  to  forage  in  that  direction.  When  Hannibal  saw  the 
Romans  in  this  situation,  he  also  advanced  nearer  to  them,  descending  the  left 
bank  of  the  Aufidus,  and  encamped  over  against  the  main  army  of  the  enemy, 
with  his  right  resting  on  the  river. 

The  next  day,  which,  according  to  the  Roman  calendar,  was  the  last  of  the 
month  Quinctilis,  or  July,  the  Roman  reckoning  being  six  or  seven  preparatory  mm,an- 
weeks  in  advance  of  the  true  season,  Hannibal  was  making  his  vres  nnd  stirmiahe8- 
preparations  for  battle,  and  did  not  stir  from  his  camp  ;  so  that  Varro,  whose 
command  it  was,  could  not  bring  on  an  action.  But  on  the  first  of  Sextilis,  or 
August,  Hannibal  being  now  quite  ready,  drew  out  his  army  in  front  of  his  camp 
and  offered  battle.  .^Emilius,  however,  remained  quiet,  resolved  not  to  fight  on 
such  ground,  and  hoping  that  Hannibal  would  soon  be  obliged  to  fall  back  nearer 
the  hills,  when  he  found  that  he  could  no  longer  forage  freely  in  the  country  near 
the  sea.93  Hannibal,  seeing  that  the  enemy  did  not  move,  marched  back  his  in- 
fantry into  his  camp,  but  sent  his  Numidian  cavalry  across  the  river  to  attack  the 
Romans  on  that  side,  as  they  were  coming  down  in  straggling  parties  to  the  bank 
to  get  water.  For  the  Aufidus,  though  its  bed  is  deep  and  wide,  to  hold  its 
winter  floods,  is  a  shallow  or  a  narrow  stream  in  summer,  with  many  points  easily 
fordable,  not  by  horse  only,  but  by  infantry.  The  watering  parties  were  driven 
in  with  some  loss,  and  the  Numidians  followed  them  to  the  very  gates  of  the 
camp,  and  obliged  the  Romans,  on  the  right  bank,  to  pass  the  summer  night  in 
the  burning  Apulian  plain  without  water. 

At  daybreak  on  the  next  morning,  the  red  ensign,  which  was  the  well-known 
signal  for  battle,  was  seen  flying  over  Varro's  head  -quarters  ;"  nannii,ai  draw*  out  hu 
and  he  issued  orders,  it  being  his  day  of  command,  for  the  main  ormy- 
army  to  cross  the  river,  and  form  in  order  of  battle  on  the  right  bank.  Whether 
he  had  any  further  object  in  crossing  to  the  right  bank,  than  to  enable  the  sol- 
diers on  that  side  to  get  water  in  security,  we  do  not  know  ;  but  Hannibal,  it 
seems,  thought  that  the  ground  on  either  bank  suited  him  equally  ;  and  he  too 
forded  the  stream  at  two  separate  points,  and  drew  out  his  army  opposite  to  the 
enemy.  The  strong  town  of  Canusium  was  scarcely  three  miles  off  in  his  rear  ; 
he  had  left  his  camp  on  the  other  side  of  the  river;  if  he  were  defeated,  escape 
seemed  hopeless.  But  when  he  saw  the  wide,  open  plain  around  him,  and  looked 
at  his  numerous  and  irresistible  cavalry,  and  knew  that  his  infantry,  however 
inferior  in  numbers,  were  far  better  and  older  soldiers  than  the  great  mass  of 
their  opponents,  he  felt  that  defeat  was  impossible.  In  this  confidence  his  spirits 
were  not  cheerful  merely,  but  even  mirthful  ;  he  rallied  one  of  his  officers  jest- 
7>  wno  noticed  the  overwhelming  numbers  of  the  Romans  ;  those  near  him 

Polybius,  IIT.  110.  w  Plutarch,  Fabius,  15. 

' 


71 

88  1'olybius,  III.  111.    Livy,  XXII.  45. 
32 


498  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.XLIH 

laughed ;  and  as  any  feeling  at  such  a  moment  is  contagious,  the  lauga  was 
echoed  by  others ;  and  the  soldiers,  seeing  their  great  general  in  such  a  mood, 
were  satisfied  that  he  was  sure  of  victory.100 

The  Carthaginian  army  faced  the  north,  so  that  the  early  sun  shone  on  their 
^  u.on  right  flank,  while  the  wind,  which  blew  strong  from  the  south, 

but  without  a  drop  of  rain,  swept  its  clouds  of  dust  over  their 
backs,  and  carried  them  full  into  the.  faces  of  the  enemy.101  On  their  left,  resting 
on  the  river,  were  the  Spanish  and  Gaulish  horse ;  next  in  the  line,  but  thrown 
back  a  little,  were  half  of  the  African  infantry  armed  like  the  Romans  ;  on  their 
right,  somewhat  in  advance,  were  the  Gauls  and  Spaniards,  with  their  companies 
intermixed ;  then  came  the  rest  of  the  African  foot,  again  thrown  back  like  their 
comrades ;  and  on  the  right  of  the  whole  line  were  the  Numidian  light  horse- 
men.102 The  right  of  the  army  rested,  so  far  as  appears,  on  nothing  ;  the  ground 
was  open  and  level ;  but  at  some  distance  were  hills  overgrown  with  copsewood, 
and  furrowed  with  deep  ravines,  in  which,  according  to  one  account  of  the  battle, 
a  body  of  horsemen  and  of  light  infantry  lay  in  ambush.  The  rest  of  the  light 
troops,  and  the  Balearian  slingers,  skirmished  as  usual  in  front  of  the  whole  line. 

Meanwhile  the  masses  of  the  Roman  infantry  were  forming  their  line  opposite. 

That  of  the  Roman  The  sun  on  their  left  flashed  obliquely  on  their  brazen  helmets, 

now  uncovered  for  battle,  and  lit  up  the  waving  forest  of  their  red 

and  black  plumes,  which  rose  upright  from  their  helmets  a  foot  and  a  half 

high. 

They  stood  brandishing  their  formidable  pila,  covered  with  their  long  shields, 
and  bearing  on  their  right  thigh  their  peculiar  and  fatal  weapon,  the  heavy 
sword,  fitted  alike  to  cut  and  to  stab.103  On  the  right  of  the  line  were  the  Ro- 
man legions ;  on  the  left  the  infantry  of  the  allies ;  while  between  the  Roman 
right  and  the  river  were  the  Roman  horsemen,  all  of  them  of  wealthy  or  noble 
families ;  and  on  the  left,  opposed  to  the  Numidians,  were  the  horsemen  of  the 
Italians  and  of  the  Latin  name.  The  velites  or  light  infantry  covered  the  front, 
and  were  ready  to  skirmish  with  the  light  troops  and  slingers  of  the  enemy.  » 

For  some  reason  or  other,  which  is  not  explained  in  any  account  of  the  battle, 
drawn u  incoiumn.  tne  ^oman  infantry  were  formed  in  columns  rather  than  in  line, 
the  files  of  the  maniples  containing  many  more  than  their  ranks.104 
This  seems  an  extraordinary  tactic  to  be  adopted  in  a  plain  by  an  army  inferior 
in  cavalry,  but  very  superior  in  infantry.  Whether  the  Romans  relied  on  the 
river  as  a  protection  to  their  right  flank,  and  their  left  was  covered  in  some  man- 
ner which  is  not  mentioned, — one  account  would  lead  us  to  suppose  that  it 
reached  nearly  to  the  sea,105 — or  whether  the  great  proportion  of  new  levies 
obliged  the  Romans  to  adopt  the  system  of  the  phalanx,  and  to  place  their  raw 
soldiers  in  the  rear,  as  incapable  of  fighting  in  the  front  ranks  with  Hannibal's 

100  Plutarch,  Fabius,  15.    Eh-ouro?  Si  nvo?  rSv  that  "  this  had  been  found  convenient  against 

repl  avrbv  avfipog  j<ror('//ou,  rovvofia  TiaKuvos,  d»s  Oav-  the  Carthaginians  in  the  former  war.    It  was 

paarbv  avrti  <j>alv£rai  TO  i;\fjdos  rJji>  irobspltav  owa-  indeed  no  bad  way  of  resistance  against  ele- 

yaywv  TO  ^dffWTrov  b  Aw/j3«$,  "  erepov,"  Jnev,  "  w  phants,  to  make  the  ranks  thick  and  short,  but 

n<TKuv.  Af'A?70f  o-e  TOVTOV   BavfiaaiwTepov."      'Epo-  the  files  long,  as  also  to  strengthen  well  the 

Htvov  6t  TOU  r/o-Kwvo?  "  Tb  TTOIOI''"    "  "On"  e<pi)  rear,  that  it  might  stand  fast  compacted  as  a 

"  TOVTUV  SVTWV  Too-ovrtav,  olSels  iv  auroTf  T'IOKUV  wall,   under   shelter  whereof  the  disordered 

*a>£(rui."     Tevopcvov  61  n-apa    (5o'£av    aiirojj  TOU  troops  might  rally  themselves.     Thus  much,  it 

ffKWMJiiiTos  fuTTiTTTu  y/Awj  iraffi '  Kal  Kariflatvov  aitb  seems,  that  Terentius  had  learned  ofsorne  old 

TOV  \6<jiov  TO??  airavT&ffiv  atl  TO  tctvaiyufvov  airay-  soldiers  |  and  therefore  he  now  ordered  his  bat- 

yAAovrej,  wore  6ia  xoXXGiv  iro\i>v  ilvai  TOV  yt'Awra  ties  accordingly,  as  meaning  to  show  more  skill 

K  a  I  pi]??  avu\apclv  tuvrovg  5vvao9at  Tovg  Kepi  'Aw/-  than  was  in  his  understanding.     But  the  Car- 

/W    Tovra  TO~IS  Kapxrfoviot1;  Iduijffi  8df>po$  -aptaTri  thaginians  had  here  no  elephants   with  them 

Xtytgo/t/voic  axb  itoKXov  Kai  faxvpoij   TUU  KaTa$po-  in  the  field:    their  advantage  was  in  horse, 

VOIVTOS  e-nuvai  ye\$v  oCrw  Kal  irai&iv  rw  arparf/yw  against  which  this  manner  of  imbaltailing  wab 

a-joa  TOV  KtvAwuv.  very  unprofitable,  forasmuch  as  their  charge 

01  Livy,  XXII.  46.    Plutarch,  Fabius,  16.  is  better  sustained  in  front,  than  upon  along 

02  Polybius,  III.  113.     Livy,  XXII.  46.  flank." 

03  Polybius,  III.  114.     Livy,  XXII.  45.  105  Appian,  VII.  21.      ot  T£  Xator  e^ovrts  i* 
^  Polybius,  III.  113.  iroiuv  •Ki>\\air\d<nov  TO  (Id- 

Sag  tv  ruf?  c-xdpaif  TOV  Treroijrou.    lialeigh  suggests 


CHAP.  XLIII.]  BATTLE  OF  CANNAE.  499 

veterans, — it  appears  at  any  rate  that  the  Roman  infantry,  though  nearly  double  the 
number  of  the  enemy,  yet  formed  a  line  of  only  equal  length  with  Hannibal's. 

The  skirmishing  of  the  light-armed  troops  preluded  as  usual  to  the  battle :  the 
Balearian  slingers  slung  their  stones  like  hail  into  the  ranks  of  the  Defeat  of  the  Romat 
Roman  line,  and  severely  wounded  the  consul  JSmilius  himself.  cavalr-v- 
Then  the  Spanish  and  Gaulish  horse  charged  the  Romans  front  to  front,  and 
maintained  a  standing  fight  with  them,  many  leaping  off  their  horses  and  fighting 
on  foot,  till  the  Romans,  outnumbered  and  badly  armed,  without  cuirasses,  with 
light  and  brittle  spears,  and  with  shields  made  only  of  ox-hide,  were  totally 
routed,  and  driven  off  the  field.106  Hasdrubal,  who  commanded  the  Gauls  and 
Spaniards,  followed  up  his  work  effectually ;  he  chased  the  Romans  along  the 
river  till  he  had  almost  destroyed  them ;  and  then,  riding  off  to  the  right,  he 
came  up  to  aid  the  Numidians,  who,  after  their  manner,  had  been  skirmishing 
indecisively  with  the  cavalry  of  the  Italian  allies.  These,  on  seeing  the  Gauls 
and  Spaniards  advancing,  broke  away  and  fled ;  the  Numidians,  most  effective  in 
pursuing  a  flying  enemy,  chased  them  with  unweariable  speed,  and  slaughtered 
them  unsparingly ;  while  Hasdrubal,  to  complete  his  signal  services  on  this  day, 
charged  fiercely  upon  the  rear  of  the  Roman  infantry. 

He  found  its  huge  masses  already  weltering  in  helpless  confusion,  crowded 
upon  one  another,  total! y  disorganized,  and  fighting  each  nan  as 

J  ,.  &  .    '  Of  the  whole  army. 

he  best  could,  but  struggling  on  against  all  hope  by  mere  indom- 
itable courage.  For  the  Roman  columns  on  the  right  and  left,  finding  the  Gaul- 
ish and  Spanish  foot  advancing  in  a  convex  line  or  wedge,  pressed  forwards  to 
assail  what  seemed  the  flanks  of  the  enemy's  column ;  so  that,  being  already 
drawn  up  with  too  narrow  a  front  by  their  original  formation,  they  now  became 
compressed  still  more  by  their  own  movements,  the  fight  and  left  converging  to- 
wards the  centre,  till  the  whole  army  became  one  dense  column,  which  forced  its 
way  onwards  by  the  weight  of  its  charge,  and  drove  back  the  Gauls  and  Span- 
iards into  the  rear  of  their  own  line.  Meanwhile  its  victorious  advance  had  car- 
ried it,  like  the  English  column  at  Fontenoy,  into  the  midst  of  Hannibal's  army ; 
it  had  passed  between  the  African  infantry  on  its  right  and  left ;  and  now,  whilst 
its  head  was  Struggling  against  the  Gauls  and  Spaniards,  its  long  flanks  were 
fiercely  assailed  by  the  Africans,  who,  facing  about  to  the  right  and  left,  charged 
it  home,  and  threw  it  into  utter  disorder.  In  this  state,  when  they  were  forced 
together  into  one  unwieldy  crowd,  and  already  falling  by  thousands,  whilst  the 
Gauls  and  Spaniards,  now  advancing  in  their  turn,  were  barring  further  progress 
in  front,  and  whilst  the  Africans  were  tearing  their  mass  to  pieces  on  both  flanks, 
Hasdrubal  with  his  victorious  Gaulish  and  Spanish  horsemen  broke  with  thun- 
dering fury  upon  their  rear.  Then  followed  a  butchery  such  as  has  no  recorded 
equal,  except  the  slaughter  of  the  Persians  in  their  camp,  when  the  Greeks  forced 
it  after  the  battle  of  Platsea.  Unable  to  fight  or  fly,  with  no  quarter  asked  or 
given,  the  Romans  and  Italians  fell  before  the  swords  of  their  enemies,  till,  when 
the  sun  set  upon  the  field,  there  were  left  out  of  that  vast  multitude  no  more  than 
three  thousand  men  alive  and  unwounded ;  and  these  fled  in  straggling  parties, 
under  cover  of  the  darkness,  and  found  a  refuge  in  the  neighboring  towns.101  The 
consul  ^Emilius,  the  proconsul  Cn.  Servilius,  the  late  master  of  the  horse  M. 
Minucius,  two  quaestors,  twenty-one  military  tribunes,  and  eighty  senators,  lay 
dead  amidst  the  carnage  ;  Varro  with  seventy  horsemen  had  escaped  from  the 
rout  of  the  allied  cavalry  on  the  right  of  the  army,  and  made  his  way  safely  to 
Venusia. 

But  the  Roman  loss  was  not  yet  completed.     A  large  force  had  been  left  in 
the  camp  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Aulidus,  to  attack  Hannibal's 

,l.  .  .  ,.,.  iii  •   i      i  •       Capture  of  the  camps. 

camp  during  the  action,  which  it  was  supposed  that,  with  his 

inferior  numbers,  he  could  not  leave  adequately  guarded.     But  it  was  defended 

"•  Polyb.  III.  115.    Livy,  XXII.  47.  107  Polybius,  III.  116.    Livy,  XXII.  49. 


500  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLTV 

so  obstinately,  that  the  Romans  were  still  besieging  it  in  vain,  when  Hannibal, 
now  completely  victorious  in  the  battle,  crossed  the  river  to  its  relief.  Then  the 
besiegers  fled  in  their  turn  to  their  own  camp,  and  there,  cut  off  from  all  succor, 
they  presently  surrendered.  A  few  resolute  men  had  forced  their  way  out  of 
the  smaller  camp  on  the  right  bank,  and  had  escaped  to  Ccinusium ;  the  rest  who 
were  in  it  followed  the  example  of  their  comrades  on  the  left  bank,  and  surren- 
dered to  the  conqueror. 

Less  than  six  thousand  men  of  Hannibal's  army  had  fallen :  no  greater  price 

Fweiuiu  of  the  battle  ^a^  ^ie  Pa^  ^or  ^ie  ^°^  destruction  of  more  than  eighty  thou- 
sand of  the  enemy,  for  the  capture  of  their  two  camps,  for  the  utter 
annihilation,  as  it  seemed,  of  all  their  means  for  offensive  warfare.  It  is  no 
wonder  that  the  spirits  of  the  Carthaginian  officers  were  elated  by  this  unequalled 
victory.  Maharbal,  seeing  what  his  cavalry  had  done,  said  to  Hannibal,  "  Let 
me  advance  instantly  with  the  horse,  and  do  thou  follow  to  support  me ;  in  four 
days  from  this  time  thou  shalt  sup  in  the  capitol."108  There  are  moments  when 
rashness  is  wisdom ;  and  it  may  be  that  this  was  one  of  them.  The  statue  of 
the  goddess  Victory  in  the  capitol  may  well  have  trembled  in  every  limb  on  that 
day,  and  have  dropped  her  wings,  as  if  forever,  but  Hannibal  came  not ;  and  if 
panic  had  for  one  moment  unnerVed  the  iron  courage  of  the  Roman  aristocracy, 
on  the  next  their  inborn  spirit  revived ;  and  their  resolute  will,  striving  beyond 
its  present  power,  created,  as  is  the  law  of  our  nature,  the  power  which  it  re- 
quired. 


CHAPTER  XLIV, 

PEOGEESS  OF  THE  WAE  IN  ITALY  AFTEE  THE  BATTLE  OF  CANN.E— KEVOLT 
OF  CAPUA,  AND  OF  THE  PEOPLE  OF  SOUTHEEN  ITALY,  TO*  HANNIBAL- 
GEEAT  EXEETIONS  OF  THE  ROMANS— SUEPEISE  OF  TAEENTUM— SIEGE  OF 
CAPUA— HANNIBAL  MAECHES  ON  EOME— EEDUCTION  AND  PUNISHMENT  OF 
CAPUA.— A.  U.  C.  538  TO  543. 

FROM  New  Carthage  to  the  plains  of  Cannse,  Hannibal's  march  resembled  a 
change  in  the  ctarac-  mighty  torrent,  which,  rushing  along  irresistible  and  undivided, 
terofthewar.  fixes  our  attention  to  the  one  line  of  its  course:  all  other  sights 

and  sounds  in  the  landscape  are  forgotten,  while  we  look  on  the  rush  of  the  vast 
volume  of  waters,  and  listen  to  their  deep  and  ceaseless  roar.  Therefore  I  have 
not  wished  to  draw  away  the  reader's  attention  to  other  objects,  but  to  keep  it 
fixed  upon  the  advance  of  Hannibal.  But  from  Cannse  onwards  the  character 
of  the  scene  changes.  The  single  torrent,  joined  by  a  hundred  lesser  streams, 
has  now  swelled  into  a  wide  flood,  overwhelming  the  whole  valley ;  and  the 
principal  object  of  our  interest  is  the  one  rock,  now  islanded  amid  the  waters, 
and  on  which  they  dashed  furiously  on  every  side,  as  though  they  must  needs 
sweep  it  away.  But  the  rock  stands  unshaken  :  the  waters  become  feebler ;  and 
their  streams  are  again  divided :  and  the  flood  shrinks ;  and  the  rock  rises  higher 
and  higher ;  and  the  danger  is  passed  away.  In  the  next  part  of  the  second 
Punic  war,  our  attention  will  be  mainly  fixed  on  Rome,  as  it  has  hitherto  been  on 
Hannibal.  But  in  order  to  value  aright  the  mightiness  of  her  energy,  we  must 
consider  the  multitude  of  her  enemies ;  how  all  southern  Italy,  led  by  Hannibal, 
struggled  with  her  face  to  face ;  how  Sicily  and  Macedon  struck  at  her  from  be- 

*»  Livy,  XXII.  51. 


CH. 


AP.  XLIV.J  MEASURES  OF  THE  SENATE.  501 

hind ;  how  Spain  supplied  arms  to  her  most  dangerous  enemy.  Yet  her  policy 
and  her  courage  were  everywhere :  Sicily  was  struck  to  the  earth  by  one  blow ; 
Macedon  obliged  to  defend  himself  against  his  nearer  enemies ;  the  arms  which 
Spain  was  offering  to  Hannibal  were  torn  out  of  his  grasp ;  revolted  Italy  was 
crushed  to  pieces ;  and  the  great  enemy,  after  all  his  forces  were  dispersed  and 
destroyed,  was  obliged,  like  Hector,  to  fight  singly  under  his  country's  walls,  and 
to  fall  like  Hector,  with  the  consolation  of  "  having  done  mighty  deeds,  to  be 
famed  in  after  ages." 

The  Romans,  knowing  that  their  army  was  in  presence  of  the  enemy,  and  that 
the  consuls  had  been  ordered  no  longer  to  decline  a  battle,  were  The  news  of  the  defeat 
for  some  days  in  the  most  intense  anxiety.  Every  tongue  was  reache9  Roraet 
repeating  some  line  of  old  prophecy,  or  relating  some  new  wonder  or  portent ; 
every  temple  was  crowded  with  supplicants ;  and  incense  and  sacrifices  were 
offered  on  every  altar.  At  last  the  tidings  arrived  of  the  utter  destruction  of 
both  the  consular  armies,  and  of  a  slaughter  such  as  Rome  had  never  before  known. 
Even  Livy  felt  himself  unable  adequately  to  paint  the  grief  and  consternation  of 
that  day  ;l  and  the  experience  of  the  bloodiest  and  most  imbittered  warfare  of 
modern  times  would  not  help  us  to  conceive  it  worthily.  But  one  simple  fact 
speaks  eloquently  :  the  whole  number  of  Roman  citizens  able  to  bear  arms  had 
amounted  at  the  last  census  to  270,000  ;2  and  supposing,  as  we  fairly  may,  that 
the  loss  of  the  Romans  in  the  late  battle  had  been  equal  to  that  of  their  allies, 
there  must  have  been  killed  or  taken,  within  the  last  eighteen  months,  no  fewer 
than  60,000,  or  more  than  a  fifth  part  of  the  whole  population  of  citizens  above 
seventeen  years  of  age.  It  must  have  been  true,  without  exaggeration,  that  every 
house  in  Rome  was  in  mourning. 

The  two  home  praetors  summoned  the  senate  to  consult  for  the  defence  of  the 
city.  Fabius  was  no  longer  dictator;  yet  the  supreme  govern-  Meaguregtaken  bythe 
ment  at  this  moment  was  effectually  in  his  hands ;  for  the  reso-  senate* 
lutions  which  he  moved  were  instantly  and  unanimously  adopted.  Light-horse- 
men were  to  be  sent  out  to  gather  tidings  of  the  enemy's  movements ;  the  mem- 
bers of  the  senate,  acting  as  magistrates,  were  to  keep  order  in  the  city,  to  stop 
all  loud  or  public  lamentations,  and  to  take  care  that  all  intelligence  was  con- 
veyed in  the  first  instance  to  the  praetors :  above  all,  the  city  gates  were  to  be 
strictly  guarded,  that  no  one  might  attempt  to  fly  from  Rome,  but  all  abide  the 
common  danger  together.3  Then  the  Forum  was  cleared,  and  the  assemblies  of 
the  people  suspended ;  for  at  such  a  moment  had  any  one  tribune  uttered  the 
word  "  peace,"  the  tribes  would  have  caught  it  up  with  eagerness,  and  obliged 
the  senate  to  negotiate. 

Thus  the  first  moments  of  panic  passed  ;  and  Varro's  dispatches  arrived,  inform- 
ing the  senate  that  he  had  rallied  the  wrecks  of  the  army  at  Ca-  Arrivaj  of  digpntchet 
nusium,  and  that  Hannibal  was  not  advancing  upon  Rome.'1  Hope  from  Varro> 
then  began  to  revive ;  the  meetings  of  the  senate  were  resumed,  and  measures 
taken  for  maintaining  the  war. 

M.  Marcellus,  one  of  the  praetors  for  the  year,  was  at  this  moment  at  Ostia, 
preparing  to  sail  to  Sicily.  It  was  resolved  to  transfer  him  at  Marceiiug  is  sent  into 
once  to  the  great  scene  of  action  in  Apulia ;  and  he  was  ordered  Apulia- 
to  give  up  the  fleet  to  his  colleague,  P.  Furius  Philus,  and  to  march  with  the 
single  legion  which  he  had  under  his  command  into  Apulia,  there  to  collect  the 
remains  of  Varro's  army,  and  to  fall  back  as  he  best  could  into  Campania,  while 
the  consul  returned  immediately  to  Rome.* 

In  the  mean  time  the  scene  at  Canusium  was  like  the  disorder  of  a  ship  going 
to  pieces,  when  fear  makes  men  desperate,  and  the  instinct  of  self- 

1 1  ,  *        «      , .  f*  Varro's  manly  conduct. 

preservation  swallows  up  every  other  feeling.      Some  young  men 

1  Livy,  XXII.  54.  «  Livy,  XXII.  56. 

1  Livy,  Epit.  XX.  6  Livy,  XXII.  57.    Plutarch,  MarcelluB.  9. 

*  Livy,  XXII.  55. 


502  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLIV 

of  the  noblest  families,  a  Metellus  being  at  the  head  of  them,  looking  upon  Rome 
as  lost,  were  planning  to  escape  from  the  ruin,  and  to  fly  beyond  sea,  in  the  hope 
of  entering  into  some  foreign  service.  Such  an  example  at  such  a  moment  would 
have  led  the  way  to  a  general  panic :  if  the  noblest  citizens  of  Rome  despaired 
of  their  country,  what  allied  state,  or  what  colony,  could  be  expected  to  sacri- 
fice themselves  in  defence  of  a  hopeless  cause  ?  The  consul  exerted  himself  to 
the  utmost  to  check  this  spirit,  and  aided  by  some  firmer  spirits  amongst  the 
officers  themselves,  he  succeeded  in  repressing  it.6  He  kept  his  men  together, 
gave  them  over  to  the  praetor  Marcellus,  on  his  arrival  at  Canusium,  and  pre- 
pared instantly  to  obey  the  orders  of  the  senate  by  returning  to  Rome.  The  fate 
of  P.  Claudius  and  L.  Junius  in  the  last  war  might  have  warned  him  of  the 
dangers  which  threatened  a  defeated  general ;  he  himself  was  personally  hateful 
to  the  prevailing  party  at  Rome ;  and  if  the  memory  of  Flaminius  was  persecuted, 
notwithstanding  his  glorious  death,  what  could  he  look  for,  a  fugitive  general 
from  that  field  where  his  colleague  and  all  his  sddiers  had  perished  ?  Demos- 
thenes dared  not  trust  himself  to  the  Athenian  pev>ple  after  his  defeat  in  ^Etolia; 
but  Varro,  with  a  manlier  spirit,  returned  to  bear  the  obloquy  and  the  punishment 
which  the  popular  feeling,  excited  by  party  animosity,  was  so  likely  to  heap  on  him. 
He  stopped,  as  usual,  without  the  city  walls,  and  summoned  the  senate  to  meet 
him  in  the  Campus  Martius. 

The  senate  felt  his  confidence  in  them,  and  answered  it  nobly.     All  party  feel- 
ing was  suspended :    all  popular   irritation  was    subdued ;    the 

The  senate  thank  him.    ,    *?    -i        ,  r      .-.  i      i  t  i  i     r  -,  -, 

butcher  s  son,  the  turbulent  demagogue,  the  defeated  general, 
were  all  forgotten ;  only  Varro's  latest  conduct  was  remembered,  that  he  had 
resisted  the  panic  of  his  officers,  and,  instead  of  seeking  shelter  at  the  court  of  a 
foreign  king,  had  submitted  himself  to  the  judgment  of  his  countrymen.  The 
senate  voted  him  their  thanks,  "  because  he  had  not  despaired  of  the  common- 
wealth."7 

It  was  resolved  to  name  a  dictator ;  and  some  writers  related  that  the  general 
voice  of  the  senate  and  people  offered  the  dictatorship  to  Varro 

A  dictator  appointed.        ,.  i/«    i       .      ,1       .    i  •   •       t  p  i      .  ,    •,   s        rni  • 

himself,  but  that  he  positively  refused  to  accept  it.  This  story 
is  extremely  doubtful ;  but  the  dictator  actually  named  was  M.  Junius  Pisa,  a 
member  of  a  popular  family,  and  who  had  himself  been  consul  and  censor.  His 
master  of  the  horse  was  T.  Sempronius  Gracchus,  the  first  of  that  noble  but  ill- 
fated  name  who  appears  in  the  Roman  annals.9 

Already,  before  the  appointment  of  the  dictator,  the  Roman  government  had 
The  gcnate  refuse^  to  shown  that  its  resolution  was  fixed  to  carry  on  the  war  to  the  death, 
nuuom  the  prisoner..  Hannibal  had  allowed  his  Roman  prisoners  to  send  ten  of  their 
number  to  Rome  to  petition  that  the  senate  would  permit  the  whole  body  to  be 


8  The   author   would,    doubtless,    have   ex-    cellus,  when  he  went  to  Kome — implies  that 


TtiUj    JLWU  J.U    iO      DVIUWTUAV     A9UM»1  AAL/J.Q      tlltlU    JL    U~          KCLTc(fTrjU  UTU ,      Kill       TUi$      n/MJUlUJ^WyVlb      y/t 

lybius  makes  no  mention  of  the  fact,  either  in    T&V  irap6v™v  eirt^tv,  Kpoa$d\\ovTds 
the  account  of  the  battle  of  Cannae,  or  in  the    Inrfas,  antupovcraTo  •  r6  TE  cvio\ov  our 


character  of  Scipio,  X.  1-6,  where  he  speaks  of  oiJre  Kara-Tr^ag,   «AA'   air'    fytfvj    fiiavoias  w< 

Scipio's   early    exploits.       According   to  Livy,  nrjfcvbs  epici  Sctvou  ffu^/Je^xtfrof,  vdvra  rd  i;p6a(f>o(. 

•A-itli  whose  accounts  Dion's  concurs,  the  fugi-  ™?f  vapovcri  *al  sfafatwn  teal  tirpnfrv.     Zonar 

tives  at  Canusium  were  headed  by  four  trib-  was  so  careless  in  abridging  his  author,  that 

unes,  who  voluntarily  submitted  to  the  com-  transfers  what   Dion  here   says  of  Varro 

mand  of  Scipio  and  Appius  Claudius,  two  of  Scipio. 

their  number;   and  Scipio,  by  a  characteristic        7  Livy,  XXII.  61,   Plutarch,  Fabius,  18.  S( 

act  of  youthful  heroism,  stifled' the  plot.    Mean-  also  Floras,  II.  6. 

while'Varro  is  represented  to  have  been  at  Ve-        8  Valerius  Maximus,   III.   4,  §  IV.   5,  § 

nusia.     Appian's  account,  too,  VII.  26,  though  Frontinus,  IV.  5,  6.     "  Honoribus,  _  quum, 

differing  as  to  the  order  of  the  events,  and  deferrentur  a  populo,  renuntiavit,  dicens,  feli 

plainly  inaccurate — since  it  makes  Varro  re-  cioribus,  magistratibus  reipublicas  opus  esse." 
eign  the  command  to  Scipio,  instead  of  Mar-        '  Livy,  XXII.  57. 


op 

: 


CHAP.  XLIV.]  POSITION  OF  THE  ROMAN  ARMY.  503 

ransomed  by  their  friends  at  the  sum  of  three  minoe,  or  3000  ases  for  each  pris- 
oner.  But  the  senate  absolutely  forbade  the  money  to  be  paid,  neither  choosing 
to  furnish  Hannibal  with  so  large  a  sum,  nor  to  show  any  compassion  to  men  who 
,d  allowed  themselves  to  fall  alive  into  the  enemy's  hands.10  The  prisoners 
erefore  were  left  in  hopeless  captivity  ;  and  the  armies  which  the  state  required 
re  to  be  formed  out  of  other  materials.  The  expedients  adopted  showed  the 
•ency  of  the  danger. 

"hen  the  consuls  took  the  field  at  the  beginning  of  the  campaign,  two  legions 
been  left,  as  usual,  to  cover  the  capital.     These  were  now  to   McMnrei    to    rai» 
employed  in  active  service  ;  and  with  them  was  a  small  detach-    iroo»s' 
int  of  troops,  which  had  been  drawn  from  Picenum  and  the  neighborhood  of 
Ariminum,  where  their  services  were  become  of  less  importance.     The  contin- 
ts  from  the  allies  were  not  ready ;  and  there  was  no  time  to  wait  for  them, 
order,  therefore,  to  enable  the  dictator  to  take  the  field  immediately,  eight 
ousand  slaves  were  enlisted,  having  expressed  their  willingness  to  serve ;  and 
s  were  provided  by  taking  down  from  the  temple  the  spoils  won  in  former 
rs.n     The  dictator  went  still  further  :  he  offered  pardon  to  criminals  and  re- 
to  debtors,  if  they  were  willing  to  take  up  arms ;  and  amongst  the  former 
were  some  bands  of  robbers,  who  then,  as  in  later  times,  infested  the  mount- 
s,  and  who  consented  to  serve  the  state  on  receiving  an  indemnity  for  their 
t  offences.12     With  this  strange  force,  amounting,  it  is  said,  to  about  twenty- 
ve  thousand  men,  M.  Junius  marched  into  Campania  ;  whilst  a  new  levy  of  the 
'  ~est  and  youngest  citizens  supplied  two  new  legions  for  the  defence  of  the  cap- 
1,  in  the  place  of  those  which  followed  the  dictator  into  the  field.     M.  Junius 
ed  his  head-quarters  at  Teanum,13  on  high  ground  upon  the  edge  of  the  Faler- 
tn  plain,  with  the  Latin  colony  of  Gales  in  his  front,  and  communicating  by  the 
,tin  road  with  Rome. 
The  dictator  was  at  Teanum,  and  M.  Marcellus  with  the  army  of  Canncc,  whom 
e  left  in  Apulia,  is  described  as  now  lying  encamped  above  Sues-  Po3ition  of  t]l9  Romatt 
"a,14  that  is,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Vulturnus,  on  the  hills  army- 
hich  bound  the  Campanian  plain,  ten  or  twelve  miles  to  the  east  of  Capua,  on 
e  right  of  the  Appian  road  as  it  ascends  the  pass  of  Caudium  towards  Bene- 
ntum.     Thus  we  find  the  seat  of  war  removed  from  Apulia  to  Campania ;  but 
:he  detail  of  the  intermediate  movements  is  lost ;  and  we  must  restore  the  broken 
story  as  well  as  we  can,  by  tracing  Hannibal's  operations  after  the  battle  of  Can- 
nae, which  are  undoubtedly  the  key  to  those  of  his  enemies. 

The  fidelity  of  the  allies  of  Rome,  which  had  not  been  shaken  by  the  defeat  of 
Thrasymenus,  could  not  resist  the  fiery  trial  of  Cannae.  The  Apu-  Revolt  of  the  Ml^ 
Hans  joined  the  conqueror  immediately,  and  Arpi  and  Salapia  «*<»««* ''Hannibal.  ' 
opened  their  gates  to  him.  Bruttium,  Lucania,  and  Samnium  were  ready  to  fol- 
1  w  the  example  ;15  and  Hannibal  was  obliged  to  divide  his  army,  and  send  offi- 
rs  into  different  parts  of  the  country,  to  receive  and  protect  those  who  wished 
join  him,  and  to  organize  their  forces  for  effective  co-operation  in  the  field. 
Meanwhile  he  himself  remained  in  Apulia,  not  perhaps  without  hope  that  this 
last  blow  had  broken  the  spirit  as  well  as  the  power  of  the  enemy,  and  that  they 
would  listen  readily  to  proposals  of  peace.  With  this  view  he  sent  a  Carthaginian 
officer  to  accompany  the  deputation  of  the  Roman  prisoners  to  Rome,  and  or- 
dered him  to  encourage  any  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  Romans  to  open  a 
negotiation.16  When  he  found,  therefore,  on  the  return  of  the  deputies,  that  his 
officers  had  not  been  allowed  to  enter  the  city,  and  that  the  Romans  had  refused 
to  ransom  their  prisoners,  his  disappointment  betrayed  him  into  acts  of  the  most 

"  Polybius,  VI.  58.    Livy,  XII.  58-61.     Ap-        "  Livy,  XXIII.  24. 
ian,  VII.  28.     Cicero  de  Off.  1. 13,  32.    III.  32.        "  Livy,  XXII.  14. 
Lulus  Gcllius,  VII.  18.  »  Livy,  XXII.  61.    Polybius,  III.  118.     Ap- 

»  Livy,  XXII.  57.  plan,  Vll!  31. 

»  Livy,  XXIII.  14.  »  Livy,  XXII.  58. 


504  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  LXIV 

inhuman  cruelty.  The  mass  of  the  prisoners  left  in  his  hands  he  sold  for  slaves ; 
and  so  far  he  did  not  overstep  the  recognized  laws  of  warfare  ;  but  many  of  the 
more  distinguished  of  them  he  put  to  death ;  and  those  who  were  senators  he 
obliged  to  fight  as  gladiators  with  each  other  in  the  presence  of  his  whole  army. 
It  is  added,  that  brothers  were  in  some  instances  brought  out  to  fight  with  their 
brothers,  and  sons  with  their  fathers ;  but  that  the  prisoners  refused  so  to  sin 
against  nature,  and  chose  rather  to  suffer  the  worst  torments  than  to  draw  their 
swords  in  such  horrible  combats.17  Hannibal's  vow  may  have  justified  all  these 
cruelties  in  his  eyes ;  but  his  passions  deceived  him,  and  he  was  provoked  to 
fury  by  the  resolute  spirit  which  ought  to  have  excited  his  admiration.  To  ad- 
mire the  virtue  which  thwarts  our  dearest  purposes,  however  natural  it  may 
seem  to  indifferent  spectators,  is  one  of  the  hardest  trials  of  hAmanity. 

Finding  the  Romans  immovable,  Hannibal  broke  up  from  his  position  in  Apulia, 
Hannibal  enters  Cam-  and  moved  into  Samnium.     The  popular  party  in  Compsa  opened 

pauia:  re  volt  of  Capua,    ^fa^  g^^  ^Q  J^  .     an(J    fa    m^Q    ^fa    ^QQ  SQTVQ    3S    a  d6p6t  for 

his  plunder,  and  for  the  heavy  baggage  of  his  army.18  His  brother  Mago  was 
then  ordered  to  march  into  Bruttium  with  a  division  of  the  army,  and  after  hav- 
ing received  the  submission  of  the  Hirpinians  on  his  way,  to  embark  at  one  of  the 
Bruttian  ports,  and  carry  the  tidings  of  his  success  to  Carthage.19  Hanno,  with 
another  division,  was  sent  into  Lucania,  to  protect  the  revolt  of  the  Lucanians  ;20 
while  Hannibal  himself,  in  pursuit  of  a  still  greater  prize,  descended  once  more 
into  the  plains  of  Campania.  The  Pentrian  Samnites,  partly  restrained  br  the 
Latin  colony  of  (Esernia,  and  partly  by  the  influence  of  their  own  countryman, 
Num.  Decimius  of  Bovianum,  a  zealous  supporter  of  the  Roman  alliance,  remained 
firm  in  their  adherence  to  Rome  :  but  the  Hirpinians  and  the  Caudinian  Samnites 
all  joined  the  Carthaginians  ;  and  their  soldiers  no  doubt  formed  part  of  the  army 
with  which  Hannibal  invaded  Campania.11  There  all  was  ready  for  his  reception. 
The  popular  party  in  Capua  were  headed  by  Pacuvius  Calavius,  a  man  of  the 
highest  nobility,  and  married  to  a  daughter  of  Appius  Claudius,  but  whose  am- 
bition led  him  to  aspire  to  the  sovereignty,  not  of  his  own  country  only,  but, 
through  Hannibal's  aid,  of  the  whole  of  Italy,  Capua  succeeding,  as  he  hoped,  to 
the  supremacy  now  enjoyed  by  Rome.  The  aristocratical  party  were  weak  and 
unpopular,  and  could  offer  no  opposition  to  him ;  while  the  people,  wholly  sub- 
ject to  his  influence,  concluded  a  treaty  with  Hannibal,  and  admitted  the  Cartha- 
ginian general  and  his  army  into  the  city.22  Thus  the  second  city  in  Italy, 
capable,  it  is  said,  of  raising  an  army  of  30,000  foot  and  4000  horse,23  connected 
with  Rome  by  the  closest  ties,  and  which  for  nearly  a  century  had  remained  true 
to  its  alliance  under  all  dangers,  threw  itself  into  the  arms  of  Hannibal,  and  took 
its  place  at  the  head  of  the  new  coalition  of  southern  Italy,  to  try  the  old  quarrel 
of  the  Samnite  wars  once  again. 

This  revolt  of  Capua,  the  greatest  result,  short  of  the  submission  of  Rome  itself, 
encamps  at  which  could  have  followed  from  the  battle  of  Cannae,  drew  the 
Roman  armies  towards  Campania.     Marcellus  had  probably  fallen 

n  Diodorus,  XXVI.  Exc.  de.  Virtut.  etVitiis.  pliant,  and  killed  him,  and  was  then  treacher- 

Appian,  VII.  28.      Zonaras,  IX.  2.      Valerius  ously  waylaid  and   murdered   by  Hannibal's 

Maximus,  IX.  2,  Ext.  2.    But  as  even  Livy  does  orders,  was  probably  invented  with  reference 

not  mention  these  stories,  though  they  would  to  this  very  occasion.    The  remarks  of  Polybius 

have  afforded  such  a  topic  for  his  rhetoric, — nor  should  make  us  slow  to  believe  the  stories  oi 

does  Polybius,  either  in  IX.  24,  when  speaking  Hannibal's  cruelties,  which  so  soon  became  A 

of  Hannibal's  alleged  cruelty,  or  in  VI.  58,  where  theme  for  the  invention  of  poets  and  rhetori- 

he  gives  the  account  of  the  mission  of  the  cap-  cinns. 

lives,  and  adds  that  Hannibal,  when  he  heard  1B  Livy,  XXIII.  1. 

that  the  Eomans  had  refused  to  ransom  them,  19  Livy,  XXIII.  11. 

«ar£jrXayr/  TO  crdffifjtov  Kal  rb  n?ya\6\liwxpv  T&V  av-  3<J  Livy,  XX11I.  37. 

Ipuv  iv  TO?S  tiapovMots,— there  must  doubtless  !1  Livy,  XXII.  61,  24. 

be  a  great  deal  of  exaggeration  in  them,  even  w  Livy,  XXIII.  2-4. 

if  they  had  any  foundation  at  all.     The  story  w  Livy,  XXIII.  5.      See  Niebuhr,  Vol.  II 

in  Pliny,  VIII.  7,  that  the  last  survivor  of  these  note  145. 
gladiatorial  combats  had  to  light  against  an  ele- 


IAP.  XL1V.J  CAUSES  WHICH  SAVED  ROME.  595 

,ck  from  Canusium  by  the  Appian  road  through  Beneventum,  moving  by  ac 
rior  and  shorter  line ;  whilst  Hannibal  advanced  by  Compsa  upon  Abellinum, 
scending  into  the  plain  of  Campania  by  what  is  now  the  pass  of  Monteforte. 
nnibal's  cavalry  gave  him  the  whole  command  of  the  country ;  and  Marcellus 
uld  do  no  more  than  watch  his  movements  from  his  camp  above  Suessula,  and 
it  for  some  opportunity  of  impeding  his  operations  in  detail. 
At  this  point  in  the  story  of  the  war,  the  question  arises,  how  was  it  possible 
>r  Rome  to  escape  destruction?  Nor  is  this  question  merely  How came it thflt Ronw 
prompted  by  the  thought  of  Hannibal's  great  victories  in  the  field,  *«  »«*  d""^  i 
and  the  enormous  slaughter  of  Roman  citizens  at  Thrasymenus  and  Cannae  ;  it 
appears  even  more  perplexing  to  those  who  have  attentively  studied  the  preced- 
ing history  of  Rome.  A  single  battle,  evenly  contested  and  hardly  won,  had 
enabled  Pyrrhus  to  advance  into  the  heart  of  Latium  ;  the  Hernican  cities  and 
the  impregnable  Praeneste  had  opened  their  gates  to  him ;  yet  Capua  was  then 
faithful  to  Rome ;  and  Samnium  and  Lucania,  exhausted  by  long  years  of  unsuc- 
cessful warfare,  could  have  yielded  him  no  such  succor,  as  now,  after  fifty  years 
of  peace,  they  were  able  to  afford  to  Hannibal.  But  now,  when  Hannibal  was 
received  into  Capua,  the  state  of  Italy  seemed  to  have  gone  backwards  a  hundred 
years,  and  to  have  returned  to  what  it  had  been  after  the  battle  of  Lautulee  in 
the  second  Samnite  war,24  with  the  immense  addition  of  the  genius  of  Hannibal 
and  the  power  of  Carthage  thrown  into  the  scale  of  the  enemies  of  Rome.  Then, 
now,  Capua  had  revolted,  and  Campania,  Samnium,  and  Lucania,  were  banded 
ether  against  Rome ;  but  this  same  confederacy  was  now  supported  by  all  the 
urces  of  Carthage:  and  at  its  head  in  the  field  of  battle  was  an  army  of 
irty  thousand  veterans  and  victorious  soldiers,  led  by  one  of  the  greatest  gen- 
Is  whom  the  world  has  ever  seen.  How  could  it  happen  that  a  confederacy 
formidable  was  only  formed  to  be  defeated  ? — that  the  revolt  of  Capua  was 
the  term  of  Hannibal's  progress  ? — that  from  this  day  forwards  his  great  powers 
were  shown  rather  in  repelling  defeat  than  in  commanding  victory  ? — that,  in- 
stead of  besieging  Rome,  he  was  soon  employed  in  protecting  and  relieving  Ca- 
pua ? — and  that  his  protection  and  succors  were  alike  unavailing  ? 

No  single  cause  will  explain  a  result  so  extraordinary.  Rome  owed  her  deliv- 
erance principally  to  the  strength  of  the  aristocratical  interest  Causes  whicll  gaved 
throughout  Italy,—- to  her  numerous  colonies  of  the  Latin  name, —  Ler- 
to  the  scanty  numbers  of  Hannibal's  Africans  and  Spaniards,  and  to  his  want  of 
an  efficient  artillery.  The  material  of  a  good  artillery  must  surely  have  existed 
in  Capua;  but  there  seem  to  have  been  no  officers  capable  of  directing  it;  and 
no  great  general's  operations  exhibit  so  striking  a  contrast  of  strength  and  weak- 
— ss,  as  may  be  seen  in  Hannibal's  battles  and  sieges.  And  when  Cannae  had 
ght  the  Romans  to  avoid  pitched  battles  in  the  open  field,  the  war  became  ne- 
-arily  a  series  of  sieges,  where  Hannibal's  strongest  arm,  his  cavalry,  could  ren- 
little  service,  while  his  infantry  was  in  quality  not  more  than  equal  to  the 
emy,  and  his  artillery  was  decidedly  inferior. 

With  two  divisions  of  his  army  absent  in  Lucania  and  Bruttium,  and  while 
xiously  waiting  for  the  reinforcements  which  Mago  was  to  pro-  Militory  mea8ure3  in 
sure  from  Carthage,  Hannibal  could  not  undertake  any  great  often-  CamPania- 
sive  operation  after  his  arrival  in  Campania.  He  attempted  only  to  reduce  the 
remaining  cities  of  the  Campanian  plain  and  sea-coast,  and  especially  to  dislodge 
the  Romans  from  Casilinum,  which,  lying  within  three  miles  of  Capua,  and  com- 
manding the  passage  of  the  Vulturnus,  not  only  restrained  all  his  movements,  but 
was  a  serious  annoyance  to  Capua,  and  threatened  its  territory  with  continual 
.cursions.  Atilla  and  Calatia  had  revolted  to  him  already  with  Capua:  and  he 
k  Nuceria,  Alfatcrna,  and  Acerrae.  The  Greek  cities  on  the  coast,  Neapolis 
1  Cumae,  were  firmly  attached  to  Rome,  and  were  too  strong  to  be  besieged 

»  See  Chap.  XXXI. 


506  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLIV 

with  success  ;  but  Nola  lay  in  the  midst  of  the  plain  nearly  midway  between 
Capua  and  Nuceria ;  and  the  popular  party  there,  as  elsewhere,  were  ready  to 
open  their  gates  to  Hannibal.  He  was  preparing  to  appear  before  the  town ;  but 
the  aristocracy  had  time  to  apprise  the  Romans  of  their  danger ;  and  Marcellus, 
who  was  then  at  Casilinum,  marched  round  behind  the  mountains  to  escape  the 
enemy's  notice,  and  descended  suddenly  upon  Nola  from  the  hills  which  rise 
directly  above  it.  He  secured  the  place,  repressed  the  popular  party  by  some 
bloody  executions,  and  when  Hannibal  advanced  to  the  walls,  made  a  sudden 
sally,  and  repulsed  him  with  some  loss.25  Having  done  this  service,  and  left  the 
aristocratical  party  in  absolute  possession  of  the  government,  he  returned  again 
to  the  hills,  and  lay  encamped  on  the  edge  of  the  mountain  boundary  of  the 
Campanian  plain,  just  above  the  entrance  of  the  famous  pass  of  Caudium.  His 
place  at  Casilinum  was  to  be  supplied  by  the  dictator's  army  from  Teanum ;  but 
Hannibal  watched  his  opportunity,  and  anticipating  his  enemies  this  time,  laid 
regular  siege  to  Casilinum,  which  was  defended  by  a  garrison  of  about  1000  men. 

This  garrison  had  acted  the  very  same  part  towards  the  citizens  of  Casilinum, 
conduct  of  the  garrison  which  the  Campanians  had  acted  at  Rhegium  in  the  war  with 
ofcasiiinun..  Pyrrhus.26  About  500  Latins  of  Praeneste,  and  450  Etruscans  of 

Perusia,  having  been  levied  too  late  to  join  the  consular  armies  when  they  took 
the  field,  were  marching  after  them  into  Apulia  by  the  Appian  road,  when  they 
heard  the  tidings  of  the  defeat  of  Cannae.  They  immediately  turned  about,  and 
fell  back  upon  Casilinum,  where  they  established  themselves,  and  for  their  better 
security  massacred  the  Campanian  inhabitants,  and,  abandoning  the  quarter  of 
the  town  which  was  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Vulturnus,  occupied  the  quarter  on 
the  right  bank.27  Marcellus,  when  he  retreated  from  Apulia  with  the  wreck  of 
Varro's  army,  had  fixed  his  head-quarters  for  a  time  at  Casilinum ;  the  position 
being  one  of  great  importance,  and  there  being  some  danger  lest  the  garrison,  while 
they  kept  oft'  Hannibal,  should  resolve  to  hold  the  town  for  themselves  rather 
than  for  the  Romans.  They  were  now  left  to  themselves ;  and  dreading  Hanni- 
bal's vengeance  for  the  massacre  of  the  old  inhabitants,  they  resisted  his  assaults 
desperately,  and  obliged  him  to  turn  the  siege  into  a  blockade.  This  was  the 
last  active  operation  of  the  campaign  :  all  the  armies  now  went  into  winter- 
quarters.  The  dictator  remained  at  Teanum ;  Marcellus  lay  in  his  mountain 
camp  above  Nola ;  and  Hannibal's  army  was  at  Capua.28  Being  quartered  in 
the  houses  of  the  city,  instead  of  being  encamped  by  themselves,  their  discipline, 
it  is  likely,  was  somewhat  impaired  by  the  various  temptations  thrown  in  their 
way :  and  as  the  wealth  and  enjoyments  of  Capua  at  that  time  were  notorious, 
the  writers  who  adopted  the  vulgar  declamations  against  luxury,  pretended  that 
Hannibal's  army  was  ruined  by  the  indulgences  of  this  winter,  and  that  Capua 
was  the  Cannae  of  Carthage.29 

This  intermission  of  active  warfare  wilkafford  us  an  opportunity  of  noticing  the 
progress  of  the  war  in  progress  of  events  elsewhere,  which  we  have  hitherto  unavoidably 
other  quarters.  neglected.  From  the  banks  of  the  Iberus  Hannibal  had  made  his 

way  without  interruption  to  Capua ;  and  the  countries  which  he  left  behind  him 
sink  in  like  manner  from  the  notice  of  the  historian.  We  must  now  see  what  had 
happened  in  each  of  them  since  Hannibal's  passage. 

It  has  been  mentioned  above,  that  P.  Scipio,  when  he  returned  from  the  Rhone 
A  u  c  537  A  c  to  *tab'»  to  ke  ready  to  meet  Hannibal  in  Cisalpine  Gaul,  sent  his 
RoTmanfrcs$i°f  thd  arm7  m^°  Spain  under  the  command  of  his  brother.30  After  his 
consulship  was  over,  his  province  of  Spain  was  still  continued  to 
him  as  proconsul ;  and  he  went  thither  accordingly  to  take  the  command.  He 
found  that  his  brother  had  already  effected  much :  he  had  defeated  and  made 

»  Livy,  XXIII.   14-17.  Plutarch,   Marcel-        M  Livy,  XXIII.  18. 

us,  11.  »  Livy,  XXIII.  45.    Florus,  II.  6.    Valerius 

28  See  Vol.  II.  p.  398.  Maximus,  IX.    Ext.  1. 

n  Livy,  XXIIL  17.  »  Above,  p.  477. 


CHAP.  XLIV.]  TRANQUILLITY  OF  CISALPINE  GAUL.  507 

prisoner  the  Carthaginian  general,  Hanno,  whom  Hannibal  left  to  maintain  his 
latest  conquests  in  Spain,  and  had  driven  the  Carthaginians  beyond  the  Iberus.31 
His  own  arrival  in  Spain  took  place  in  the  summer  of  the  year  537,  three  or  four 
months  after  the  battle  of  Thrasymenus ;  and  although  little  was  done  in  the 
field  before  the  end  of  the  season,  the  Carthaginian  governor  of  Saguntum  was 
persuaded  to  set  at  liberty  all  the  Spanish  hostages  left  in  his  custody ;  and  the 
Spaniard  who  had  advised  this  step  under  the  mask  of  good  will  to  Carthage, 
as  a  means  of  securing  the  affections  of  the  Spanish  people,  had  no  sooner 
received  the  hostages  with  orders  to  take  them  back  to  their  several  homes,  than 
he  delivered  them  up  to  the  Romans.  Thus  Scipio  enjoyed  the  whole  credit  of 
restoring  them  to  their  friends,  and  made  the  Roman  name  generally  popular.31 
In  the  following  year,  Hasdrubal,  the  son  of  Hamilcar,  having  received  orders  to 
march  into  Italy  to  co-operate  with  his  brother,  was  encountered  by  the  Romans 
near  the  Iberus,  and  defeated  ;33  so  that  his  invasion  of  Italy  was  for  the  present 
effectually  prevented. 

The  importance  of  this  Spanish  war  cannot  be  estimated  too  highly ;  for,  by 
disputing  the  possession  of  Spain,  the  Romans,  deprived  their  en- 
emy of  his  best  nursery  of  soldiers,  from  which  otherwise  he  would  iu.u'ito  St  im'por: 
have  been  able  to  raise  army  after  army  for  the  invasion  of  Italy. 
But  its  importance  consisted  not  so  much  in  the  particular  events,  as  in  its  being 
kept  up  at  all ;  nor  is  there  any  thing  requiring  explanation  in  the  success  of 
the  Romans.  Their  army  had  originally  consisted  of  20,000  men  ;  and  P.  Scipio 
had  brought  some  reinforcements;  while  Hasdrubal  and  Hanno  in  their  two 
armies  had  a  force  not  much  superior :  hence,  after  the  total  defeat  of  Hanno, 
Hasdrubal  could  not  meet  the  Romans  with  any  chance  of  success.  For  Span- 
ish levies  were  now  no  longer  to  be  depended  on,  while  the  Romans  were  inviting 
the  nations  of  Spain  to  leave  the  Carthaginians,  and  come  over  to  them.  In  this 
contest  between  the  two  nations,  which  should  most  influence  the  minds  of  the 
Spaniards,  the  ascendency  of  the  Roman  character  was  clearly  shown ;  and  the 
natives  were  drawn,  as  by  an  invincible  attraction,  to  the  worthier. 

While  Spain  was  thus  the  scene  of  active  warfare,  Cisalpine  Gaul,  after  Han- 
nibal's advance  into  Italy,  seems  to  have  sunk  back  into  a  state  of  Tmnquimtyofcisaipm. 
tranquillity,  such  as  it  had  enjoyed  in  the  first  Punic  war.  It  is  Gttul< 
very  remarkable,  that  the  colonies  of  Placentia  and  Cremona,  so  far  in  advance 
of  the  Roman  frontier,  and  surrounded  by  hostile  tribes,  were  left  unassailed 
from  the  time  when  Hannibal  crossed  the  Apennines  into  Etruria.  We  are  only 
told  that  L.  Postumius  Albinus,  one  of  the  praetors  of  the  year  538,  was  sent 
with  an  army  into  Gaul,  when  Varro  and  ^Emilius  marched  into  Apulia,  with 
the  express  object  of  compelling  the  Gauls  in  Hannibal's  service  to  return  to  the 
defence  of  their  own  country.34  What  he  did  in  the  course  of  that  summer  we 
know  not :  at  the  end  of  the  consular  year  he  was  still  in  his  province,  and  was 
elected  consul  for  the  year  following,  with  Ti.  Sempronius  Gracchus.  But  be- 
fore his  consulship  began,  early  in  March  apparently,  according  to  the  Roman 
calendar,  he  fell  into  an  ambuscade,  while  advancing  into  the  enemy's  country, 
and  was  cut  to  pieces35  with  his  whole  army.  We  are  told  that  the  Romans 
found  it  utterly  impossible  to  replace  the  army  thus  lost,  and  that  it  was  re- 
solved for  the  present  to  leave  the  Gauls  to  themselves.36  But  it  was  not  so 
certain  that  the  Gauls,  if  unopposed,  would  leave  the  Romans  to  themselves ; 
and  we  find  that  M.  Pomponius  Matho,  who  had  been  city  praetor  in  538,  was 
sent,  on  the  expiration  of  his  office,  with  proconsular  power  to  Ariminum,  and 
that  he  remained  on  that  frontier  for  two  years  with  an  army  of  two  legions,31 
while  C.  Yarro  with  another  legion  was  quartered  in  Picenum,  to  support  him  in 

11  Polybius,  III.  76.  »  Livy,  XXIII.  24.    Polybius,  III.  118. 

w  Polybius,  III.  98,  99.  *  Livy,  XXIII.  25. 

1  Livy,  XXIII.  27,  28,  29.  *  Livy,  XXIV.  10,  44.    See  Dukor'a  note  on 

**  Polybius,  III.  106.  the  former  passage. 


508  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLIV 

time  of  need.38  Still  the  inaction  of  the  Gauls  is  extraordinary,  the  more  so  as  wo 
find  them  in  arms  immediately  after  the  end  of  the  war  with  Carthage,  and 
attacking  Placentia  and  Cremona,  which  they  had  so  long  left  in  peace,89  We 
can  only  suppose  that  the  absence  of  a  large  portion  of  their  soldiers,  who  were 
serving  in  Hannibal's  army,  crippled  the  power  of  the  Gauls  who  were  left  at 
home ;  and  that  long  experience  had  taught  them  that,  unless  when  conducted 
by  a  general  of  a  more  civilized  nation,  they  could  not  carry  on  war  successfully 
with  the  Romans.  The  older  Gaulish  chiefs  also  were  often  averse  to  war,  when 
the  younger  chiefs  were  in  favor  of  it  ;40  and  the  Romans  were  likely  to  be  lavish 
of  presents  at  a  time  so  critical,  to  confirm  their  fr-ends  in  their  peaceful  senti- 
ments, and  to  win  over  their  adversaries.  It  seems  probable  that  some  truce 
was  concluded,  which  restrained  either  the  Gauls  or  Romans  from  invading  each 
other's  territory  ;  and  the  Romans  were  contented  not  to  require  the  recall  of  the 
Gauls  serving  with  Hsnnibal ;  some  of  whom,  we  know,  continued  to  be  with 
him  till  a  much  later  period.  The  multitude  of  the  Gauls  rejoiced,  perhaps,  that 
they  had  won  thus  much  from  their  proud  enemy,  and  were  well  content  that 
the  war  rhould  be  carried  on  far  from  their  own  frontiers,  and  yet  that  they 
should  share  in  its  advantages.  But  wiser  men  might  regret  that  better  use  was 
not  made  of  the  favorable  moment ;  that  no  Carthaginian  officer  had  been  left 
with  them  to  organize  their  armies  and  conduct  them  into  the  field ;  that  the 
Roman  encroachments  on  their  soil  were  still  maintained ;  and  tha.,  there  was  no 
Gellius  Gnatius  in  northern  Italy  to  rouse  the  Etruscans  and  Umbrians  to  unite 
their  forces  with  those  of  the  Gauls  on  the  south  of  the  Apennines,  and,  while 
Hannibal  lay  triumphant  in  Capua,  to  revenge  the  defeat  of  Sentinum  by  a 
second  victory  on  the  Alia  or  the  Tiber. 

Whatever  was  the  cause,  the  inactivity  of  the  Gauls,  after  their  great  victory 
Resources  of  the  Re-  ov^  L.  Postumius,  might  strengthen  the  arguments  of  those 
Greeks  who  ascribed  the  conquests  of  the  Romans  to  their  good 
fortune.  It  was  no  less  timely  than  the  peace  with  Etruria,  concluded  at  the 
very  moment  when  Pyrrhus  was  advancing  upon  Rome,  or  than  the  quiet  of 
these  same  Gauls  during  the  first  Punic  war.  The  consequence  was,  that  the 
Romans  had  the  whole  force  of  Etruria  and  Umbria  disposable  for  the  contest 
in  the  south ;  and  that  any  disposition  to  revolt,  which  might  have  existed  in 
those  countries,  was  unable  to  show  itself  in  action.  Their  soldiers  served  as 
allies  in  the  Roman  armies,  and  with  the  Sabines,  Picentians,  Vestinians,  Fren- 
tanians,  Marrucinians,  Marsians,  and  Pelignians,  together  with  the  cities  of  the 
Latin  name,  composed  the  Roman  confederacy  after  the  revolt  of  southern  Italy. 
That  revolt  made  the  drain,  both  of  men  and  money,  press  more  heavily  on  the 
states  which  still  remained  faithful ;  and  the  friends  of  Rome  must  everywhere 
have  had  the  greatest  difficulty  in  persuading  their  countrymen  not  to  desert  a 
cause  which  seemed  so  ruinous.  Under  such  a  pressure,  the  Roman  govern- 
ment plainly  told  its  officers  in  Sardinia  and  Sicily,  that  they  must  provide  for 
their  armies  as  they  best  could,  for  that  they  must  expect  no  supplies  of  any  kind 
from  home.41  The  propraetor  of  Sicily  applied  to  the  never-tailing  friendship  of 
Hiero,  and  obtained  from  him,  almost  as  the  last  act  of  his  long  life,  money 
enough  to  pay  his  soldiers,  and  corn  for  six  months'  consumption.  But  the  pro- 
praetor of  Sardinia  had  no  such  friend  to  help  him  ;  and  he  was  obliged  to  get 
both  corn  and  money  from  the  people  of  the  province.42  The  money,  it  seems, 
like  the  benevolences  of  our  own  government  in  old  times,  was  nominally  a  free- 
will offering  of  the  loyal  cities  of  Sardinia  to  the  Roman  people :  but  the  Sar- 
dinians knew  that  it  was  a  gift  which  they  could  not  help  giving ;  and  impatient 
of  this  addition  to  their  former  burdens,  they  applied  to  Carthage  for  aid,  and 
broke  out  the  following  year  into  open  revolt.48 

»  Livy,  XXIII.  82.  41  Livy,  XXIII.  21. 

"  Livy,  XXXI.  10.  42  Livy,  XXIII.  21. 

*  See,  for  instance,  Caesar,  B.  G.  II.  17.  4J  Livy,  XXIII.  82. 


CHAP.  XLFV.j  DISTRESS  OF  THE  ROMANS.  509 

It  is  not  without  reason  that  the  Roman  government  had  abandoned  its  officers 
in  the  provinces  to  their  own  resources.  Their  financial  difficulties  T1)eir  fa^^  dif& 
were  enormous.  Large  tracts  of  land,  arable,  pasture,  and  forest,  cultieB> 
from  which  the  state  ordinarily  derived  a  revenue,  were  in  the  hands  of  the 
enemy ;  the  number  of  tax-payers  had  been  greatly  diminished  by  the  slaughter 
of  so  many  citizens  in  battle  ;  and  in  many  cases  their  widows  and  children  would 
be  unable  to  cultivate  their  little  property,  and  would  be  altogether  insolvent. 
If  the  poorer  citizens  were  again  obliged,  as  after  the  Gaulish  invasion,  to  bor- 
row money  of  the  rich,  discontent  and  misery  would  have  been  the  sure  conse- 
quence ;  and  the  debtor  would  regard  his  creditor  as  a  worse  enemy  than  Han- 
nibal. Accordingly  three  commissioners  were  appointed,  on  the  proposition  of 
the  tribune  Minucius,  like  the  five  commissioners  of  the  year  403,  with  the  ex- 
press object  of  facilitating  the  circulation,  and  assisting  the  distressed  tax-payer.44 
Their  measures  ;*re  not  recorded ;  but  we  may  suppose  that  they  acted  like  the 
former  commissioners,  and  allowed  the  poor  citizens  to  pay  their  taxes  in  kind, 
when  they  could  not  procure  money,  and  did  not  force  them  to  sell  their  prop- 
erty, when  it  must  have  been  sold  at  a  certain  loss.45  The  war  must  no  doubt 
have  raised  the  value  of  money,  and  diminished  that  of  land ;  and  the  agricultu- 
ral population,  who  had  to  pay  a  fixed  amount  of  taxation  in  money,  were  thus 
doubly  sufferers.  As  a  mere  financial  operation,  the  commissioners'  measures 
may  not  have  been  very  profitable  ;  but  the  government  had  the  wisdom  to  see 
that  every  thing  depended  on  the  unanimity  and  devotion  of  all  classes  to  the 
cause  of  their  country  ;  and  it  was  worth  a  great  pecuniary  sacrifice,  even  in  the 
actual  financial  difficulties,  to  attach  the  people  heartily  to  the  government,  and 
to  prevent  that  intolerable  evil  of  a  general  state  of  debt,  which  must  speedily 
have  led  to  a  revolution,  and  laid  Rome  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  Hannibal. 

Neither  Rome  nor  Carthage  could  be  said  to  have  the  undisputed  mastery  of 
the  sea.  Roman  fleets  sometimes  visited  the  coasts  of  Africa ;  Eventa  of  the  naval 
and  Carthaginian  fleets  in  the  same  way  appeared  off  the  coasts  wai- 
of  Italy.  Hannibal  received  supplies  from  Carthage,  which  were  landed  in  the 
ports  of  Bruttium ;  and  when  the  Carthaginians  wished  to  assist  the  revolt  of 
the  Sardinians,  the  expedition  which  they  sent,  although  it  suffered  much  from 
bad  weather,  was  neither  delayed  nor  prevented  by  the  enemy.46  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Romans  had  gained  a  naval  victory  of  some  importance  in  Spain;47 
and  their  cruising  squadrons  in  the  Ionian  Gulf,  having  the  ports  of  Brundisium 
and  Tarentum  to  run  to  in  case  of  need,  were  of  signal  service,  as  we  shall  see 
hereafter,  in  intercepting  the  communications  which  the  king  of  Macedon  was 
trying  to  open  with  Hannibal.48 

Meantime  the  news  of  the  battle  of  Cannse  had  been  carried  to  Carthage,  as 
we  have  seen,  by  Hannibal's  brother  Mago,  accompanied  with  a  Reinforcements  from 
request  for  reinforcements.  Nearly  two  years  before,  when  he  Curthase- 
first  descended  from  the  Alps  into  Cisalpine  Gaul,  his  Africans  and  Spaniards 
were  reduced  to  no  more  than  20,000  foot  and  GOOO  horse.  The  Gauls,  who 
had  joined  him  since,  had  indeed  more  than  doubled  this  number  at  first ;  but 
three  great  battles,  and  many  partial  actions,  besides  the  unavoidable  losses  from 
sickness  during  two  years  of  active  service,  must  again  have  greatly  diminished 
it ;  and  this  force  was  now  to  be  divided :  a  part  of  it  was  employed  in  Brut- 
tium, a  part  in  Lucania,  leaving  an  inconsiderable  body  under  Hannibal's  own 
command.  On  the  other  hand,  the  accession  of  the  Campanians,  Samnites, 
Lucanians,  and  Bruttians  supplied  him  with  auxiliary  troops  in  abundance,  and 
of  excellent  quality  ;  so  that  large  reinforcements  from  home  were  not  required, 

44  Livy,  XXIII.  21.    Compare  VII.  21.  tatorship  of  Fabius  Maximus,  was  a  measure  of 

46  Salmasius  (de  Usuris.  p.   510)   conceives    these  commissioners, 
that  the  reduction  of  the  as  to  an  ounce,  which,        *°  Livy,  XXIII.  43,  84. 
Pliny  (XXXIII.  13)  says,  took  place  iii  the  die-        4T  Polybius»,  III.  96. 

•  Livy,  XXIII.  32,  34. 


510  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLIV 

but  only  enough  for  the  Africans  to  form  a  substantial  part  of  every  army  em- 
ployed in  the  field  ;  and  above  all,  to  maintain  his  superiority  in  cavalry.  It  is 
said  that  some  of  the  reinforcements  which  were  voted  on  Mago's  demand,  were 
afterwards  diverted  to  other  services  ;49  and  we  do  not  know  what  was  the 
amount  of  force  actually  sent  over  to  Italy,  nor  when  it  arrived.50  It  consisted 
chiefly,  if  not  entirely,  of  cavalry  and  elephants  ;  for  all  the  elephants  which 
Hannibal  had  brought  with  him  into  Italy  had  long  since  perished  ;  and  his 
anxiety  to  obtain  others,  troublesome  and  hazardous  as  it  must  have  been  to 
transport  them  from  Africa  by  sea,  speaks  strongly  in  favor  of  their  use  in  war, 
which  modern  writers  are  perhaps  too  much  inclined  to  deprec'ate.51 

We  have  no  information  as  to  the  feelings  entertained  by  Hannibal  and  the 
Feelings  of  the  Cam-  Campanians  towards  each  other,  while  the  Carthaginians  were 
pnnia"8'  wintering  in  Capua.  The  treaty  of  alliance  had  provided  care- 

fully for  the  independence  of  the  Campanians,  that  they  might  not  be  treated 
as  Pyrrhus  had  treated  the  Tarentines.  Capua  was  to  have  its  own  laws  and 
magistrates  ;  no  Campanian  was  to  be  compelled  to  any  duty,  civil  or  military, 
nor  to  be  in  any  way  subject  to  the  authority  of  the  Carthaginian  officers.58 
There  must  have  been  something  of  a  Roman  party  opposed  to  the  alliance  with 
Carthage  altogether  ;  though  the  Roman  writers  mention  one  man  only,  Decius 
Magius,  who  was  said  to  have  resisted  Hannibal  to  his  face  with  such  vehe- 
mence, that  Hannibal  sent  him  prisoner  to  Carthage.53  But  three  hundred  Cam- 
panian horsemen  of  the  richer  classes,  who  were  serving  in  the  Roman  army  in 
Sicily  when  Capua  revolted,  went  to  Rome  as  soon  as  their  service  was  over,  and 
were  there  received  as  Roman  citizens  ;54  and  others,  though  unable  to  resist  the 
general  voice  of  their  countrymen,  must  have  longed  in  their  hearts  to  return  to 
the  Roman  alliance.  Of  the  leaders  of  the  Campanian  people  we  know  little  : 
Pacuvius  Calavius,  the  principal  author  of  the  revolt,  is  never  mentioned  after- 
wards ;  nor  do  we  know  the  fate  of  his  son  Perolla,  who,  in  his  zeal  for  Rome, 
wished  to  assassinate  Hannibal  at  his  own  father's  table,  when  he  made  his  pub- 
lic entrance  into  Capua.65  Vibius  Virrius  is  also  named  as  a  leading  partisan  of 
the  Carthaginians  ;56  and  amid  the  pictures  of  the  luxury  and  feebleness  of  the 
Campanians,  their  cavalry,  which  was  formed  entirely  out  of  the  wealthiest 
classes,  is  allowed  to  have  been  excellent  ;57  and  one  brave  and  practised  soldier, 
Jubellius  Taurea,  had  acquired  a  high  reputation  amongst  the  Romans  when  he 
served  with  them,  and  had  attracted  the  notice  and  respect  of  Hannibal.58 

During  the  interval  from  active  warfare  afforded  by  the  winter,  the  Romans 
took  measures  for  filling  up  the  numerous  vacancies  which  the 

Measures  to  fill  up  the    .  c    r>  i  j-  1^^111  i       • 

te.mk'.  TWO  dictator*  lapse  of  five  years,  and  so  many  disastrous  battles,  had  made  m 
the  numbers  of  the  senate.59  The  natural  course  would  have  been 
to  elect  censors,  to  whom  the  duty  of  making  out  the  roll  of  the  senate  properly 
belonged  ;  but  the  vacancies  were  so  many,  and  the  censor's  power  in  admitting 
new  citizens,  and  degrading  old  ones,  was  so  enormous,  that  the  senate  feared, 
it  seems,  to  trust  to  the  result  of  an  ordinary  election;  and  resolved  that  the 
censor's  business  should  be  performed  by  the  oldest  man  in  point  of  standing,  of 
all  those  who  had  already  been  censors,  and  that  he  should  be  appointed  dic- 
tator for  this  especial  duty,  although  there  was  one  dictator  already  for  the  con- 
duct of  the  war.  The  person  thus  selected  was  M.  Fabius  Buteo,  who  had  been 
censor  six-and-twenty  years  before,  at  the  end  of  the  first  Punic  war,  and  who 

49  Livy,  XXIII.  13,  32.  »  Livy,  XXIII.  7,  10. 

60  He  is  represented  as  having  elephants  at  M  Livy,  XXIII.  4,  7,  31. 
the  siege  of  Casilinum.    Livy,  XX11I.  18.     If  65  Livy,  XXIII.  8,  9. 
this  be  correct,  the  reinforcements  must  already  M  Livy,  XXIII.  6. 

have  joined  him.  "  Frontinus,  Strateg.  IV.  7,  29. 

61  See  the  interesting    dissertation  on  ele-        M  Livy,  XXIII.  8,  46,  47.  XXVI.  15.  Valeriui 
hanta  by  A.  W.  Schlegel,  in  his  I/idische  Bib-    Maximus,  V.  3.  Ex.  1. 

ek.  Vol.  1.  173,  foil.  M  Livy,  XXIII.  22. 

Livy,  XXIII.  7. 


phanta 
\iothek. 


ELECTION  OF  OFFICERS  FOR  YEAR  639.  511 

had  more  recently  been  the  chief  of  the  embassy  sent  to  declare  war  on  Carthage 
after  the  destruction  of  Saguntum.  That  his  appointment  might  want  no  legal 
formality,  C.  Varro,  the  only  surviving  consul,  was  sent  for  home  from  Apulia 
to  nominate  him,  the  senate  intending  to  detain  Varro  in  Rome  till  he  should 
have  presided  at  the  comitia  for  the  election  of  the  next  year's  magistrates. 
The  nomination  as  usual  took  place  at  midnight ;  and  on  the  following  morning 
M.  Fabius  appeared  in  the  Forum  with  his  four-and-tvventy  lictors,  and  ascended 
the  rostra  to  address  the  people.  Invested  with  absolute  power  for  six  montrrs,- 
and  especially  charged  with  no  less  a  task  than  the  formation,  at  his  discretion, 
of  that  great  council  which  possessed  the  supreme  government  of  the  common- 
wealth, the  noble  old  man  neither  shrunk  weakly  from  so  heavy  a  burden,  nor 
ambitiously  abused  so  vast  an  authority.  He  told  the  people  that  he  would  not 
strike  off  the  name  of  a  single  senator  from  the  list  of  the  senate,  and  that,  in 
filling  up  the  vacancies,  he  would  proceed  by  a  defined  rule  ;  that  he  would  first 
add  all  those  who  had  held  curule  offices  within  the  last  five  years,  without 
having  been  admitted  as  yet  into  the  senate  ;  that  in  the  second  place  he  would 
take  all  who  within  the  same  period  had  been  tribunes,  aediles,  or  quaestors  ; 
and  thirdly,  all  those  who  could  show  in  their  houses  spoils  won  in  battle  from 
an  enemy,  or  who  had  received  the  wreath  of  oak  for  saving  the  life  of  a  citizen 
in  battle.  In  this  manner  177  new  senators  were  placed  on  the  roll ;  the  new 
members  thus  forming  a  large  majority  of  the  whole  number  of  the  sen^e, 
which  amounted  only  to  three  hundred.  This  being  done  forthwith,  the  dictator, 
as  he  stood  in  the  rostra,  resigned  his  office,  dismissed  his  lictors,  and  went  down 
into  the  Forum  a  private  man.  There  he  purposely  lingered  amidst  the  crowd, 
lest  the  people  should  leave  their  business  to  follow  him  home  ;  but  their  admi- 
ration was  not  cooled  by  this  delay  ;  and  when  he  withdrew  at  the  usual  hour, 
the  whole  people  attended  him  to  his  house.60  Such  was  Fabius  Buteo's  dicta- 
torship, so  wisely  fulfilled,  so  simply  and  nobly  resigned,  that  the  dictatorship  of 
Fabius  Maximus  himself  has  earned  no  purer  glory. 

Varro,  it  is  said,  not  wishing  to  be  detained  in  Rome,  returned  to  his  army 
the  next  night,  without  giving  the  senate  notice  of  his  departure.  Eiection  of  officers  fo* 
The  dictator,  M.  Junius,  was  therefore  requested  to  repair  to  Rome  year  633- 
to  hold  the  comitia  ;  and  Ti.  Gracchus  and  M.  Marcellus  were  to  come  with  him 
to  report  on  the  state  of  their  several  armies,  and  concert  measures  for  the  ensu- 
ing campaign.61  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  senate  determined  on  the  persons  to 
be  proposed  at  the  ensuing  elections,  and  that,  if  any  one  else  had  come  for- 
ward as  a  candidate,  the  dictator  who  presided  would  have  refused  to  receive 
votes  for  him.  Accordingly  the  consuls  and  praetors  chosen  were  all  men  of 
the  highest  reputation  for  ability  and  experience  :  the  consuls  were  A>  Uf  c.  533>  A-  c 
L.  Postumius,  whose  defeat  and  death  in  Cisalpine  Gaul  were  not  2I5' 
yet  known  in  Rome,  and  Ti.  Gracchus,  now  master  of  the  horse.  The  praetors 
were  M.  Valerius  Laevinus,  Ap.  Claudius  Pulcher,  a  grandson  of  the  famous 
censor,  Appius  the  blind,  Q.  Fulvius  Flaccus,  old  in  years,  but  vigorous  in  mind 
and  body,  who  had  already  been  censor,  and  twice  consul,  and  Q.  Mucius 
Scsevola.6*  When  the  death  of  L.  Postumius  was  known,  his  place  was  finally 
filled  by  no  less  a  person  than  Q.  Fabius  Maximus  :  whilst  Marcellus  was  still  to 
retain  his  command  with  proconsular  power,  as  his  activity  and  energy  could  ill 
be  spared  at  a  time  so  critical.63 

The  officers  for  the  year  being  thus  appointed,  it  remained  to  determine  their 
several  provinces,  and  to  provide  them  with   sufficient  forces.64  Di.tnbution  of  piovia- 
Fabius  was  to  succeed  to  the  army  of  the  dictator,  M.  Junius;  ces aud troopl< 
and  his  head-quarters  were  advanced  from  Teanum  to  Gales,  at  the  northern  ex- 
tremity of  the  Falernian  plain,  about  seven  English  miles  from  Casilinum  and  the 

M  Livy,  XXIII.  23.  »  Livy,  XXIIL'Sl. 

I  Livy,  XXIII.  24.  «•  Livy,  XXIII.  31,  32. 

"  Livy,  XXIII.  30. 


512  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.XLIV 

Vulturnus,  and  less  than  ten  from  Capua.  The  other  consul,  Ti.  Sempronius, 
was  to  have  no  other  Roman  army  than  two  legions  of  volunteer  slaves,  who 
were  to  be  raised  for  the  occasion ;  but  both  he  and  his  colleague  had  the  usual 
contingent  of  Latin  and  Italian  allies.  Gracchus  named  Sinuessa  on  the  Appian 
road,  at  the  point  where  the  Massic  hills  run  out  with  a  bold  headland  into  the 
sea,  as  the  place  of  meeting  for  his  soldiers ;  and  his  business  was  to  protect  the 
towns  on  the  coast,  which  were  still  faithful  to  Rome,  such  as  Cuma  and 
Neapolis.  Marcellus  was  to  command  two  new  Roman  legions,  and  to  lie  as 
before  in  his  camp  above  Nola  ;  while  his  old  army  was  sent  into  Sicily  to  relieve 
the  legions  there,  and  enable  them  to  return  to  Italy,  where  they  formed  a  fourth 
army  under  the  command  of  M.  Valerius  Lsevinus,  the  praetor  peregrinus,  in 
Apulia.  The  small  force  which  Varro  had  commanded  in  Apulia  was  ordered 
to  Tarentum,  to  add  to  the  strength  of  that  important  place ;  while  Varro  him- 
self was  sent  with  proconsular  power  into  Picenum,  to  raise  soldiers,  and  to 
watch  the  road  along  the  Adriatic  by  which  the  Gauls  might  have  sent  rein- 
forcements to  Hannibal.  Q.  Fulvius  Flaccus,  the  praetor  urbanus,  remained  at 
Rome  to  conduct  the  government,  and  had  no  other  military  command  than  that 
of  a  small  fleet  for  the  defence  of  the  coast  on  both  sides  of  the  Tiber.  Of  the 
other  two  praetors,  Ap.  Claudius  was  to  command  in  Sicily,  and  Q.  Mucius  in 
Sardinia ;  and  P.  Scipio  as  proconsul  still  commanded  his  old  army  of  two 
legions  in  Spain.  On  the  whole,  including  the  volunteer  slaves,  there  appeared 
to  have  been  fourteen  Roman  legions  in  active  service  at  the  beginning  of  the 
year  539,  without  reckoning  the  soldiers  who  served  in  the  fleets ;  and  of  these 
fourteen  legions,  nine  were  employed  in  Italy.  If  we  suppose  that  the  Latin  and 
Italian  allies  bore  their  usual  proportion  to  the  number  of  Roman  soldiers  in  each 
army,  we  shall  have  a  total  of  140,000  men,  thus  divided  :  20,000  in  Spain,  and 
the  same  number  in  Sicily ;  10,000  in  Sardinia ;  20,000  under  each  of  the  consuls  ; 
20,000  with  Marcellus ;  20,000  under  Lsevinus  in  Apulia ;  and  10,000  in  Tarentum. 
Seventy  thousand  men  were  thus  in  arms,  besides  the  seamen,  out  of  a  popu- 
lation of  citizens  which  at  the  last  census  before  the  war  had 
tion7°of ' ""7  Rornm^  amounted  only  to  2 70,21 3, 6S  and  which  had  since  been  thinned  by 
so  many  disastrous  battles.  Nor  was  the  drain  on  the  finances  of 
Rome  less  extraordinary.  The  legions  in  the  provinces  had  indeed  been  left  to 
their  own  resources  as  to  money ;  but  the  nine  legions  serving  in  Italy  must  have 
been  paid  regularly ;  for  war  could  not  there  be  made  to  support  war ;  and  if 
the  R,omans  had  been  left  to  live  at  free  quarters  upon  their  Italian  allies,  they 
would  have  driven  them  to  join  Hannibal  in  mere  self-defence.  Yet  the  legions 
in  Italy  cost  the  government  in  pay,  food,  and  clothing,  at  the  rate  of  541,800 
denarii  a  month ;  and  as  they  were  kept  on  service  throughout  the  year,  the 
annual  expense  was  6,501,600  denarii :  or  in  Greek  money,  reckoning  the  dena- 
rius as  equal  to  the  drachma,  1083  Euboic  talents.  To  meet  these  enormous 
demands  on  the  treasury,  the  government  resorted  to  the  simple  expedient  of 
doubling  the  year's  taxes,  and  calling  at  once  for  the  payment  of  one-half  of  this 
amount,  leaving  the  other  to  be  paid  at  the  end  of  the  year.66  It  was  a  struggle 
for  life  and  death  :  and  the  people  were  in  a  mood  to  refuse  no  sacrifices,  how- 
ever costly :  but  the  war  must  have  cut  off  so  many  sources  of  wealth,  and  agri- 
culture itself  must  have  so  suffered  from  the  calling  away  of  so  many  hands  from 
the  cultivation  of  the  land,  that  we  wonder  how  the  money  could  be  found,  and 
how  many  of  the  poorer  citizens'  families  could  be  provided  with  daily  bread. 

In  addition  to  the  five  regular  armies  which  the  Romans  brought  into  the  field 
other  miiiiary  meaiu  in  Italy,  an  irregular  warfare  was  also  going  on,  we  know  not  to 
otthoUomuM.,.  wjiat  extent.  and  bands  Of  peasants  and  slaves  were  armed  in 

many  parts  of  the  country  to  act  against  the  revolted  Italians,  and  to  ravage 
their  territory.     For  instance,  a  great  tract  of  forest  in  Bruttium,  as  we  have 

<*  Livy,  Epit.  XX.  •  "  Livy,  XXIII.  31. 


FALL  OF  CASILINUM.  513 

seen,  was  the  domain  of  the  Roman  people ;  this  would  be  farmed  like  all  the 
jther  revenues ;  and  the  publican!  who  farmed  it,  or  the  wealthy  citizens  who 
turned  out  cattle  to  pasture  in  it,  would  have  large  bodies  of  slaves  employed  as 
shepherds,  herdsmen,  and  woodsmen,  who,  when  the  Bruttian  towns  on  the  coast 
revolted,  would  at  once  form  a  guerilla  force  capable  of  doing  them  great  mis- 
chief. And  lastly,  besides  all  these  forces,  regular  and  irregular,  the  Romans 
still  held  most  of  the  principal  towns  in  the  south  of  Italy ;  because  they  had 
long  since  converted  them  into  Latin  colonies.  Brundisium  on  the  Ionian  sea, 
Pcestum  on  the  coast  of  Lucania,  Luceria,  Venusia,  and  Beneventum  in  the  inte- 
rior, were  all  so  many  strong  fortresses,  garrisoned  by  soldiers  of  the  Latin  name, 
in  the  very  heart  of  the  revolted  districts  ;67  whilst  the  Greek  cities  of  Cumae  and 
Neapolis  in  Campania,  and  Rhegium  on  the  straits  of  Messina,  were  held  for 
Rome  by  their  own  citizens  with  a  devotion  no  way  inferior  to  that  of  the  Latin 
colonies  themselves.68 

Against  this  mass  of  enemies,  the  moment  that  they  had  learnt  to  use  their 
strength,  Hannibal,  even  within  six  months  after  the  battle  of  Can- 

i          j  j .  , .        i  , ,  T       ,  Hannibal'*  resource*. 

nae,  was  already  contending  at  a  disadvantage.  We  have  seen 
that  he  had  detached  two  officers  with  two  divisions  of  his  airoy,  one  into  Lu- 
cania, the  other  into  Bruttium,  to  encourage  the  revolt  of  those  countries,  and 
then  to  organize  their  resources  in  men  and  money  for  the  advancement  of  the 
common  cause.  Most  of  the  Bruttians  took  up  arms  immediately  as  Hannibal's 
allies,  and  put  themselves  under  the  command  of  his  officer,  Himilcon ;  but 
Petelia,  one  of  their  cities,  was  for  some  reason  or  other  inflexible  in  its  devotion 
to  Rome,  and  endured  a  siege  of  eleven  months,  suffering  all  extremities  of 
famine  before  it  surrendered.69  Thus  Himilcon  must  have  been  still  engaged  in 
besieging  it  long  after  the  campaign  was  opened  in  the  neighborhood  of  Capua. 
The  Samnites  also  had  taken  up  arms,  and  apparently  were  attached  to  Hanni- 
bal's own  army  :  the  return  of  their  whole  population  of  the  military  age,  made 
ten  years  before  during  the  Gaulish  invasion,  had  stated  it  at  70,000  foot  and 
7000  horse  ;70  but  the  Pentrians,  the  most  powerful  tribe  of  their  nation,  were 
still  faithful  to  Rome  ;  and  the  Samnites,  like  the  Romans  themselves,  had  been 
thinned  by  the  slaughter  of  Thrasymenus  and  Cannae,  which  they  had  shared  as 
their  allies.  It  is  vexatious  that  we  have  no  statement  of  the  amount  of  Hanni- 
bal's old  army,  any  more  than  of  the  allies  who  joined  him,  at  any  period  of  the 
war  later  than  the  battle  of  Cannse.  His  reinforcements  from  home,  as  we  have 
seen,  were  very  trifling ;  while  his  two  divisions  in  Lucania  and  Bruttium,  and 
the  garrisons  which  he  had  been  obliged  to  leave  in  some  of  the  revolted  towns, 
as,  for  example,  at  Arpi  in  Apulia,71  must  have  considerably  lessened  the  force 
under  his  own  personal  command.  Yet,  with  the  accession  of  the  Samnites  and 
ampanians,  it  was  probably  much  stronger  than  any  one  of  the  Roman  armies 
posed  to  him  ;  quite  as  strong,  indeed,  in  all  likelihood,  as  was  consistent  with 
e  possibility  of  feeding  it. 

Before  the  winter  was  over,  Casilinum  fell.     The  garrison  had  made  a  valiant 
"ence,  and  yielded  at  last  to  famine  :  they  were  allowed  to  ran- 

,v  1l_  1  PII/.I.       Fall  of  Caiilimua. 

n  themselves  by  paying  each  man  seven  ounces  of  gold  for  his 
'e  and  liberty,  The  plunder  which  they  had  won  from  the  old  inhabitants 
bled  them  to  discharge  this  large  sum  ;  and  they  were  then  allowed  to  march 
out  unhurt,  and  retire  to  Cumae.  Casilinum  again  became  a  Campanian  town; 
but  its  important  position,  at  once  covering  Capua,  and  securing  a  passage  over 
the  Vulturnus,  induced  Hannibal  to  garrison  it  with  seven  hundred  soldiers  of 
his  own  army.72 

' 

87  Livy,  XXVII.  10.  '•  Polybins,  II.  24,  10. 

Livy  XXIII.  1,  36,  37.    XXIV.  1.  "  Livy,  XXIV.  46,  47.  Appian,  VII.  31. 

60  Polybius,  VII.  1.     Livy,  XXII.  61.  XXIII.        ™  Livy,  XXIII.  19,  20. 
"  30.    Appian,  VII.  28.     Valerius  Maximus, 
6.    Ext.  2. 

33 


514  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLIV 

The  season  for  active  operations  was  now  arrived.  The  three  Roman  armies 
of  Fabius,  Gracchus,  and  Marcellus,  had  taken  up  their  positions 
""n't  Tif*",»ft:nRome  round  Campania ;  and  Hannibal  marched  out  of  Capua,  and  en- 
camped his  army  on  the  mountain  above  it,  on  that  same  Tifata 
where  the  Samnites  had  so  often  taken  post  in  old  times,  when  they  were  pre- 
paring to  invade  the  Campanian  plain.1"  Tifata  did  not  then  exhibit  that  bare 
and  parched  appearance  which  it  has  now ;  the  soil,  which  has  accumulated  in 
the  plain  below,  so  as  to  have  risen  several  feet  above  its  ancient  level,  has  been 
washed  down  in  the  course  of  centuries,  and  after  the  destruction  of  its  protect- 
ing woods,  from  the  neighboring  mountains ;  and  Tifata,  in  Hannibal's  time,  fur- 
nished grass  in  abundance  for  his  cattle  in  its  numerous  glades,  and  offered  cool 
and  healthy  summer  quarters  for  his  men.  There  he  lay  waiting  for  some  oppor- 
tunity of  striking  a  blow  against  his  enemies  around  him,  and  eagei.y  watching 
the  progress  of  his  intrigues  with  the  Tarentines,  and  his  negotiations  with  the 
king  of  Macedon.  A  party  at  Tarentum  began  to  open  a  correspondence  with 
him  immediately  after  the  battle  of  Cannae  ;M  and  since  he  had  been  in  Campania 
he  had  received  an  embassy  from  Philip,  king  of  Macedon,  and  had  concluded 
an  alliance,  offensive  and  defensive,  with  \he  ambassadors,  who  acted  with  full 
powers  in  their  master's  name.75  Such  were  his  prospects  on  one  side,  while,  if 
he  looked  westward  and  southwest,  he  saw  Sardinia  in  open  revolt  against 
Rome  :76  and  in  Sicily  the  death  of  Hiero  at  the  age  of  ninety,  and  the  succession 
of  his  grandson  Hieronymus,  an  ambitious  and  inexperienced  youth,  were  de- 
taching Syracuse  also  from  the  Roman  alliance.  Hannibal  had  already  received 
an  embassy  from  Hieronymus,  to  which  he  had  replied  by  sending  a  Carthagin- 
ian officer  of  his  own  name  to  Sicily,  and  two  Syracusan  brothers,  Hippocrates 
and  Epicydes,  who  had  long  served  with  him  in  Italy  and  in  Spain,  being,  in  fact, 
Carthaginians  by  their  mother's  side,  and  having  become  naturalized  at  Carthage, 
since  Agathocles  had  banished  their  grandfather,  and  their  father  had  married 
and  settled  in  his  place  of  exile.77  Thus  the  effect  of  the  battle  of  Cannse  seemed 
to  be  shaking  the  whole  fabric  of  the  Roman  dominion  ;  their  provinces  were  re- 
volting ;  their  firmest  allies  were  deserting  them ;  while  the  king  of  Macedon 
himself,  the  successor  of  Alexander,  was  throwing  the  weight  of  his  power,  and 
of  all  his  acquired  and  inherited  glory,  into  the  scale  of  their  enemies.  Seeing  the 
fruit  of  his  work  thus  fast  ripening,  Hannibal  sat  quietly  on  the  summit  of  Tifata, 
to  break  forth  like  the  lightning  flash  when  the  storm  should  be  fully  gathered. 
Thus  the  summer  of  539  was  like  a  breathing-time,  in  which  both  parties  were 
looking:  at  each  other,  and  considering  each  other's  resources, 

Meninres  of  Fabius  to          ,   .,       °,  .  i          V  i       •  rr- 

eut  off  Hmwibai'S  .up-  while  they  were  recovering  strength  at  ter  their  past  etiorts,  and 
preparing  for  a  renewal  of  the  struggle.  Fabius,  with  the  au- 
thority of  the  senate,  issued  an  order,  calling  on  the  inhabitants  of  all  the  coun- 
try which  either  actually  was,  or  was  likely  to  become,  the  seat  of  war,  to  clear 
their  corn  off  the  ground,  and  carry  it  into  the  fortified  cities,  before  the  first  of 
June,  threatening  to  lay  waste  the  land,  to  sell  the  slaves,  and  burn  the  farm 
buildings,  of  any  one  who  should  disobey  the  order.78  In  the  utter  confusion  of 
the  Roman  calendar  at  this  period,  it  is  difficult  to  know  whether  in  any  given 
year  it  was  in  advance  of  the  true  time,  or  behind  it ;  so  that  we  can  scarcely 
tell  whether  the  corn  was  only  to  be  got  in  when  ripe  without  needless  delay, 
or  whether  it  was  to  be  cut  when  green,  lest  Hannibal  should  use  it  as  forage 
for  his  cavalry.  But  at  any  rate,  Fabius  was  now  repeating  the  system  which 
he  had  laid  down  in  his  dictatorship,  and  hoped,  by  wasting  the  country,  to 
oblige  Hannibal  to  retreat ;  for  his  means  of  transport  were  not  sufficient  for  him 
to  feed  his  army  from  a  distance :  hence,  when  the  resources  in  his  immediate 
neighborhood  were  exhausted,  he  was  obliged  to  move  elsewhere. 

"  Livy,  XXIII.  36.    VII.  29.  "  Livy,  XXIII.  32,  3-1. 

14  Livy,  XXII.  61.    Appian,  VII.  32.  7T  Livy,  XXIII.  4,  6.    Polybius,  VII.  2. 

»  Livy,  XXIII.  33.    2>onaras,  IX.  4.  "  Livy,  XXIII.  32. 


CHAP.  XLIV.]  THE  ROMAN  ARMIES.  515 

Meanwhile  Gracchus  had  crossed  the  Vulturnus  near  its  mouth,  and  was  now 
at  Liternum,  busily  employed  in  exercising  and  training  his  hete-  M(uaacre  of  2000  CA 
rogeneous  army.  The  several  Campanian  cities  were  accustomed  g^^  a  fe8tival  b> 
to  hold  a  joint  festival  every  year  at  a  place  called  Hamse,  only 
three  miles  from  Cumaa.119  These  festivals  were  seasons  of  general  truce,  so  that 
the  citizens  even  of  hostile  nations  met  at  them  safely :  the  government  of  Capua 
announced  to  the  Cumseans,  that  their  chief  magistrate  and  all  their  senators 
would  appear  at  Hamse,  as  usual,  on  the  day  of  the  solemnity ;  and  they  invited 
the  senate  of  Cuma3  to  meet  them.  At  the  same  time  they  said  that  an  armed 
force  would  be  present  to  repel  any  interruption  from  the  Romans.  The  Cu- 
maeans  informed  Gracchus  of  this ;  and  he  attacked  the  Capuans  in  the  night, 
when  they  were  in  such  perfect  security,  that  they  had  not  even  fortified  a  camp, 
but  were  sleeping  in  the  open  country,  and  massacred  about  2000  of  them, 
among  whom  was  Marius  Alfius,  the  supreme  magistrate  of  Capua.  The  Ro- 
mans charge  the  Capuans  with  having  meditated  treachery  against  the  Cumaeans, 
and  say  that  they  were  caught  in  their  own  snare ;  but  this  could  only  be  a  sus- 
picion, while  the  overt  acts  of  violence  were  their  own.  Hannibal  no  sooner  heard 
of  this  disaster,  than  he  descended  from  Tifata,  and  hastened  to  Hamae,  in  the 
hope  of  provoking  the  enemy  to  battle  in  the  confidence  of  their  late  success. 
But  Gracchus  was  too  wary  to  be  so  tempted,  and  had  retreated  in  good  time  to 
Cumae,  where  he  lay  safe  within  the  walls  of  the  town.80  It  is  said  that  Hanni- 
bal, having  supplied  himself  with  all  things  necessary  for  a  siege,  attacked  the 
place  in  form,  and  was  repulsed  with  loss,  so  that  he  returned  defeated  to  his 
camp  at  Tifata.  A  consular  army  defending  the  walls  of  a  fortified  town  was 
not  indeed  likely  to  be  beaten  in  an  assault ;  and  neither  could  a  maritime  town, 
with  the  sea  open,  be  easily  starved ;  nor  could  Hannibal  linger  before  it  safely, 
as  Fabius,  with  a  second  consular  army,  was  preparing  to  cross  the  Vulturnus. 

Casilinum  being  held  by  the  enemy,  Fabius  was  obliged  to  cross  at  a  higher 
point  behind  the  mountains,  nearly  opposite  to  Allifce ;  and  he  strength  of  the  Roman 
then  descended  the  left  bank  to  the  confluence  of  the  Calor  with  nnuits> 
the  Vulturnus,  crossed  the  Calor,  and  passing  between  Taburnus  and  the  mount- 
ains above  Caserta  and  Maddaloni,  stormed  the  town  of  Saticula,  and  joined  Mar- 
cellus  in  his  camp  above  Suessula.81  He  was  again  anxious  for  Nola,  where  the 
popular  party  were  said  to  be  still  plotting  the  surrender  of  the  town  to  Hanni- 
bal :  to  stop  this  mischief,  he  sent  Marcellus  with  his  whole  army  to  garrison 
Nola,  while  he  himself  took  his  place  in  the  camp  above  Suessula.  Gracchus, 
on  his  side,  advanced  from  Cumee  towards  Capua ;  so  that  three  Roman  armies, 
amounting  in  all  to  about  sixty  thousand  men,  were  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Vul- 
turnus together ;  and  all,  so  far  as  appears,  in  free  communication  with  each 
other.  They  availed  themselves  of  their  numbers  and  of  their  position  to  send 
lundering  parties  out  on  their  rear  to  overrun  the  lands  of  the  revolted  Samnites 

d  Hirpinians  ;  and  as  the  best  troops  of  both  these  nations  were  witli  Hannibal 

Tifata,  no  force  was  left  at  home  sufficient  to  check  the  enemy's  incursions. 
Accordingly,  the  complaints  of  the  sufferers  were  loud,  and  a  deputation  was 
sent  to  Hannibal  imploring  him  to  protect  his  allies.82 

Already  Hannibal  felt  that  the  Roman  generals  understood  their  business,  and 
had  learnt  to  use  their  numbers  wisely.  On  ground  where  his  Hanmtwi  receive,  hi* 
cavalry  could  act,  he  would  not  have  feared  to  engage  their  three  ic»lorceujcnt^ 
armies  together ;  but  when  they  were  amongst  mountains,  or  behind  walls,  his 
cavalry  were  useless,  and  he  could  not  venture  to  attack  them :  besides,  he  did 
not  wish  to  expose  the  territory  of  Capua  to  their  ravages ;  and  therefore  he  did 
not  choose  lightly  to  move  from  Tifata.  But  the  prayers  of  the  Samnites  were 
urgent :  his  partisans  in  Nola  might  require  his  aid,  or  might  be  able  to  admit 

w  Livy,  XXIII.  35.  "  Livy,  XXIII.  39. 

"  Livy,  XXIII.  36.  w  Livy,  XXIII.  41,  42. 


516  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLIV 

him  into  the  town ;  and  his  expected  reinforcement  of  cavalry  and  elephants  from 
Carthage  had  landed  safely  in  Bruttium,  and  was  on  its  way  to  join  him,  which  the 
position  of  Fabius  and  Marcellus  might  render  difficult,  if  he  made  no  move- 
ment to  favor  it.  He  therefore  left  Tifata,  advanced  upon  Nola,  and  timed  his 
operation  so  well  that  his  reinforcements  arrived  at  the  moment  when  he  was 
before  Nola ;  and  neither  Fabius  nor  Marcellus  attempted  to  prevent  their  junc- 
tion.83 

Thus  encouraged,  and  perhaps  not  aware  of  the  strength  of  the  garrison,  Han- 
nibal not  only  overran  the  territory  of  Nola,  but  surrounded  the 
town  with  his  soldiers,  in  the  hope  of  taking  it  by  escalade.  Mar- 
cellus was  alike  watchful  and  bold  ;  he  threw  open  the  gates  and 
made  a  sudden  sally,  by  which  he  drove  back  the  enemy  within  their  camp ; 
and  this  success,  together  with  his  frank  and  popular  bearing,  won  him,  it  is 
said,  the  affections  of  all  parties  at  Nola,  and  put  a  stop  to  all  intrigues  within 
the  walls.84  A  more  important  consequence  of  this  action  was  the  desertion  of 
above  1200  men,  Spanish  foot,  and  Numidian  horse,  from  Hannibal's  army  to 
the  Romans  ;85  as  we  do  not  find  that  their  example  was  followed  by  others,  it  is 
probable  that  they  were  not  Hannibal's  old  soldiers,  but  some  of  the  troops  which 
had  just  joined  him,  and  which  could  not,  as  yet,  have  felt  the  spell  of  his  per- 
sonal ascendency.  Still  their  treason  naturally  made  him  uneasy,  and  would  for 
the  moment  excite  a  general  suspicion  in  the  army :  the  summer  too  was  draw- 
ing to  a  close ;  and  wishing  to  relieve  Capua  from  the  burden  of  feeding  his 
troops,  he  marched  away  into  Apulia,  and  fixed  his  quarters  for  the  winter  near 
Arpi.  Gracchus,  with  one  consular  army,  followed  him ;  while  Fabius,  after 
having  ravaged  the  country  round  Capua,  and  carried  off  the  green  corn,  as  soon 
as  it  was  high  enough  out  of  the  ground,  to  his  camp  above  Suessula,  to  furnish 
winter  food  for  his  cavalry,  quartered  his  own  army  there  for  the  winter,  and 
ordered  Marcellus  to  retain  a  sufficient  force  to  secure  Nola,  and  to  send  the  rest 
of  his  men  home  to  be  disbanded.86 

Thus  the  campaign  was  ended,  and  Hannibal  had  not  marked  it  with  a  victory. 
complete  .ucces.  of  the  The  Romans  had  employed  their  forces  so  wisely,  that  they  had 
Romans  m  sardmia.  forCQ&  him  to  remain  mostly  on  the  defensive  :  and  his  two  offen- 
sive operations,  against  Cumse  and  against  Nola,  had  both  been  baffled.  In 
Sardinia  their  success  had  been  brilliant  and  decisive.  Mucius,  the  prsetor,  fell 
ill  soon  after  he  arrived  in  the  island  ;  upon  which  the  senate  ordered  Q.  Fabius, 
the  city  praetor,  to  raise  a  new  legion,  and  to  send  it  over  into  Sardinia,  under  any 
officer  whom  he  might  think  proper  to  appoint.  He  chose  a  man,  in  age,  rank, 
and  character,  most  resembling  himself,  T.  Manlius  Torquatus,  who  in  his  first 
consulship,  twenty  years  before,  had  fought  against  the  Sardinians,  and  obtained 
a  triumph  over  them.  Manlius'  second  command  in  the  island  was  no  less  bril- 
liant than  his  first :  he  totally  defeated  the  united  forces  of  the  Sardinians  and 
Carthaginians,  took  their  principal  generals  prisoners,  reduced  the  revolted  towns 
to  obedience,  levied  heavy  contributions  of  corn  and  money  as  a  punishment  of 
their  rebellion,  and  then  embarked  with  the  troops  which  he  had  brought  out 
with  him,  only  leaving  the  usual  force  of  a  single  legion  in  the  island,  and  re- 
turned to  Rome  to  report  the  complete  submission  of  Sardinia.  The  money  of 
his  contributions  was  paid  over  to  the  quaestors,  for  the  payment  of  the  armies ; 
the  corn  was  given  to  the  sediles  to  supply  the  markets  of  Rome.87 

Fortune  in  another  quarter  served  the  Romans  no  less  effectually.  The  Ma- 
cedonian ambassadors,  after  having  concluded  their  treaty  with 

Capture  of  th«  Mncedo-    __  -  '  ,.  °  •,        i     •     ,        -r,       L    •  •  r 

Bid"aonbto  Gr°e«  Ex~  "anniDal  at  Tifata,  made  their  way  back  into  Bruttium  m  safety, 

and  embarked  to  return  to  Greece.     But  their  ship  was  taken  otf 

the  Calabrian  coast  by  the  Roman  squadron  on  that  station ;  and  the  ambassa* 

"  Livy,  XXIII.  43.  w  Livy,  XXIII.  46,  48. 

84  Livy   XXIII.  44,  45,  46.  m  Livy,  XXIII.  34,  41. 

•  Livy  XXIII.  46 


?.  XLIV.]  MEASURES  TO  RAISE  MONEY.  517 

>rs,  with  all  their  papers,  were  sent  prisoners  to  Rome.88     A  vessel  which  had 
m  of  their  company  escaped  the  Romans,  and  informed  the  king  what  had 
ippened.     He  was  obliged,  therefore,  to  send  a  second  embassy  to  Hannibal, 
the  former  treaty  had  never  reached  him ;  and  although  this  second  mission 
rent  and  returned  safely,  yet  the  loss  of  time  was  irreparable,  and  nothing  could 
be  done  till  another  year.89     Meanwhile  the  Romans,  thus  timely  made  aware  of 
the  king's  intentions,  resolved  to  find  such  employment  for  him  at  home  as  should 

Srevent  his  invading  Italy.    M.  Valerius  Laevinus  was  to  take  the  command  of  the 
eet  at  Tarentum  and  Brundisium,  and  to  cross  the  Ionian  Gulf,  in  order  to  rouse 
the  ^Etolians,  and  the  barbarian  chiefs  whose  tribes  bordered  on  Philip's  western 
frontier,  and,  with  such  other  allies  as  could  be  engaged  in  the  cause,  to  form  a 
Greek  coalition  against  Macedon.90 

These  events,  and  the  continued  successes  of  their  army  in  Spain,  revived  the 
spirits  of  the  Romans,  and  encouraged  them  to  make  still  greater  Measuret  of  tha  Ro 
sacrifices,  in  the  hope  that  they  would  not  be  made  in  vain.  The  ™«n»  to  raise  money  • 
distress  of  the  treasury  was  at  its  height :  P.  Scipio,  in  announcing 
his  victories,  reported  that  his  soldiers  and  seamen  were  in  a  state  of  utter  desti- 
tution ;  that  they  had  no  pay,  corn,  or  clothing ;  and  that  the  two  latter  articles 
must  at  any  rate  be  supplied  from  Rome.91  His  demands  were  acknowledged  to 
be  reasonable ;  but  the  republic  had  lost  so  large  a  portion  of  her  foreign  revenue, 
that  her  chief  resource  now  lay  in  the  taxation  of  her  own  people  :  this  had  been 
doubled  in  the  present  year,  yet  was  found  inadequate ;  and  to  increase  it,  or 
even  to  continue  it  at  its  present  amount,  was  altogether  impossible.  Accordingly 
the  city  praetor,  Q.  Fulvius,  addressed  the  people  from  the  rostra,  explained  the 
distress  of  the  government  to  them,  and  appealed  to  the  patriotism  of  the  moneyed 
class  to  assist  their  country  with  a  loan.  Fabius  did  not  mean  to  hold  out  an 
opportunity  to  the  public  creditor  of  investing  his  money  to  advantage,  subject 
only  to  the  risk  of  a  national  bankruptcy :  on  this  Roman  loan  no  interest  was  to 
be  paid  ;  the  creditors  were  simply  assured  that,  as  soon  as  the  treasury  was  sol- 
vent, their  demands  should  be  discharged  before  all  others ;  in  the  mean  time 
their  money  was  totally  lost  to  them.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  opportunities  of 
investing  money  profitably  must  have  been  greatly  diminished  by  the  war ;  to 
lend  it  to  the  government  was  not,  therefore,  so  great  a  sacrifice.  Still  a  public 
spirit  was  shown  in  the  ready  answer  to  the  praetor's  appeal,  such  as  merchants 
have  often  honorably  displayed  in  seasons  of  public  danger ;  mixed  up,  however 
— for  when  are  human  motives  altogether  pure  ? — with  a  considerable  regard  to 
personal  advantage.  Three  companies  were  formed,  each,  as  it  seems,  composed 
of  eighteen  members  and  a  president,  or  chairman ;  and  these  were  to  supply 
the  corn  and  clothing  which  the  armies  might  require.  But  in  return  they  de- 
manded an  exemption  from  military  service,  whilst  they  were  thus  serving  the 
state  with  their  money ;  and  they  also  required  the  government  to  undertake  the 
whole  sea  risk,  whether  from  storms,  or  from  the  enemy :  whatever  articles  were 
thus  lost  were  to  be  the  loss  of  the  nation,  and  not  of  the  companies.92  It  will 
be  seen  hereafter  how  some  of  the  contractors  abused  this  equitable  condition, 
and  wilfully  destroyed  cargoes  of  small  value,  in  order  to  recover  the  insurance 
upon  them  from  the  government.  That  a  citizen  should  enrich  himself  by  frauds 
practised  on  his  country  in  such  a  season  of  distress  and  danger  is  sufficiently 
monstrous ;  but  the  spirit  of  what  is  so  emphatically  called  jobbing  is  inveterate 
in  human  nature ;  and  we  cannot  wonder  at  its  existence  among  Roman  citizens, 
while  Rome  was  struggling  for  life  or  death,  when  it  has  been  known  to  find  its 
way  into  the  prison  of  Christian  martyrs.93 

Yet  neither  the  ordinary  taxation,  nor  the  loan  in  addition  to  it,  were  sufficient 

•  Livy,  XXIII.  38.  «  Livy,  XXIII.  48. 

»  Livy,  XXIII.  39.  "  Livv,  XXIII.  49. 

»  Livy,  XXIII.  38,  48.  XXIV.  10.    Zonaras,        *  See'Oyprian,  Epp.  X.  XXII.    Ed.  Kigalfc 
«  4. 


518  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [€HAP.  XL1V 

for  the  vast  expenditure  of  the  war.    The  hostility  of  Macedon  had 

made  it  necessary  to  raise  an  additional  fleet  ;  for  the  coasts  of 

Italy  must  be  protected  ;  and  Hannibal's  free  communications  with  Africa  must 

be  restrained  ;  and  now  another  fleet  was  required,  by  the  threatening  aspect  of 

affairs  in  Sicily.     Accordingly  a  graduated  property  tax  for  the  occasion  was  im- 

posed on  all  citizens  whose  property  amounted  to  or  exceeded  100,000  ascs; 

that  is,  they  were  required  to  furnish  a  certain  number  of  their  slaves  as  seamen, 

to  arm  and  equip  them,  and  to  provide  them  with  dressed  provisions  for  thirty 

days,  and  with  pay,  in  some  cases  for  six  months,  in  others  for  a  whole  year.94    The 

senators,  who  were  rated  higher  than  all  other  citizens,  were  obliged  in  this  man- 

ner each  to  provide  eight  seamen,  with  pay  for  the  longer  term  of  the  whole  year. 

Whilst  the  commonwealth  was  making  these  extraordinary  efforts,  it  was  of 

the  last  importance  that  they  should  not  be  wasted  by  incompe- 

A.  U.  C.  540.    A.  C.     ,,11  ..i  i    i  i  i          *~i  i 

114.  Fabiw  told,  the  tent  leaders,  either  at  home  or  abroad.  Gracchus  was  watching 
Hannibal  in  Apulia  ;  so  that  Fabius  went  to  Rome  to  hold  the  co- 
mitia.  It  was  not  by  accident,  doubtless,  that  he  had  previously  sent  home  to 
fix  the  day  of  the  meeting,  or  that  his  own  arrival  was  so  nicely  timed,  that  he 
reached  Rome  when  the  tribes  were  actually  met  in  the  Campus  Martius  ;  thus, 
without  entering  the  city,  he  passed  along  under  the  walls,  and  took  his  place  as 
presiding  magistrate  at  the  comitia,95  while  his  lictors  still  bore  the  naked  axe  in 
the  midst  of  their  fasces,  the  well-known  sign  of  that  absolute  power  which  the 
consul  enjoyed  everywhere  out  of  Rome.  Fabius,  in  concert  no  doubt  with  Q. 
Fulvius  and  T.  Manlius,  and  other  leading  senators,  had  already  determined  who 
were  to  be  consuls  :  when  the  first  century,  in  the  free  exercise  of  its  choice,  gave 
its  vote  in  favor  of  T.  Otacilius  and  M.  ^Emilius  Regillus,  he  at  once  stopped  the 
election,  and  told  the  people  that  this  was  no  time  to  choose  ordinary  consuls  ; 
that  they  were  electing  generals  to  oppose  Hannibal,  and  should  fix  upon  those 
men  under  whom  they  would  most  gladly  risk  their  sons'  lives  and  their  own,  if 
they  stood  at  that  moment  on  the  eve  of  battle.  "  Wherefore,  crier,"  he  con 
eluded,  "  call  back  the  century  to  give  its  votes  over  again."96 

Otacilius,  who  was  present,  although  he  had  married  Fabius'  niece,  protested 
Fabhu  and  Marceiiui  loudly  against  this  interference  with  the  votes  of  the  people,  and 
MB  elected  consuu.  charged  Fabius  with  trying  to  procure  his  own  re-election.  The 
old  man  had  always  been  so  famous  for  the  gentleness  of  his  nature,  that  he 
was  commonly  known  by  the  name  of  "  the  Lamb  ;"97  but  now  he  acted  with  tho 
decision  of  Q.  Fulvius  or  T.  Manlius  ;  he  peremptorily  ordered  Otacilius  to  be 
silent,  and  bade  him  remember  that  his  lictors  carried  the  naked  axe  :  the  century 
was  called  back,  and  now  gave  its  voice  for  Q.  Fabius  and  M.  Marcellus.  All 
the  centuries  of  all  the  tribes  unanimously  confirmed  this  choice.98  Q.  Fulvius 
was  also  re-elected  praetor  ;  and  the  senate,  by  a  special  vote,  continued  him  in 
the  prsetorship  of  the  city,  an  office  which  put  him  at  the  head  of  the  home  gov- 
ernment. The  election  of  the  other  three  praetors,  it  seems,  was  left  free  :  so  the 
people,  as  they  could  not  have  Otacilius  for  their  consul,  gave  him  one  of  the 
remaining  prsetorships,  and  bestowed  the  other  two  on  Q.  Fabius,  the  consul's 
son,  who  was  then  curule  aedile,  and  on  P.  Cornelius  Lentulus. 

Great  as  the  exertions  of  the  commonwealth  had  been  in  the  preceding  year, 
they  were  still  greater  this  year.    Ten  legions  were  to  be  employed 

Great  exertioni  of  the    .        ?._.  t*  *r      v        -i        •  t  i  f  ±1 

»-  m  different  parts  of  Italy,  besides  the  reserve  army  of  the  two  city 
legions,  which  was  to  protect  the  capital.     Two  legions  were  to 


94  Livy,     XXIV.     11.      Comp.     XXVI.     36.  iVx'0"  oiroo   xat  aiwrr^Ov   Kat  juera  7roXXS5f  e»Aa- 

XXXIV.  6.  (Idas  TWV  iratbiKiav  ai>T6ptvov  ^<5on5r,    Bpa&iws   SI 

16  Livy,  XXIV.  7.  Kat  Siavdvus  &t\6ntvov  raf  ftaQr/ccfi,  tvicobov  Of  xp&t 

94  Livy,  XXIV.  8.  roiis  avvrjOetf  Kat  KUTI/KOOV  aflsXrcpias  rtvog  KUI  vu- 

91  Ovicula,  see  Aurelius  Victor  do  Vir.  Illustr.  flprfnjroj  \>ir6voiav  tT^t  impa  ro?j  f*r<5j  •  dXiyot  V 

C.  48.     Plutarch,  Fabius,  C.  1.     'O6f  'OotM*o«5AaS  Tjoav  ol  rb  fivaKtvrjrov  vKofidQuvs  Kut  rb  tt£y 

npaivti  ro  irpoffdrtov  '   IriBri  61  irpdj  rqv  Ttpq6rrjTa  Kat  >£0vrw<5«  iv  rfi  Qbati  KaOop&vTes  avrov. 

MI  (JapiTijTu   TOU  ijdovs  sri   iratfos  tvros.     Tit  yap  w  Livy,  XXlV.  9. 


CHAP. 


XLIV.]  CAMPAIGN  OF  540.  519 

hold  Sardinia,  where  the  sparks  of  revolt  were  probably  not  altogether  extin- 
guished :  two  were  sent  to  Sicily,  with  a  prospect  of  no  inactive  service ;  and 
two  were  stationed  in  Cisalpine  Gaul,  there  being  some  likelihood,  we  must  sup- 
pose, that  the  Gauls  would  soon  require  a  force  in  their  neighborhood ;  or  pos- 
sibly the  colonies  of  Placentia  and  Cremona  were  thought  insecure,  if  they  were 
left  to  their  own  resources,  insulated  as  they  were  in  the  midst  of  the  enemy's 
country.  Finally,  the  Scipios  still  commanded  their  two  legions  in  Spain ;  and 
the  naval  service  in  Sicily,  and  on  the  coast  of  Calabria,  required  no  fewer  than  a 
hundred  and  fifty  ships  of  war." 

The  Italian  armies  were  disposed  as  follows :  Gales,  and  the  camp  above  Sues- 
sula  and  Nola,  were  again  to  be  the  head -quarters  of  the  two  con-  Dutribut;<m  of  thm  » 
suls,  each  of  whom  was  to  command  a  regular  consular  army  of  Itftly- 
two  legions.  Gracchus,  with  proconsular  power,  was  to  keep  Ms  own  two  legions, 
and  was  at  present  wintering  near  Hannibal  in  the  north  of  Apulia.  Q.  Fabius, 
one  of  the  new  praetors,  was  to  be  ready  to  enter  Aimlia  with  an  army  of  equal 
strength,  so  soon  as  Gracchus  should  be  called  into  Lucania  and  Samnium,  to 
take  part  in  the  active  operations  of  the  campaign.  C.  Varro,  with  his  single 
legion,  was  still  to  hold  Picenum  ;  and  M.  Lsevinus,  also  with  proconsular  power, 
was  to  remain  at  Brundisium  with  another  single  legion.100  The  two  city  legions 
served  as  a  sort  of  depot,  to  recruit  the  armies  in  the  field  in  case  of  need ;  and 
there  was  a  large  armed  population,  serving  as  garrisons  in  the  Latin  colonies, 
and  in  other  important  posts  in  various  parts  of  the  country,  the  amount  of  which 
it  is  not  possible  to  estimate.  Nor  can  we  calculate  the  numbers  of  the  guerilla 
bands,  which  were  on  foot  in  Lucania,  Bruttium,  and  possibly  in  Samnium,  and 
which  hindered  Hannibal  from  having  the  whole  resources  of  those  countries  at 
his  disposal.  The  Roman  party  was  nowhere  probably  altogether  extinct : 
wealthy  Lucanians,  who  were  attached  to  Rome,  would  muster  their  slaves  and 
peasantry,  and  either  by  themselves,  or  getting  some  Roman  officer  to  head  them, 
would  ravage  the  lands  of  the  Carthaginian  party,  and  carry  on  a  continued  ha- 
rassing warfare  against  the  towns  or  districts  which  had  joined  Hannibal.  Thus 
the  whole  south  of  Italy  was  one  wide  flood  of  war,  the  waters  were  everywhere 
dashing  and  eddying,  and  running  in  cross-currents  innumerable ;  whilst  the  reg- 
ular armies,  like  the  channels  of  the  rivers,  held  on  their  way,  distinguishable 
amidst  the  chaos  by  their  greater  rapidity  and  power. 

Hannibal  watched  this  mass  of  war  with  the  closest  attention.  To  make  head 
against  it  directly  being  impossible,  his  business  was  to  mark  his  Hann\bl,\  mnrchet  inu> 
opportunities,  to  strike  wherever  there  was  an  opening;  and  Clim')unm- 
being  sure  that  the  enemy  would  not  dare  to  attack  him  on  his  own  ground,  he 
might  maintain  his  army  in  Italy  for  an  indefinite  time,  whilst  Carthage,  availing 
herself  of  the  distraction  of  her  enemy's  power,  renewed  her  efforts  to  conquer 
Spain  and  recover  Sicily.  He  hoped  ere  long  to  win  Tarentum ;  and,  if  left  to 
his  own  choice,  he  would  probably  have  moved  hither  at  once,  when  he  broke 
up  from  his  winter-quarters :  but  the  weakness  or  fears  of  the  Campanians  .hung 
with  encumbering  weight  upon  him  ;  and  an  earnest  request  was  sent  to  him  from 
Capua,  calling  on  him  to  hasten  to  its  defence,  lest  the  two  consular  armies 
should  besiege  it.101  Accordingly  he  broke  up  from  his  winter-quarters  at  Arpi, 
and  marched  once  more  into  Campania,  where  he  established  his  army  as  before 
on  the  summit  of  Tifata. 

The  perpetual  carelessness  and  omissions  in  Livy's  narrative,  drawn  as  it  is 
from  various  sources,  with  no  pains  to  make  one  part  correspond 
with  another,  render  it  a  work  of  extreme  difficulty  to  present  an  ™  " 
account  of  these  operations,  which  shall  be  at  once  minute  and  in- 
telligible. We  also  miss  that  notice  of  chronological  details,  which  is  essential  to 
the  history  of  a  complicated  campaign.  Even  the  year  in  which  important 

"  Livy,  XXIV.  11.  "•  Livy,  XXIV.  12, 10.  »  Livy,  XXIV.  12. 


collect!  th«  Rv. 
man     arinie* 
ibal. 


520  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAT.  XLIV 

events  happened  is  sometimes  doubtful ;  yet  we  want,  net  to  fix  the  year  only, 
but  the  month,  that  we  may  arrange  each  action  in  its  proper  order.  When 
Hannibal  set  out  on  his  march  into  Campania,  Fabius  was  still  at  Rome ;  but  the 
two  new  legions,  which  were  to  form  his  army,  were  already  assembled  at  Cales ; 
and  Fabius,  on  hearing  of  Hannibal's  approach,  set  out  instantly  to  take  the  com- 
mand. His  old  army,  which  had  wintered  in  the  camp  above  Suessula,  had  ap- 
parently been  transferred  to  his  colleague,  Marcellus ;  and  a  considerable  force 
had  been  left  at  the  close  of  the  last  campaign  to  garrison  Nola.  Fabius,  how- 
ever, wished  to  have  three  Roman  armies  co-operating  with  each  other,  as  had 
been  the  case  the  year  before ;  and  he  sent  orders  to  Gracchus  to  move  forwards 
from  Apulia,  and  to  occupy  Beneventum ;  while  his  son  Q.  Fabius,  the  praetor, 
with  a  fourth  army,  was  to  supply  the  place  of  Gracchus  at  Luceria.10*  It 
seemed  as  if  Hannibal,  having  once  entered  Campania,  was  to  be  hemmed  in  on 
every  side,  and  not  permitted  to  escape :  but  these  movements  of  the  Roman 
armies  induced  him  to  call  Hanno  to  his  aid,  the  officer  who  commanded  in  Lu- 
cania  and  Bruttium,  and  who,  with  a  small  force  of  Numidian  cavalry,  had  an  aux- 
iliary army  under  his  orders  consisting  chiefly  of  Italian  allies.  Hanno  advanced 
accordingly  in  the  direction  of  Beneventum,  to  watch  Jie  army  of  Gracchus,  and 
if  an  opportunity  offered,  to  bring  it  to  action.103 

Meanwhile  Hannibal,  having  left  some  of  his  best  troops  to  maintain  his  camp 
Hannibal  offers  sacrifice  a^  Tifata,  and  probably  to  protect  the  immediate  neighborhood  of 
at  the  lake  Avemu..  capua>  descended  into  the  plain  towards  the  coast,  partly  in  the 
hope  of  surprising  a  fortified  post  which  the  Romans  had  lately  established  at 
Puteoli,  and  partly  to  ravage  the  territory  of  Cumse  and  Neapolis.  But  the 
avowed  object  of  his  expedition  was  to  offer  sacrifice  to  the  powers  of  the  unseen 
world,  on  the  banks  of  the  dreaded  lake  of  Avernus.104  That  crater  of  an  old 
volcano,  where  the  very  soil  still  seemed  to  breathe  out  fire,  while  the  unbroken 
rim  of  its  basin  was  covered  with  the  uncleared  masses  of  the  native  woods,  was 
the  subject  of  a  thousand  mysterious  stories,  and  was  regarded  as  one  of  those 
spots  where  the  lower  world  approached  most  nearly  to  the  light  of  day,  and 
where  offerings  paid  to  the  gods  of  the  dead  were  most  surely  acceptable.  Such 
worship  was  a  main  part  of  the  national  religion  of  the  Carthaginians ;  and  Han- 
nibal, whose  latest  act  before  he  set  out  on  his  great  expedition,  had  been  a  jour- 
ney to  Gades  to  sacrifice  to  the  god  of  his  fathers,  the  Hercules  of  Tyre,  visited 
the  lake  of  Avernus,  it  is  probable,  quite  as  much  in  sincere  devotion,  as  in  order 
to  mask  his  design  of  attacking  Puteoli.  Whilst  he  was  engaged  in  his  sacrifice, 
five  noble  citizens  of  Tarentum  came  to  him,  entreating  him  to  lead  his  army  into 
their  country,  and  engaging  that  the  city  should  be  surrendered  as  soon  as  his 
standard  should  be  visible  from  the  walls.  He  listened  to  their  invitation  gladly ; 
they  offered  him  one  of  the  richest  cities  in  Italy,  with  an  excellent  harbor, 
equally  convenient  for  his  own  communication  with  Carthage,  and  for  the  recep- 
tion of  the  fleet  of  his  Macedonian  allies,  whom  he  was  constantly  expecting  to 
welcome  in  Italy.  He  promised  that  he  would  soon  be  at  Tarentum;  and  the 
Taren tines  returned  home  to  prepare  their  plans  against  his  arrival.105 

With  this  prospect  before  him,  it  is  not  likely  that  he  would  engage  in  any 
H.  march,*  against  serious  enterprise  in  Campania.  Finding  that  he  could  not  sur- 
Tawntum,  prjse  puteoli,  he  ravaged  the  lands  of  the  Cumseans  and  Neapol- 

itans. According  to  the  ever  suspicious  stories  of  the  exploits  of  Marcellus,  he 
made  a  third  attempt  upon  Nola,  and  was  a  third  time  repulsed  ;  Marcellus  having 
called  down  the  army  from  the  camp  above  Suessula  to  assist  him  in  defending 
the  town.  Then,  says  the  writer  whom  Livy  copied,  despairing  of  taking  a  place 
which  he  had  so  often  attacked  in  vain,  he  marched  off  at  once  towards  Taren- 
tum.106 The  truth  probably  is,  that,  finding  a  complete  consular  army  in  Nola,  and 

m  Livy,  XXIV.  12.  "•  Livy,  XXIV.  13. 

™  Livy  XXIV.  14.  m  Livy,  XXIV.  17. 

»•  Livy,  XXIV.  12,  18. 


MARCH  AGAINST  TARENTUM.  521 

having  left  his  light  cavalry,  and  some  of  the  flower  of  his  infantry,  in  the  camp 
on  Tifata,  he  had  no  thought  of  attacking  the  town,  but  returned  to  Tifata  to  take 
the  troops  from  thence  ;  and  having  done  this,  and  stayed  long  enough  in  Campania 
for  the  Capuans  to  get  in  their  harvest  safely,  he  set  off  on  his  march  for  Taren- 
tum.  None  of  the  Roman  armies  attempted  to  stop  him,  or  so  much  as  ventured 
to  follow  him.  Fabius  and  Marcellus  took  advantage  of  his  absence  to  besiege 
Casilinum  with  their  united  forces;107  Gracchus  kept  wisely  out  of  his  reac_h,_ 
whilst  he  swept  on  like  a  fiery  flood,  laying  waste  all  before  him,  from  Tifata  to 
the  shores  of  the  Ionian  sea.108  He  certainly  did  not  burn  or  plunder  the  lands  of 
his  own  allies,  either  in  Samnium  or  Lucania ;  but  his  march  lay  near  the  Latin 
colony  of  Venusia ;  and  the  Lucanians  and  Samnites  in  his  army  would  carefully 
point  out  those  districts  which  belonged  to  their  countrymen  of  the  Roman 
party ;  above  all,  those  ample  tracts  which  the  Romans  had  wrested  from  their 
fathers,  and  which  were  now  farmed  by  the  Roman  publicani,  or  occupied  by 
Roman  citizens.  Over  all  these,  no  doubt,  the  African  and  Numidian  horse 
poured  far  and  wide  ;  and  the  fire  and  sword  did  their  work. 

Yet,  after  all,  Hannibal  missed  his  prey.  Three  days  before  he  reached  Ta- 
rentum,  a  Roman  officer  arrived  in  the  city,  whom  M.  Valerius 
Lsevinus  had  sent  in  haste  from  Brundisium  to  provide  for  its  de- 
fence.109 There  was  probably  a  small  Roman  garrison  in  the  citadel,  to  support 
him  in  case  of  need  ;  but  the  aristocratical  party  in  Tarentum  itself,  as  else- 
where, was  attached  to  Rome ;  and  with  their  aid  Livius,  the  officer  whom  Lae- 
vinus  had  sent,  effectually  repressed  the  opposite  party,  embodied  the  population 
of  the  town,  and  made  them  keep  guard  on  the  walls,  and  selecting  a  certain 
number  of  persons  whose  fidelity  he  most  suspected,  sent  them  off  as  hostages 
to  Rome.  When  the  Carthaginian  army  therefore  appeared  before  the  walls, 
no  movement  was  made  in  their  favor ;  and  after  waiting  a  few  days  in  vain, 
Hannibal  was  obliged  to  retreat.  His  disappointment,  however,  did  not  make  him 
lose  his  temper ;  he  spared  the  Tarentine  territory,  no  less  when  leaving  it,  than 
when  he  first  entered  it,  in  the  hope  of  winning  the  city ;  a  moderation  which 
doubtless  produced  its  effect,  and  confirmed  the  Tarentines  in  the  belief  that  his 
professions  of  friendship  had  been  made  in  honesty.  But  he  carried  off  all  the 
corn  which  he  could  find  in  the  neighborhood  of  Metapontum  and  Heraclea,  and 
then  returned  to  Apulia,  and  fixed  his  quarters  for  the  winter  at  Salapia.  His 
cavalry  overran  all  the  forest  country  above  Brundisium,  and  drove  off  such 
numbers  of  horses  which  were  kept  there  to  pasture,  that  he  was  enabled  to  have 
four  thousand  broken  in  for  the  service  of  his  army.'10 

Meanwhile  the  Roman  consuls  in  Campania  were  availing  themselves  of 
his  absence,  to  press  the  siege  of  Casilinum.  The  place  was  so  The  Romans  take  Cati. 
close  to  Capua,  that  it  was  feared  the  Capuans  would  attempt  to  linum- 
relieve  it ;  Marcellus,  therefore,  with  a  second  consular  army,  advanced  from  Nola 
to  cover  the  siege.  The  defence  was  very  obstinate ;  for  there  were  seven  hun- 
~  ed  of  Hannibal's  soldiers  in  the  place,  and  two  thousand  Capuans ;  and  Fabius, 

is  said,  was  disposed  to  raise  the  siege ;  but  his  colleague  reminded  him  of  the 
loss  of  reputation,  if  so  small  a  town  were  allowed  to  baffle  two  consular  armies  ; 
and  the  siege  was  continued.  At  last  the  Capuans  offered  to  Fabius  to  surren- 
der the  town,  on  condition  of  being  allowed  to  retire  to  Capua ;  and  it  appears 
that  he  accepted  the  terms,  and  that  the  garrison  had  begun  to  march  out,  when 
Marcellus  broke  in  upon  them,  seized  the  open  gate  from  which  they  were  issu- 
ing, cut  them  down  right  and  left,  and  forced  his  way  into  the  city.  Fabius,  it  is 
said,  was  able  to  keep  his  faith  to  no  more  than  fifty  of  the  garrison,  who  had 
reached  his  quarters  before  Marcellus  arrived,  and  whom  he  sent  unharmed  to 
Capua.  The  rest  of  the  Capuans  and  of  Hannibal's  soldiers  were  sent  prisoners 


10  cc 
dred 
it  is 


107  Livy,  XXIV.  19.  *•  Livy,  XXIV.  20. 

m  Livy,  XXIV.  20.  »°  Livy,  XXIV.  20. 


522  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLIV 

to  Rome ;  and  the  inhabitants  were  divided  amongst  the  neighboring  cities,  to 
be  kept  in  custody  till  the  senate  should  determine  their  fate.111 

After  this  scandalous  act  of  treachery,  Marcellus  returned  to  Nola,  and'  there 
Fab.,,,  ravages  Sam-  remained  inactive,  being  confined,  it  was  said,  by  illness,112  till  the 
senate,  before  the  end  of  the  summer,  sent  him  over  to  Sicily  to 
meet  the  danger  that  was  gathering  there.  Fabius  advanced  into  Samnium, 
combining  his  operations,  it  seems,  with  his  son,  who  commanded  a  praetorian 
army  in  Apulia,  and  with  Gracchus,  who  was  in  Lucania,  and  whose  army  form- 
ed the  link  between  the  prsetor  in  Apulia  and  his  father  in  Samnium.  These 
three  armies  were  so  formidable,  that  Hanno,  the  Carthaginian  commander  in 
Lucania,  could  not  maintain  his  ground,  but  fell  back  towards  Bruttium,  leaving 
his  allies  to  their  own  inadequate  means  of  defence.  Accordingly  the  Romans 
ravaged  the  country  far  and  wide,  and  took  so  many  towns  that  they  boasted  of 
having  killed  or  captured  25,000  of  the  enemy.113  After  these  expeditions,  Fa- 
bius, it  seems,  led  back  his  army  to  winter-quarters  in  the  camp  above  Suessula 
Gracchus  remained  in  Lucania  ;  and  Fabius  the  praetor  wintered  at  Luceria. 

I  have  endeavored  to  follow  the  operations  of  the  main  armies  on  both  sides 
Gmcciiu.  defeats  H-m  throughout  the  campaign,  without  noticing  those  of  Gracchus  and 
i.o7and"nfraneo"hLsthe  Hanno  in  Lucania.  But  the  most  important  action  of  the  year,  if 
we  believe  the  Roman  accounts,  was  the  victory  obtained  by  Grac- 
chus near  Beneventum,  when  he  moved  thither  out  of  Apulia  to  co-operate  with 
the  consuls  in  Campania,  and  Hanno  was  ordered  by  Hannibal  to  inarch  to  the 
same  point  out  of  Lucania.  Hanno,  it  is  said,  had  about  17,000  foot,  mostly 
Bruttians  and  Lucanians,  and  1200  JSTumidian  and  Moorish  horse  ;  and  Gracchus, 
encountering  him  near  Beneventum,  defeated  him  with  the  loss  of  almost  all  his 
infantry ;  he  himself  and  his  cavalry  being  the  only  part  of  the  army  that 
escaped.114  The  numbers,  as  usual,  are  probably  exaggerated  immensely ;  but 
there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  Gracchus  gained  an  important  victory ;  and  it 
was  rendered  famous  by  his  giving  liberty  to  the  volunteer  slaves,  by  whose 
valor  it  had  mainly  been  won.  Some  of  these  had  behaved  ill  in  the  action,  and 
were  afraid  that  they  should  be  punished,  rather  than  rewarded ;  but  Gracchus 
first  set  them  all  free  without  distinction,  and  then,  sending  for  those  who  had 
misbehaved,  made  them  severally  swear  that  they  would  eat  and  drink  standing, 
so  long  as  their  military  service  should  last,  by  way  of  penance  for  their  fault. 
Such  a  sentence,  so  different  from  the  usual  merciless  severity  of  the  Roman  dis- 
cipline, added  to  the  general  joy  of  the  army ;  the  soldiers  marched  back  to 
Beneventum  in  triumph  ;  and  the  people  poured  out  to  meet  them,  and  entreated 
Gracchus  that  they  might  invite  them  all  to  a  public  entertainment.  Tables 
were  set  out  in  the  streets ;  and  the  freed  slaves  attracted  every  one's  notice  by 
their  white  caps,  the  well-known  sign  of  their  enfranchisement,  and  by  the  strange 
sight  of  those  who,  in  fulfilment  of  their  penance,  ate  standing,  and  waited  upon 
their  worthier  comrades.  The  whole  scene  delighted  the  generous  and  kind 
nature  of  Gracchus :  to  set  free  the  slave  and  to  relieve  the  poor  appear  to  have 
been  hereditary  virtues  in  his  family :  to  him,  no  less  than  to  his  unfortunate  de 
scendants,  beneficence  seemed  the  highest  glory.  He  caused  a  picture  to  be 
painted,  not  of  his  victory  over  Hanno,  but  of  the  feasting  of  the  enfranchised 
slaves  in  the  streets  of  Beneventum,  and  placed  it  in  the  temple  of  Liberty  oa 
the  Aventine,  which  his  father  had  built  and  dedicated.115 

The  battle  of  Beneventum  obliged  Hanno  to  fall  back  into  Lucania,  and  per- 

unnno  retrieve,  hi.  haps  as  far  as  the  confines  of  Bruttium.     But  he  soon  recruited  his, 

army,  the  Lucanians  and  Bruttians,  as  well  as  the  Picentines,  who 

lived  on  the  shores  of  the  gulf  of  Salerno,  being  very  zealous  in  the  cause  ;  and 

»'  Livy,  XXIV.  19.  1M  Livy,  XXIV.  14,  15, 16. 

m  Livy  XXIV.  20.  "»  Livy,  XXIV.  16. 

»»  Livy,  XXIV.  20. 


HAP.  XLIV.]  SEVERE  MEASURES  OF  THE  CENSORS.  523 


long  he  revenged  his  defeat  by  a  signal  victory  over  an  army  of  Lucanians  of 
the  Roman  party,  whom  Gracchus  had  enlisted  to  act  as  an  irregular  force 
against  their  countrymen  of  the  opposite  faction.  Still  Hanno  was  not  tempted 
to  risk  another  battle  with  a  Roman  consular  army ;  and  when  Gracchus  advanced 
from  Beneventum  into  Lucania,  he  retired  again  into  Bruttium."6 

There  seems  to  have  been  no  further  dispute  with  regard  to  the  appointment 
of  consuls.  Fabius  and  the  leading  members  of  the  senate  appear  Comitia  for  new.  offl. 
to  have  nominated  such  men  as  they  thought  most  equal  to  the  cen" 
emergency;  and  no  other  candidates  came  forward.  Fabius  again  held  the 
comitia;  and  his  son,  Q.  Fabius,  who  was  praetor  at  the  time,  was  elected  consul 
together  with  Gracchus.  The  praetors  were  entirely  changed.  Q.  Fulvius  was 
succeeded  in  the  city  praetorship  by  M.  Atilius  Regulus,  who  had  just  resigned 
the  censorship,  and  who  had  already  been  twice  consul ;  the  other  three  praetors 
were  M.  Jgmilius  Lepidus,  Cn.  Fulvius  Oentumalus,  and  P.  Sempronius  Tudi- 
tanus.  The  two  former  were  men  of  noble  families :  Sempronius  appears  to  have 
owed  his  appointment  to  his  resolute  conduct  at  Cannae,  when  he  cut  his  way 
from  he  camp  through  the  surrounding  enemies,  and  escaped  in  safety  to 
Canusiura.117 

Thus  another  year  passed  over ;  and  although  the  state  of  affairs  was  still 
dark,  the  tide  seemed  to  be  on  the  turn.     Hannibal  had  gained  no 

,,,  ,-  i  •     i          i&          i/^,         A.U.C.  541.  A.C.213. 

new  victory  ;  larentum  had  been  saved  irom  his  hancls;  and  ua-  Puwic  spirit  thown by 
silinum  had  been  wrested  from  him.  Public  spirit  was  rising 
daily ;  and  fresh  instances  of  the  patriotic  devotion  which  possessed  all  classes 
of  the  commonwealth  were  continually  occurring.  The  owners  of  the  slaves 
whom  Gracchus  had  enfranchised  refused  to  receive  any  price  for  them :  the 
wealthy  citizens  who  served  in  the  cavalry  determined  not  to  take  their  pay ; 
and  their  example  was  followed  by  the  centurions  of  the  legions.  Trust  moneys 
belonging  to  minors,  or  to  widows  and  unmarried  women,  were  deposited  in  the 
treasury ;  and  whatever  sums  the  trustees  had  occasion  to  draw  for,  were  paid 
by  the  quaestor  in  bills  on  the  banking  commissioners,  or  triumviri  mensarii :  it  is 
probable  that  these  bills  were  actually  a  paper  currency,  and  that  they  circulated 
as  money,  on  the  security  of  the  public  faith.  In  the  same  way  we  must  sup- 
pose that  the  government  contracts  were  also  paid  in  paper ;  for  the  censors,  we 
are  told,  found  the  treasury  unable  to  supply  the  usual  sums  for  public  works 
and  entertainments ;  there  was  no  money  to  repair  or  keep  up  the  temples,  or  to 
provide  horses  for  the  games  of  the  circus.  Upon  this  the  persons  who  were  in 
the  habit  of  contracting  for  these  purposes,  came  forward  in  a  body  to  the  cen 
sors,  and  begged  them  to  make  their  contracts  as  usual,  promising  not  to  demand 
payment  before  the  end  of  the  war.  This  must  mean,  I  conceive,  that  they  were 
to  be  paid  in  orders  upon  the  treasury,  which  orders  were  to  be  converted  into 
cash,  when  the  present  difficulties  of  the  government  should  be  at  an  end.118 

While  such  was  the  spirit  of  the  people,  any  severity  exercised  by  the  govern- 
ment towards  the  timid  or  the  unpatriotic  was  sure  to  be  generally  sever*  mea^rei  of  u»» 
acceptable.  The  censors,  M.  Atilius  Regulus  and  P.  Furius  Philus,  censor5- 
summoned  all  those  persons,  most  of  them  members  of  noble,  and  all  of  wealthy 
families,  who  had  proposed  to  fly  from  Italy  after  the  battle  of  Cannae.  L.  Me- 
tellus,  who  was  said  to  have  been  the  first  author  of  that  proposal,  was  at  this 
time  quaestor ;  but  he  and  all  who  were  concerned  in  it  were  degraded  from  the 
equestrian  order,  and  removed  from  their  respective  tribes.  Two  thousand 
citizens  of  lower  rank  were  also  removed  from  their  tribes,  and  deprived  of  their 
political  franchise,  for  having  evaded  military  service  during  the  last  four  years  ; 
the  senate  inflicted  an  additional  punishment  by  ordering  that  they  should 

rve  as  foot  soldiers  in  Sicily,  along  with  the  remains  of  the  army  of  Cannae,  and 

-*  Livy,  XXIV.  20.  =»  Livy,  XXIV.  18. 

117  Livy,  XXIV.  43. 


524  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLIV 

should  continue  to  serve  so  long  as  the  enemy  was  in  Italy.119  The  case  of  Me- 
tellus  seems  to  have  been  considered  a  hard  one :  in  spite  of  the  censor's  sen- 
tence, he  was  elected  one  of  the  tribunes  in  the  following  year.  He  then  im- 
peached the  censors  before  the  people ;  but  the  other  nine  tribunes  interposed, 
and  would  not  allow  the  trial  to  proceed.120  If  Metellus  had  been  wronged,  the 
people  had  made  up  for  it  by  electing  him  tribune ;  but  it  was  thought  a  danger- 
ous precedent  to  subject  the  censors  to  a  trial  for  the  exercise  of  their  undoubted 
prerogative,  when  there  was  no  reason  to  suspect  the  honesty  of  their  motives. 

The  forces  to  be  employed  in  Italy  in  the  approaching  campaign  were  to  con- 
Distribution  of  theRo-  sist  of  nine  legions,  three  fewer  than  in  the  year  before.  The  con- 
suls were  each  to  have  their  two  legions,  Gracchus  in  Lucania,  and 
Fabius  in  Apulia.  M.  ^Emilius  was  to  command  two  legions  also  in  Apulia, 
having  his  head-quarters  at  Luceria ;  Cn.  Fulvius  with  two  more  was  to  occupy 
the  camp  above  Suessula ;  and  Varro  was  to  remain  with  his  one  legion  in  Picenum. 
Two  consular  armies  of  two  legions  each  were  required  in  Sicily ;  one  commanded 
by  Marcellus  as  proconsul,  the  other  by  P.  Lentulus  as  propraetor :  two  legions 
were  employed  in  Cisalpine  Gaul  under  P.  Sempronius,  and  two  in  Sardinia 
under  their  old  commander,  Q.  Mucius.  M.  Valerius  Laevinus  retained  his  single 
legion  and  his  fleet,  to  act  against  Philip  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Ionian  sea  ; 
and  P.  Scipio  and  his  brother  were  still  continued  in  their  command  in  Spain.181 

Hannibal  passed  the  winter  at  Salapia,  where,  the  Romans  said,  was  a  lady 
opening  of  the  cam-  whom  he  loved,  and  who  became  famous  from  her  influence  over 
f&lsn-  him.122  Whether  his  passion  for  her  made  him  careless  of  every 

thing  else,  or  whether  he  was  really  taken  by  surprise,  we  know  not ;  but  the 
neighboring  town  of  Arpi  was  attacked  by  the  consul  Fabius,  and  given  up  to 
him  by  the  inhabitants ;  and  some  Spaniards,  who  formed  part  of  the  garrison, 
entered  into  the  Roman  service.123  Gracchus  obtained  some  slight  successes  in 
Lucania ;  and  some  of  the  Bruttian  towns  returned  to  their  old  alliance  with 
Rome ;  but  a  Roman  contractor,  T.  Pomponius  Veientanus,  who  had  been  em- 
powered by  the  government  to  raise  soldiers  in  Bruttium,  and  to  employ  them 
in  plundering  the  enemies'  lands,  was  rash  enough  to  venture  a  regular  action 
with  Hanno,  in  which  he  was  defeated  and  made  prisoner.124  This  disaster 
checked  the  reaction  in  Bruttium  for  the  present. 

Meanwhile  Hannibal's  eyes  were  still  fixed  upon  Tarentum ;  and  thither  he 
Hannibal  lingers  new  marched  again  as  soon  as  he  took  the  field,  leaving  Fabius  behind 
him  in  Apulia.  He  passed  the  whole  summer  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Tarentum,  and  reduced  several  small  towns  in  the  surrounding  country :  but 
his  friends  in  Tarentum  made  no  movement ;  for  they  dared  not  compromise  the 
safety  of  their  countrymen  and  relations,  who  had  been  carried  oft'  as  hostages  to 
Rome.  Accordingly  the  season  wore  away  unmarked  by  any  memorable  action. 
Hannibal  still  lingered  in  the  country  of  the  Sallentines,  unwilling  to  give  up  all 
hope  of  winning  the  prize  he  had  so  long  sought ;  and  to  lull  the  suspicions  of 
the  Romans,  he  gave  out  that  he  was  confined  to  his  camp  by  illness,  and  that 
this  had  prevented  his  army  from  returning  to  its  usual  winter- quarters  in 
Apulia.125 

Matters  were  in  this  state,  when  tidings  arrived  at  Tarentum,  that  the  hostages, 

conspiracy  to  betray  it  f°r  whose  safety  their  friends  had  been  so  anxious,  had  been  all 

cruelly  put  to  death  at  Rome  for  having  attempted  to  escape  from 

their  captivity.128     Released  in  so  shocking  a  manner  from  their  former  hesitation, 

and  burning  to  revenge  the  blood  of  their  friends,  Hannibal's  partisans  no  longer 

119  Livy,  XXIV.  18.  m  Livy,  XXIV.  46,  47- 

190  Livy  XXIV.  43.  m  Livy,  XXV.  1. 

B1  Livy,  XXIV.  44.  m  Polybius,  VIII.  28.    JLivy,  XXV.  8. 

m  Appian,  VII.  43.     Pliny,  III.  16.    See  «•  Livy,  XXV.  7. 
Lucian,  Dial.  Mortuor.  XII.  and  Hemsterhuis' 
tote. 


CHAP.  XLIV.]  CONSPIRACY  AT  TARENTUM.  535 

delayed.  They  communicated  secretly  with  him,  arranged  the  details  of  their 
attempt,  and  signed  a  treaty  of  alliance,  by  which  he  bound  himself  to  respect 
the  independence  and  liberty  of  the  Tarentines,  and  only  stipulated  for  the  plun- 
der of  such  houses  as  were  occupied  by  Roman  citizens.121  Two  young  men, 
Philemenus  and  Nicon,  were  the  leaders  of  the  enterprise.  Philemenus,  under 
pretence  of  hunting,  had  persuaded  the  officer  at  one  of  the  gates  to  allow  him 
to  pass  in  and  out  of  the  town  by  night  without  interruption.  He  was  known  to 
be  devoted  to  his  sport  ;  he  scarcely  ever  returned  without  having  caught  or 
killed  some  game  or  other  ;  and  by  liberally  giving  away  what  he  had  caught,  Le 
won  the  favor  and  confidence,  not  only  of  the  officer  of  the  gate,  but  also  of  the 
Roman  governor  himself,  M.  Livius  Macatus,  a  relation  of  M.  Livius  Salinator, 
who  afterwards  defeated  Hasdrubal,  but  a  man  too  indolent  and  fond  of  good 
cheer  to  be  the  governor  of  a  town  threatened  by  Hannibal.  So  little  did  Livius 
suspect  any  danger,  that  on  the  very  day  which  the  conspirators  had  fixed  for 
their  attempt,  and  when  Hannibal  with  ten  thousand  men  was  advancing  upon 
the  town,  he  had  invited  a  large  party  to  meet  him  at  the  Temple  of  ihe  Muses 
near  the  market-place,  and  was  engaged  from  an  early  hour  in  festivity.128 

The  city  of  Tarentum  formed  a  triangle,  two  sides  of  which  were  washed  by 
the  water  :  the  outer  or  western  side  by  the  Mediterranean  :  the 

.  ,  'tt  t      ,  iii      111       iii«          Bitnatvm   of  Tarentum 

inner  or  north-eastern  side  by  that  remarkable  land-locked  basin,  fayorauie  to  the  con- 
now  called  ihe  Little  Sea,  which  has  a  mouth  narrower  than  the  ** 
entrance  into  the  Norwegian  Fiords,  but  runs  deep  into  the  land,  and  spreads  out 
into  a  wide  surface  of  the  calmest  water,  scarcely  ruffled  by  the  hardest  gales. 
Exactly  at  the  mouth  of  this  basin  was  a  little  rocky  knoll,  forming  the  apex  of 
the  triangle  of  the  city,  and  occupied  by  the  citadel  :  the  city  itself  stood  on  low 
and  mostly  level  ground  ;  and  its  south-eastern  wall,  the  base  of  the  triangle, 
stretched  across  from  the  Little  Sea  to  the  Mediterranean.129  Thus  the  citadel 
commanded  the  entrance  into  the  basin,  which  was  the  port  of  the  Tarentines  ; 
and  it  was  garrisoned  by  the  Romans,  although  many  of  the  officers  and  soldiers 
were  allowed  to  lodge  in  the  city.  All  attempts  upon  the  town  by  land  must  be 
made  then  against  the  south-eastern  side,  which  was  separated  from  the  citadel 
by  the  whole  length  of  the  city  :  and  there  was  another  circumstance  which  was 
likely  to  favor  a  surprise  ;  for  the  Tarentines,  following  the  direction  of  an  oracle, 
as  they  said,  buried  their  dead  within  the  city  walls  ;  and  the  street  of  the  tombs 
was  interposed  between  the  gates  and  the  inhabited  parts  of  the  town.130  This 
the  conspirators  turned  to  their  own  purposes  :  in  this  lonely  quarter  two  of  their 
number,  Nicon  and  Tragiscus,  were  waiting  for  Hannibal's  arrival  without  the 
gates.  As  soon  as  they  perceived  the  signal  which  was  to  announce  his  presence, 
they,  with  a  party  of  their  friends,  were  to  surprise  the  gates  from  within,  and 
put  the  guards  to  the  sword  ;  while  others  had  been  left  in  the  city  to  keep 
watch  near  the  museum,  and  prevent  any  communication  from  being  conveyed 
to  the  Roman  governor.131 

The  evening  wore  away  ;  the  governor's  party  broke  up  ;  and  his  friends  at- 
tended him  to  his  house.  On  their  way  home  they  met  some  of  careie«eM  of  th- 
ine conspirators,  who,  to  lull  all  suspicion,  began  to  jest  with  s°vcrnor- 
them,  as  though  themselves  going  home  from  a  revel,  and  joining  the  party 
amidst  riotous  shouts  and  loud  laughter,  accompanied  the  governor  to  his  own 
door.  He  went  to  rest  in  joyous  and  careless  mood  ;  his  friends  were  all  gone 
to  their  quarters  ;  the  noise  of  revellers  returning  from  their  festivities  died  away 
through  the  city;  and  when  midnight  was  come,  the  conspirators  alone  were 
abroad.  They  now  divided  into  three  parties  :  one  was  posted  near  the  govern- 
or's house,  a  second  secured  the  approaches  to  the  market-place,  and  the  third 
hastened  to  the  quarter  of  the  tombs,  to  watch  for  Hannibal's  signal.138 


Polybius,  VIII.  26,  27.    Livy,  XXV.  8.  J3°  Polybius,  VIII.  30. 

Polybius,  VIII.  28,  29.     Livy,  XXV.  8,  9.        m  Polybius,  VIII.  29,  30.    Livy,  XXV.  9. 

Strabo,  VI.  p.  278.  132  Polybius,  VIII.  29. 


526  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLIV 

They  did  not  watch  long  in  vain ;  a  fire  in  a  particular  spot  without  the  walls 
Hannibal  enters  one  of  assured  them  that  Hannibal  was  at  hand.  They  lit  a  fire  in  answer ; 
the  guu*.  an(j  presently,  as  had  been  agreed  upon,  the  fire  without  the  walls 

disappeared.  Then  the  conspirators  rushed  to  the  gate  of  the  city,  surprised  it 
with  ease,  put  the  guards  to  the  sword,  and  began  to  hew  asunder  the  bar  hy 
which  the  gates  were  fastened.  No  sooner  was  it  forced,  and  the  gates  opened, 
than  Hannibal's  soldiers  were  seen  ready  to  enter;  so  exactly  had  the  time  of  the 
operations  been  calculated.  The  cavalry  were  left  without  the  walls  as  a  re- 
serve ;  but  the  infantry,  marching  in  regular  column,  advanced  through  the 
quarter  of  the  tombs  to  the  inhabited  part  of  the  city.133 

Meantime  Philemenus  with  a  thousand  Africans  had  been  sent  to  secure  an- 
»  opened  to  otner  gate  by  stratagem.  The  guards  were  accustomed  to  let 
jjjm  jn  a^  ajj  ilourS)  whenever  he  returned  from  his  hunting  expe- 
ditions ;  and  now,  when  they  heard  his  usual  whistle,  one  of  them  went  to  the 
gate  to  admit  him.  Philemenus  called  to  the  guard  from  without  to  open  the 
wicket  quickly ;  for  that  he  and  his  friends  had  killed  a  huge  wild  boar,  and 
could  scarcely  bear  the  weight  any  longer.  The  guard,  accustomed  to  have  a 
share  in  the  spoil,  opened  the  wicket ;  and  Philemenus  and  three  other  conspira- 
tors, disguised  as  countrymen,  stepped  in,  carrying  the  boar  between  them. 
They  instantly  killed  the  poor  guard,  as  he  was  admiring  and  feeling  their  prize; 
and  then  let  in  about  thirty  Africans,  who  were  following  close  behind.  With 
this  force  they  mastered  the  gate-house  and  towers,  killed  all  the  guards,  and 
hewed  asunder  the  bars  of  the  main  gates  to  admit  the  whole  column  of  Africans, 
who  marched  in  on  this  side  also  in  regular  order,  and  advanced  towards  the 
market-place.134 

No  sooner  had  both  Hannibal's  columns  reached  their  destination,  and  as  it 
of  the  RO-  seems  without  exciting  any  general  alarm,  than  he  detached  three 

troops.  bodies  of  Gaulish  soldiers  to  occupy  the  principal  streets  which 

led  to  the  market-place.  The  officers  in  command  of  these  troops  had  orders  to 
kill  eveiy  Roman  who  fell  in  their  way  ;  but  some  of  the  Tarentine  conspirators 
were  sent  with  each  party  to  warn  their  countrymen  to  go  home  and  remain 
quiet,  assuring  them  that  no  mischief  was  intended  to  them.  The  toils  being 
thus  spread,  the  prey  was  now  to  be  enticed  into  them.  Philemenus  and  his 
friends  had  provided  some  Roman  trumpets ;  and  these  were  loudly  blown, 
sounding  the  well-known  call  to  arms  to  the  Roman  soldier.  Roused  at  this  sum. 
mons,  the  Romans  quartered  about  the  town  armed  themselves  in  Imste,  and 
poured  into  the  streets  to  make  their  way  to  the  citadel.  But  they  fell  in  scat- 
tered parties  into  the  midst  of  Hannibal's  Gauls,  and  were  cut  down  one  after  an- 
other. The  governor  alone  had  been  more  fortunate ;  the  alarm  had  reached 
him  in  time ;  and  being  in  no  condition  to  offer  any  resistance, — for  he  felt,  says 
Polybius,  that  the  fumes  of  wine  were  still  overpowering  him, — he  hastened  to 
the  harbor,  and  getting  on  board  a  boat,  was  carried  safely  to  the  citadel.135 

Day  at  last  dawned,  but  did  not  quite  clear  up  the  mystery  of  the  night's 
alarm  to  the  mass  of  the  inhabitants  of  Tarentum.  They  were  safe 
Tmwntinm,  nnT'pronv  in  their  houses,  unmassacred,  unplundered ;  the  only  blast  of  war 
had  been  blown  by  a  Roman  trumpet;  yet  Roman  soldiers  were 
lying  dead  in  the  streets ;  an(J  Gauls  were  spoiling  their  bodies.  Suspense  at 
length  was  ended  by  the  voice  of  the  public  crier  summoning  the  citizens  of  Ta- 
rentum, in  Hannibal's  name,  to  appear  without  their  arms  in  the  market-place ; 
and  by  repeated  shouts  of  "  Liberty  !  Liberty  !"  uttered  by  some  of  their  own 
countrymen,  who  ran  round  the  town  calling  the  Carthaginians  their  deliverers. 
The  firm  partisans  of  Rome  made  haste  to  escape  into  the  citadel,  while  the  mul- 
litude  crowded  to  the  market-place.  They  found  it  regularly  occupied  by  Car- 

OT  Polybins,  VIII.  80.  81.  J36  Polybius,  VIII.  32.    Livy,  XXV.  10. 

w  Polybius,  VIII,  31. 


CHAP.  XLIV.]  CAMPAIGN  OF  641.  527 

thaginian  troops  ;  and  the  great  general,  of  whom  they  had  heard  so  much,  was 
preparing  to  address  them.  He  spoke  to  them,  in  Greek  apparently,  declaring, 
as  usual,  that  he  was  come  to  free  the  inhabitants  of  Italy  from  the  dominion  of 
Rome.  "  The  Tarentines  therefore  had  nothing  to  fear  ;  they  should  go  home, 
and  write  each  over  his  door,  a  Tarentine'  s  house  ;  those  words  would  be  a  suffi- 
cient security  ;  no  door  so  marked  should  be  violated.  But  the  mark  must  not 
be  set  falsely  upon  any  Roman's  quarters  ;  a  Tarentine  guilty  of  such  treason 
would  be  put  to  death  as  an  enemy  ;  for  all  Roman  property  was  the  lawful 
prize  of  the  soldiers."  Accordingly  all  houses  where  Romans  had  been  quartered 
were  given  up  to  be  plundered  ;  and  the  Carthaginian  soldiers  gained  a  harvest, 
says  Polybius,  which  fully  answered  their  hopes.  This  can  only  be  explained  by 
supposing  that  the  Romans  were  quartered  generally  in  the  houses  of  the  wealthier 
Tarentines,  who  were  attached  to  the  Roman  alliance  ;  and  that  the  plunder  was 
not  the  scanty  baggage  of  the  legionary  soldiers,  but  the  costly  furniture  of  the 
richest  citizens  in  the  greatest  city  of  southern  Italy.136 

Thus  Tarentum  was  won  ;  but  the  citadel  on  its  rocky  knoll  was  still  held  by 
the  Romans  ;  and  its  position  at  once  threatened  the  town,  and 


shut  up  the  Tarentine  fleet  useless  in  the  harbor.     Hannibal  pro- 


ceeded  to  sink  a  ditch,  and  throw  up  a  wall  along  the  side  of  the 
town  towards  the  citadel,  in  order  to  repress  the  sallies  of  the  garrison.  While 
engaged  in  these  works  he  purposely  tempted  the  Romans  to  a  sally,  and  having 
lured  them  on  to  some  distance  from  their  cover,  turned  fiercely  upon  them,  and 
drove  them  back  with  such  slaughter,  that  their  effective  strength  was  greatly 
reduced.  He  then  hoped  to  take  the  citadel  :  but  the  garrison  was  reinforced 
by  sea  from  Metapontum,  the  Romans  withdrawing  their  troops  from  thence  for 
this  more  important  service  ;  and  a  successful  night-sally  destroyed  the  besiegers' 
works,  and  obliged  them  to  trust  to  a  blockade.  But  as  this  was  hopeless,  while 
the  Romans  were  masters  of  the  sea,  Hannibal  instructed  the  Tarentines  to  drag 
their  ships  overland,  through  the  streets  of  the  city,  from  the  harbor  to  the  outer 
sea  ;  and  this  being  effected  without  difficulty,  as  the  ground  was  quite  level,  the 
Tarentine  fleet  became  at  once  effective,  and  the  sea  communications  of  the  enemy 
were  cut  off.  Having  thus,  as  he  hoped,  enabled  the  Tarentines  to  deal  by  them- 
selves with  the  Roman  garrison,  he  left  a  small  force  in  the  town,  and  returned 
with  the  mass  of  his  troops  to  his  winter-quarters  in  the  country  of  the  Sallen- 
tines,  or  on  the  edge  of  Apulia.137 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  only  events  recorded  of  this  year,  541,  are  the  re- 
duction of  Arpi  by  Fabius,  the  unimportant  operations  of  Grac-  whnt  were  the  Ro. 
elms  in  Lucania,  and  Hannibal's  surprise  of  Tarentum;  which  last  man8doin&< 
action,  however,  did  not  happen  till  the  end  of  the  campaign,  about  the  middle 
of  the  winter.  According  to  Livy,  Hannibal  had  passed  the  whole  summer  near 
Tarentum  ;  he  must  therefore  have  been  some  months  in  that  neigborhood  ;  and 
what  was  going  on  elsewhere  the  while  ?  Gracchus,  we  are  told,  was  engaged 
in  Lucania  ;  but  where  was  the  consul  Fabius,  with  his  father  ?  and  what  was 
done  by  the  four  Roman  legions,  Fabius'  consular  army,  and  the  praetorian  army 
of  M.  ^Emilius,  which  were  both  stationed  in  Apulia  ?  Allowing  that  Cn.  Ful- 
vius,  with  his  two  legions  in  the  camp  above  Suessula,  was  busied  in  watching 
the  Campanians,  yet  Fabius  and  ^Emilius  had  nearly  forty  thousand  men  at  their 
disposal  ;  and  yet  Capua  was  not  besieged  ;  nor  was  Hannibal  impeded  in  his 
attempts  upon  Tarentum.  Is  it  to  be  conceived  that  so  large  a  portion  of  the 
power  of  Rome,  directed  by  old  Fabius  himself,  can  have  been  totally  wasted 
during  a  whole  summer,  useless  alike  for  attack  or  defence  ? 

The  answer  to  this  question  depends  upon  another  point,  which  is  itself  not 

f"°sy  to  fix  ;  the  true  date,  namely,  of  the  surprise  of  Tarentum.  chronological  <t.me»i 
vy  tells  us  that  it  was  placed  by  different  writers  in  different  Uei> 


Polybius,  VIII.  33.    Livy,  XXV.  10.  »  Polybius,  VIII.  34-36.    Lf  vy,  XXV.  11. 


528  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLIV 

years ;  and  he  himself  prefers  the  later  date,138  yet  does  not  give  it  correctly. 
For,  ,as  Tarentum  was  surprised  in  the  winter,  the  doubt  must  have  been,  whether 
to  fix  it  towards  the  end  of  the  consulship  of  Fabius  and  Gracchus,  or  of  Fulvius 
and  Appius  Claudius  :  it  could  never  have  been  placed  so  early  as  the  consulship  of 
Fabius  and  Marcellus.  Livy  describes  it  after  he  has  mentioned  the  corning  into 
office  of  Fulvius  and  Claudius,  as  if  it  belonged  to  their  year ;  yet  he  places  it 
before  the  opening  of  the  campaign,  which  implies  that  it  must  have  occurred  in 
the  preceding  winter,  whilst  Fabius  and  Gracchus  were  still  in  office.  Polybius 
evidently  gave  the  later  date,  that  is,  the  year  of  Fulvius  and  Appius,  but  the 
end  of  it :  according  to  him,  it  followed  the  death  of  Gracchus,  and  the  various 
events  of  the  summer  of  542.  And  there  are  some  strong  reasons  for  believing 
this  to  be  the  more  probable  position.  If  this  were  so,  we  must  suppose  that 
the  summer  of  541  was  passed  without  any  important  action,  because  Hannibal, 
after  the  loss  of  Arpi,  continued  to  watch  the  two  Roman  armies  in  Apulia ;  and 
that  either  the  fear  of  losing  Tarentum,  or  the  hope  of  recovering  Salapia  and 
other  Apulian  towns,  detained  Fabius  in  the  southeast,  and  delayed  the  siege  of 
Capua. 

In  the  mean  time  men's  minds  at  Rome  were  restless  and  uneasy ;  and  the 
government  had  enough  to  do  to  prevent  their  running  wild  in  one 

Disorders  at  Rome.          C2.  .  ..  °    ml  •         i       i  rvip  r>  t  •    t 

direction  or  another.  I  he  city  had  suffered  from  a  lire,  which 
lasted  a  Avhole  day  and  two  nights,  and  destroyed  all  the  buildings  along  the 
river,  with  many  of  those  on  the  slope  of  the  Capitoline  hill,  and  between  it  and 
the  Palatine.139  The  distress  thus  caused  would  be  great ;  and  the  suspicions  of 
treason  and  incendiarism,  the  constant  attendants  of  great  fires  in  large  cities, 
would  be  sure  to  imbitter  the  actual  suffering.  At  such  a  time  every  one  would 
crave  to  know  what  the  future  had  in  store  for  him  ;  and  whoever  professed  to 
be  acquainted  with  the  secrets  of  fate  found  many  to  believe  him.  Faith  in  the 
gods  of  Rome  was  beginning  to  be  shaken :  if  they  could  not,  or  would  not  save, 
other  powers  might  be  more  propitious ;  and  sacrifices  and  prayers  to  strange 
gods  were  offered  in  the  Forum  and  Capitol ;  while  prophets,  deceiving  or  de- 
ceived, were  gathering  crowds  in  every  street,  making  a  profit  of  their  neighbors' 
curiosity  and  credulity.140  Nor  were  these  vagabond  prophets  the  only  men  who 
preyed  upon  the  public  distress :  the  wealthy  merchants,  who  had  come  forward 
with  patriotic  zeal  to  supply  the  armies  when  the  treasury  was  unable  to  bear 
the  burden,  were  now  found  to  be  seeking  their  own  base  gain  out  of  their  pre- 
tended liberality.  M.  Postumius,  of  Pyrgi,  was  charged  by  public  rumor  with 
the  grossest  frauds :  he  had  demanded  to  be  reimbursed  for  the  loss  of  stores 
furnished  by  him  at  sea,  when  no  such  loss  had  occurred ;  he  had  loaded  old 
rotten  vessels  with  cargoes  of  trifling  value ;  the  sailors  had  purposely  sunk  the 
ships,  and  had  escaped  in  their  boats ;  and  then  Postumius  magnified  the  value 
of  their  cargo,  and  prayed  to  be  indemnified  for  the  loss.141  Even  the  virtue  of 
Roman  matrons  could  not  stand  the  contagion  of  this  evil  time :  more  than  one 
case  of  shame  was  brought  by  the  aediles  before  the  judgment  of  the  people.148 
Man's  spirit  failed  with  woman's  modesty  :  the  citizens  of  the  military  age  were 
slow  to  enlist ;  and  many  from  the  country  tribes  would  not  come  to  Rome  when 
the  consuls  summoned  them.143  All  this  unsoundness  at  home  may  have  had  its 
effect  on  the  operations  of  the  war,  and  tended  to  make  Fabius  more  than  usually 
cautious,  as  another  defeat  at  such  a  moment  might  have  extinguished  the  Roman 
name. 

Against  this  weight  of  evils  the  senate  bore  up  vigorously.     The  superstitions 

of  the  people,  their  worship  of  strange  gods,  and  their  shrinking 

l£i  o  t'"010118  nu!"8"  from  military  service,  required  to  be  noticed  without  delay.     The 

city  praetor,  M.  Atilius,  issued  an  edict  forbidding  all  public  sacrifices 


138  Livy,  XXV.  11.  M1  Livy,  XXV.  3,  4. 

139  Livy,  XXIV.  47.  m  Livy,  XXV.  2. 
"°  Livy  XXV.  1, 12.  MS  Livy,  XXV.  5. 


.  XLIV.]  PUNISHMENT  OF  POSTUMIUS.  529 

to  strange  gods,  or  with  any  strange  rites.  All  books  of  prophecies,  all  formularies 
of  prayer  or  of  sacrifice,  were  to  be  brought  to  him  before  the  first  of  April ; 
that  is,  before  he  went  out  of  office.144  The  great  ceremonies  of  the  national  re- 
ligion were  celebrated  with  more  than  usual  magnificence ;  the  great  games  of 
the  circus  were  kept  up  for  an  additional  day  ;  two  days  were  added  to  the  cele- 
bration of  the  games  of  the  commons  ;  and  they  were  further  marked  by  a  pub- 
lic entertainment  given  in  the  precincts  of  the  temple  of  Jupiter  on  the  capitol 
to  all  the  poorer  citizens.145  A  great  military  effort  was  to  be  made  the  ensuing 
campaign ;  old  Q.  Fulvius  Flaccus,  one  of  the  ablest  as  well  as  severest  men  in 
Rome,  was  chosen  consul  for  the  third  time ;  and  Appius  Claudius  was  elected 
as  his  colleague.146  The  armies,  notwithstanding  the  difficulty  of  enlisting  sol- 
diers, were  to  be  augmented  ;  two  extraordinary  commissions,  of  three  members 
each,  were  appointed,  one  to  visit  all  the  country  tribes  within  fifty  miles  of  Rome, 
and  the  other  such  as  were  more  remote.  Every  free-born  citizen  was  to  be 
passed  in  review ;  and  boys  under  seventeen  were  to  be  enlisted,  if  they  seemed 
strong  enough  to  bear  arms ;  but  their  years  of  service  were  to  count  from  their 
enlistment ;  and  if  they  were  called  out  before  the  military  age  began,  they  might 
claim  their  discharge  before  it  ended.147 

While  dealing  thus  strictly  with  the  disorders  and  want  of  zeal  of  the  multi- 
tude, the  senate,  it  might  have  been  supposed,  would  not  spare  the  p,:nj,hment  of  postu- 
fraud  of  the  contractor  Postumius.  But  with  that  neglect  of  miufc 
equal  justice,  which  is  the  habitual  sin  of  an  aristocracy,  they  punished  the  poor, 
but  were  afraid  to  attack  the  wealthy ;  and  although  the  city  praetor  had  made 
an  official  representation  of  the  tricks  practised  by  Postumius,  no  steps  were 
taken  against  him.  Amongst  the  new  tribunes,  however,  were  two  of  the  noble 
house  of  the  Carvilii,  who,  indignant  at  the  impunity  of  so  great  an  offender,  re- 
solved to  bring  him  to  trial.  They  at  first  demanded  no  other  penalty  than 
that  a  fine  of  200,000  ases  should  be  imposed  on  him ;  but  when  the  trial 
came  on,  a  large  party  of  the  moneyed  men  broke  up  the  assembly  by  creating  a 
riot,  and  no  sentence  was  passed.  This  presumption,  however,  overshot  its 
mark ;  the  consuls  took  up  the  matter  and  laid  it  before  the  senate  :  the  senate 
resolved  that  the  peace  of  the  commonwealth  had  been  violently  outraged ;  and 
the  tribunes  now  proceeded  against  Postumius  and  the  principal  authors  of  the 
disturbance  capitally.  Bail  was  demanded  of  them ;  but  they  deserted  their 
bail,  and  went  into  exile ;  upon  which  the  people,  on  the  motion  of  the  trib- 
unes, ordered  that  their  property  should  be  sold,  and  themselves  outlawed.548 
Thus  the  balance  of  justice  was  struck ;  and  this,  doubtless,  contributed  to 
conciliate  the  poorer  citizens,  and  to  make  them  more  ready  to  bear  their  part 
in  the  war. 

It  was  resolved  that  Capua  should  be  besieged  without  delay.  In  the  pre- 
ceding year,  112  noble  Capuans  had  left  the  city,  and  come  over  Resolution  to  bosieg. 
to  the  Romans,  stipulating  for  nothing  but  their  lives  and  proper-  Capua- 
ties.149  This  shows  that  the  aristocratical  party  in  Capua  could  not  be  depended 
on :  if  the  city  were  hard  pressed,  they  would  not  be  ready  to  make  any  extra- 
ordinary sacrifices  in  its  behalf.  Hannibal  was  far  away  in  the  farthest  corner  of 
Italy ;  and  as  long  as  the  citadel  of  Tarentum  held  out,  he  would  be  unwilling  to 
move  towards  Campania.  Even  if  he  should  move,  four  armies  were  ready  to 
oppose  him ;  those  of  the  two  consuls,  of  the  consul's  brother,  Cn.  Fulvius,  who 
was  praetor  in  Apulia,  and  of  another  prsetor,  C.  Claudius  Nero,  who  commanded 
two  legions  in  the  camp  above  Suessula.  Besides  this  mass  of  forces,  Ti.  Grac- 
chus, the  consul  of  the  preceding  year,  still  retained  his  army  as  proconsul  in  Lu- 
cania,  and  might  be  supposed  capable  of  keeping  Hanno  and  the  army  of  Brut- 
tium  in  check. 

"«  Livy,  XXV.  1.  w  Livy,  XXV.  5. 

145  Livy,  XXV.  2.  »»  Livy  XXV.  4. 

»«  Livy,  XXV.  3.  "»  Livy  XXIV.  47. 
34 


530  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CfiAP.XLIV 

It  was  late  in  the  spring  before  the  consuls  took  the  field.  One  of  them  suc- 
ThoCwnpanimig  apply  ceeded  to  the  army  of  the  late  consul,  Fabius ;  the  other  took  the 
u.  Hannibal  for  aid.  two  legions  with  which  Cn.  Fulvius  Centumulas  had  held  the 
camp  above  Suessula.150  These  armies  inarching,  the  one  from  Apulia,  the  other 
from  Campania,  met  at  Bovianum :  there,  at  the  back  of  the  Matese,  in  the  coun- 
try of  the  Pentrian  Samnites,  the  faithful  allies  of  Rome,  the  consuls  were  mak- 
ing preparations  for  the  siege  of  Capua,  and,  perhaps,  were  at  the  same  time 
watching  the  state  of  affairs  in  the  south,  and  the  movements  of  Hannibal.  The 
Campanians  suspected  that  mischief  was  coming  upon  them,  and  sent  a  deputa- 
tion to  Hannibal  praying  him  to  aid  them.  If  they  were  to  stand  a  siege,  it  was 
important  that  the  city  should  be  well  supplied  with  provisions  ;  and  their  own 
harvest  had  been  so  insufficient,  owing  to  the  devastation  caused  by  the  war, 
that  they  had  scarcely  enough  for  their  present  consumption.  Hannibal  would 
therefore  be  pleased  to  order  that  supplies  should  be  sent  to  them  from  the  coun- 
try of  his  Samnite  and  Lucanian  allies,  before  their  communications  were  cut  off 
by  the  presence  of  the  Roman  armies.1*1 

Hannibal  was  still  near  Tarentum,  whether  hoping  to  win  the  town  or  the  cita- 
He  tends  H»nno  to  re-  ^>  the  doubtful  chronology  of  this  period  will  not  allow  us  to 
S£g?*ti*frfc?JSS  decide.  He  ordered  Hanno,  with  the  army  of  Bruttium,  to  move 
gelicc>  forward  into  Samnium  ;  a  most  delicate  operation,  if  the  two  con- 

suls were  with  their  armies  at  Bovianum,  and  Gracchus  in  Lucania  itself,  in  the 
very  line  of  Hanno's  march,  and  if  C.  Nero,  with  two  legions  more,  was  lying  in 
the  camp  above  Suessula.  But  the  army  from  Suessula  had  been  given  to  one 
of  the  consuls,  and  the  legions  which  were  to  take  its  place  were  to  be  marched 
from  the  coast  of  Picenum,  and  perhaps  had  hardly  reached  their  destination. 
The  Lucanians  themselves  seem  to  have  found  sufficient  employment  for  Grac- 
chus ;  and  Hanno  moved  with  a  rapidity  which  friends  and  enemies  were  alike 
unprepared  for.  He  arrived  safely  in  the  neighborhood  of  Beneventum,  en- 
camped his  army  in  a  strong  position  about  three  miles  from  the  town,  and  dis- 
patched word  to  the  Capuans  that  they  should  instantly  send  off  every  carriage 
and  beast  of  burden  in  their  city,  to  carry  home  the  corn  which  he  was  going  to 
provide  for  them.  The  towns  of  the  Caudine  Samnites  emptied  their  magazines 
for  the  purpose,  and  forwarded  all  their  corn  to  Hanno's  camp.  Thus  far  all 
prospered  ;  but  the  negligence  of  the  Capuans  ruined  every  thing :  they  had  not 
carriages  enough  ready ;  and  Hanno  was  obliged  to  wait  in  his  perilous  situation, 
where  every  hour's  delay  was  exposing  him  to  destruction.152  Beneventum  was 
a  Latin  colony,  in  other  words,  a  strong  Roman  garrison,  watching  all  his  pro- 
ceedings ;  from  thence,  information  was  sent  to  the  consuls  at  Bovianum ;  and 
Fulvius  with  his  army  instantly  set  out,  and  entered  Beneventum  by  night. 
There  he  found  that  the  Capuans  with  their  means  of  transport  were  at  length 
arrived ;  and  all  disposable  hands  had  been  pressed  into  the  service ;  that  Han- 
no's camp  was  crowded  with  cattle  and  carriages,  and  a  mixed  multitude  of  un- 
armed men,  and  even  of  women  and  children ;  and  that  a  vigorous  blow  might 
win  it  with  all  its  spoil :  the  indefatigable  general  was  absent,  scouring  the  coun- 
try for  additional  supplies  of  corn.  Fulvius  sallied  from  Beneventum  a  little 
before  daybreak,  and  led  his  soldiers  to  assault  Hanno's  position.  Under  all  dis- 
advantages of  surprise  and  disorder,  the  Carthaginians  resisted  so  vigorously,  that 
Fulvius  was  on  the  point  of  calling  off  his  men,  when  a  brave  Pelignian  officer 
threw  the  standard  of  his  cohort  over  the  enemy's  wall,  and  desperately  climbed 
the  rampart  and  scaled  the  wall  to  recover  it.  His  cohort  rushed  after  him ;  and 
a  Roman  centurion  then  set  the  same  example,  which  was  followed  with  equal 
alacrity.  Then  the  Romans  broke  into  the  camp  on  every  side,  even  the  wounded 
men  struggling  on  with  the  mass,  that  they  might  die  within  the  enemy's  ram- 
parts. The  slaughter  was  great,  and  the  prisoners  many ;  but  above  all,  the 

«  Livy,  XXV.  8.  *'  Livy,  XXV.  13.  »  Livy,  XXV.  18. 


CHAP.  XLIV.]  DEATH  OF  GRACCHUS  531 

whole  of  the  corn  which  Hanno  had  collected  for  the  relief  of  Capua  was  lost, 
and  the  object  of  his  expedition  totally  frustrated.  He  himself,  hearing  of  the 
wreck  of  his  army,  retreated  with  speed  into  Bruttium.158 

Again  the  Capuans  sent  to  Hannibal  requesting  him  to  aid  them  ere  it  was  too 
late.  Their  negligence  had  just  cost  him  an  army,  and  had  frustrated  -n^  cap™™  again  »p- 
all  his  plans  for  their  relief ;  but,  with  unmoved  temper,  he  assured  ply  for  aid- 
them  that  he  would  not  forget  them,  and  sent  back  2000  of  his  invincible  cav- 
alry with  the  deputation,  to  protect  their  lands  from  the  enemy's  ravages.  It 
was  important  to  him  not  to  leave  the  south  of  Italy  till  the  very  last  moment ; 
for  since  he  had  taken  Tarentum,  the  neighboring  Greek  cities  of  Metapontum, 
Heraclea,  and  Thurii,  had  joined  him ;  and  as  he  had  before  won  Croton  and 
Locri,  he  was  now  master  of  the  whole  coast  from  the  straits  of  Messana  to  the. 
mouth  of  the  Adriatic,  with  the  exception  of  Rhegium  and  the  citadel  of  Taren- 
tum. Into  the  latter  the  Romans  had  lately  thrown  supplies  of  provisions ;  and 
the  garrison  was  so  strong,  that  Hannibal  was  unwilling  to  march  into  Cam- 
pania, while  such  a  powerful  force  of  the  enemy  was  «ft  behind  in  so  favorable 
a  position.154 

The  consuls  meanwhile,  not  content  with  their  own  two  armies,  and  with  the 
two  legions  expected,  if  not  vet  arrived,  in  the  camp  above  Sues- 

,  »  X  i  •        T  J  •         j       •   «  ..          *rv    •  f        Death    °f     Graeehui: 

sula,  sent  to  Gracchus  in  Lucania,  desiring  him  to  bring  up  his  ^gtiunim*  m*» 
cavalry  and  light  troops  to  Beneventum,  to  strengthen  them  in 
that  kind  of  force,  in  which  they  fully  felt  their  inferiority.  But  before  he  could 
leave  his  own  province,  he  was  drawn  into  an  ambuscade  by  the  treachery  of  a 
Lucanian  in  the  Roman  interest,  and  perished.155  His  quaestor,  Cn.  Cornelius, 
marched  with  his  cavalry  towards  Beneventum,  according  to  the  consul's  orders ; 
but  the  infantry,  consisting  of  the  slaves  whom  he  had  enfranchised,  thought  that 
their  services  were  ended  by  the  death  of  their  deliverer,  and  immediately  dis- 
persed to  their  homes.156  Thus  Lucania  was  left  without  either  a  Roman  army 
or  general;  but  M.  Centenius,  an  old  centurion,  distinguished  for  his  strength 
and  courage,  undertook  the  command  there,  if  the  senate  would  intrust  him  with 
a  force  equal  to  a  single  legion.  Perhaps,  like  T.  Pomponius  Veientanus,  he  was 
connected  with  some  of  the  contractors  and  moneyed  men,  and  owed  his  appoint- 
ment as  much  to  their  interest  as  to  his  own  reputation.  But  he  was  a  brave 
and  popular  soldier ;  and  so  many  volunteers  joined  him  on  his  march,  hoping  to 
be  enriched  by  the  plunder  of  Lucania,  that  he  arrived  there  with  a  force,  it  is 
said,  amounting  to  near  sixteen  thousand  men.  His  confidence  and  that  of  his 
followers  was  doomed  to  be  wofully  disappointed.157 

The  consuls  knew  that  Hannibal  was  far  away ;  and  they  did  not  know  that 
any  of  his  cavalry  were  in  Capua.  They  issued  boldly,  therefore, 
from  the  Caudine  Forks  on  the  great  Campanian  plain,  and  scat-  S^Rb™ni«di™fr«ii 
tered  their  forces  far  and  wide  to  destroy  the  still  green  corn.  To 
their  astonishment  the  gates  of  Capua  were  thrown  open ;  and  with  the  Campa- 
nian infantry  they  recognized  the  dreaded  cavalry  of  Hannibal.  In  a  momen^ 
their  foragers  were  driven  in ;  and  as  they  hastily  formed  their  legions  in  order 
of  battle  to  cover  them,  the  horsemen  broke  upon  them  like  a  whirlwind,  and 
drove  them  with  great  loss  and  confusion  to  their  camp.158  This  sharp  lesson 
taught  them  caution ;  but  their  numbers  were  overwhelming ;  and  their  two 
armies,  encamped  before  Capua,  cut  off  the  communications  of  the  city,  and  had 
the  harvest  of  the  whole  country  in  their  power. 

But  ere  many  days  had  elapsed,  an  unwelcome  sight  was  seen  on  the  summit 
of  Tifata ;  Hannibal  was  there  once  more  with  his  army.  He  Hnnmbai  ret<m>  M 
descended  into  Capua ;  two  days  afterwards  he  marched  out  to  Tif"ta' 


183 


Livy,  XXV.  14.  Valerius  Maximus,  III.                      w  Livy,  XXV.  20. 

8,20.  »'  Livy,  XXV.  19. 

|  Livy,  XXV.  15,  Appian,  VII.  35.                                  *•  Livy,  XXV.  18. 
XXV.  16. 


532  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLIV 

battle  ;  again  his  invincible  ISTumidians  struck  terror  into  the  Roman  line,  when 
the  sudden  arrival  of  Cn.  Cornelius  with  the  cavalry  of  Graccbus'  army  broke  ofl 
the  action ;  and  neither  side,  it  is  said,  knowing  what  this  new  force  might  be, 
both,  as  if  by  common  consent,  retreated.159  How  Hannibal  so  outstripped  Cor- 
nelius as  to  arrive  from  Tarentum  on  the  scene  of  action  two  or  three  days  before 
him,  who  was  coming  from  Lucania,  we  are  not  told,  and  can  only  conjecture. 
But  the  arrival  of  this  reinforcement,  though  it  had  saved  the  consuls  from  de- 
feat, did  not  embolden  them  to  hold  their  ground  :  they  left  their  camps  as  soon 
as  night  came  on ;  Fulvius  fell  down  upon  the  coast,  near  Cumse;  Appius  Clau- 
dius retreated  in  the  direction  of  Lucania. 

Few  passages  in  history  can  offer  a  parallel  to  Hannibal's  campaigns  ;  but  this 
HO  enter.  Ca  m  confident  gathering  of  the  enemies'  overflowing  numbers  round 
the  city  of  his  nearest  allies,  his  sudden  march,  the  unlooked-for 
appearance  of  his  dreaded  veterans,  and  the  instant  scattering  of  the  besieging 
armies  before  him,  remind  us  of  the  deliverance  of  Dresden  in  1813,  when  Napo- 
leon broke  in  upon  the  allies'  confident  expectations  of  victory,  and  drove  them 
away  in  signal  defeat.  And  like  the  allies  in  that  great  campaign,  the  Roman 
generals  knew  their  own  strength ;  and  though  yielding  to  the  shock  of  their 
adversary's  surpassing  energy  and  genius,  they  did  not  allow  themselves  to  be 
scared  from  their  purpose,  but  began  again  steadily  to  draw  the  toils  which  he 
had  once  broke  through.  Great  was  the  joy  in  Capua,  when  the  people  rose  in 
the  morning  and  saw  the  Roman  camps  abandoned :  there  needs  no  witness  to 
tell  us  with  what  sincere  and  deep  admiration  they  followed  and  gazed  on  their 
deliverer ;  how  confident  they  felt  that,  with  him  for  a  shield,  no  harm  could 
reach  them.  But  almost  within  sight  and  hearing  of  their  joy,  the  stern  old 
Fulvius  was  crouching,  as  it  were,  in  his  thicket,  watching  the  moment  for  a 
second  spring  upon  his  prey ;  and  when  Hannibal  left  that  rejoicing  and  admiring 
multitude  to  follow  the  traces  of  Appius,  he  passed  through  the  gates  of  Capua, 
to  enter  them  again  no  more. 

Appius  retreated  in  the  direction  of  Lucania :  this  is  all  that  is  reported  of  his 
march  :  and  then,  after  a  while,  having  led  his  enemy  in  the  direc- 

On  his  return  into  Luca-       .  i  •    i  •        i    i  •  i  irvi  i 

m*  of'c^tenLV110 ""  tlon  wbich  suited  his  purposes,  he  turned  oil  by  another  road,  and 
made  his  way  back  to  Campania.160  With  such  a  total  absence  of 
details,  it  is  impossible  to  fix  the  line  of  his  march  exactly.  It  was  easy  for  Ap- 
pius to  take  the  round  of  the  Matese ;  retiring  first  by  the  great  road  to  Bene- 
ventum,  then  turning  to  his  left  and  regaining  his  old  quarters  at  Bovianum, 
from  whence,  the  instant  that  Hannibal  ceased  to  follow  him,  he  would  move 
along  under  the  north  side  of  the  Matese  to  ^Esernia,  and  descend  again  upon 
Campania  by  the  valley  of  the  Vulturnus.  Hannibal's  pursuit  was  necessarily 
stopped  as  soon  as  Appius  moved  northwards  from  Beneventum :  he  could  not 
support  his  army  in  the  country  of  the  Pentrian  Samnites,  where  every  thing  was 
hostile  to  him ;  nor  did  he  like  to  abandon  his  line  of  direct  comrmmication  with 
southern  Italy.  He  had  gained  a  respite  for  Capua,  and  had  left  an  auxiliary 
force  to  aid  in  its  defence :  meanwhile  other  objects  must  not  be  neglected ;  and 
the  fall  of  the  citadel  of  Tarentum  might  of  itself  prevent  or  raise  the  siege  of 
Capua.  So  he  turned  off  from  following  Appius,  and  was  marching  back  to  the 
south,  when  he  was  told  that  a  Roman  army  was  attempting  to  bar  his  passage 
in  Lucania.  This  was  the  motley  multitude  commanded  by  Centenius,  which 
had  succeeded,  as  we  have  seen,  to  the  army  of  Gracchus.  With  what  mad 
hope,  or  under  what  false  impression,  Centenius  could  have  been  tempted  to  rush 
upon  certain  destruction,  we  know  not :  but  in  the  number,  no  less  than  in  the 
quality  of  his  troops,  he  must  have  been  far  inferior  to  his  adversary.  His  men 
fought  bravely ;  and  he  did  a  centurion's  duty  well,  however  he  may  have  failed 

»•  Livy,  XXV.  19.  "°  Livy,  XXV.  19. 


]  HANNIBAL'S  SITUATION.  533 

as  a.  general ;  but  he  was  killed,  and  nearly  fifteen  thousand  men  are  said  to  have 
perished  with  him.161 

Thus  Lucania  was  cleared  of  the  Romans  ;  and  as  the  firmest  partisan  of  the 
Roman  interest  among  the  Lucanians  had  been  the  very  man  who  .ndthatofCn.Fuiviw 
had  betrayed  Gracchus  to  his  fate,  it  is  likely  that  the  Carthaginian  ™  Apuli8- 
party  was  triumphant  through  the  whole  country.  Only  one  Roman  army  was 
left  in  the  south  of  Italy,  the  two  legions  commanded  by  Cn.  Fulvius  Flaccus, 
the  consul's  brother,  in  Apulia.  But  Cn.  Fulvius  had  nothing  of  his  brother's 
ability ;  he  was  a  man  grown  old  in  profligacy ;  and  the  discipline  of  his  army 
was  said  to  be  in  the  worst  condition.  Hannibal,  hoping  to  complete  his  work, 
moved  at  once  into  Apulia,  and  found  Fulvius  in  the  neighborhood  of  Herdonea. 
The  Roman  general  met  him  in  the  open  field  without  hesitation,  and  was  pres- 
ently defeated ;  he  himself  escaped  from  the  action,  but  Hannibal  had  occupied 
the  principal  roads  in  the  rear  of  the  enemy  with  his  cavalry ;  and  the  greatest 
part  of  the  Roman  army  was  cut  to  pieces.162 

We  naturally  ask  what  result  followed  from  these  two  great  victories ;  and  to 
this  question  we  find  no  recorded  answer.  Hannibal,  we  are  told,  Whatwere  the  re.uiu 
returned  to  Tarentum ;  but  finding  that  the  citadel  still  held  out,  <*«»»•  victor™. 
and  could  neither  be  forced  nor  surprised,  and  that  provisions  were  still  introduced 
by  sea,  a  naval  blockade  in  ancient  warfare  being  always  inefficient,  he  marched 
off  towards  Brundisium,  on  some  prospect  that  the  town  would  be  betrayed  into 
his  hands.  This  hope  also  failed  him  ;  and  he  remained  inactive  in  Apulia,  or  in 
the  country  of  the  Sallentines,  during  the  rest  of  the  year.  Meantime  the  con- 
suls received  orders  from  the  senate  to  collect  the  wrecks  of  the  two  beaten 
armies,  and  to  search  for  the  soldiers  of  Gracchus'  army,  who  had  dispersed,  as 
we  have  seen,  after  his  death.  The  city  praetor,  P.  Cornelius,  carried  on  the  same 
search  nearer  Rome ;  and  these  duties,  says  Livy,  were  all  performed  most  care- 
fully and  vigorously.163  This  is  all  the  information  which  exists  for  us  in  '.he 
remains  of  the  ancient  writers ;  but  assuredly  this  is  no  military  history  of  a  cam- 
paign. 

It -is  always  to  be  understood  that  Hannibal  could  not  remain  long  in  an 
enemy's  country,  from  the  difficulty  of  feeding  his  men,  especially  Dlfflcll,tie.  of  HMM- 
his  cavalry.  But  the  country  round  Capua  was  not  all  hostile;  bftl'»8ituation- 
Atella  and  Calatia,  in  the  plain  of  Campania  itself,  were  still  his  allies  ;  so  were 
many  of  the  Caudine  Samnites,  from  whose  cities  Hanno  had  collected  the  corn 
early  in  this  year  for  the  relief  of  Capua.  Again,  we  can  conceive  how  the  num- 
ber of  the  Roman  armies  sometimes  oppressed  him  ;  how  he  dared  not  stay  long 
in  one  quarter,  lest  a  greater  evil  should  befall  him  in  another.  But  at  this  mo- 
ment three  great  disasters,  the  dispersion  of  the  army  of  Gracchus,  and  the 
destruction  of  those  of  Centenius  and  Fulvius,  had  cleared  the  south  of  Italy  of 
the  Romans  ;  and  his  friends  in  Apulia,  in  Lucania,  at  Tarentum,  and  in  Bruttium, 
could  have  nothing  to  fear,  had  he  left  them  for  the  time  to  their  own  resources. 
Why,  after  defeating  Fulvius,  did  he  not  retrace  his  steps  towards  Campania, 
hold  the  field  with  the  aid  of  his  Campanian  and  Samnite  allies  till  the  end  of  the 
military  season,  and  then  winter  close  at  hand,  on  the  shores  of  the  gulf  of 
Salerno,  in  the  country  of  his  allies,  so  as  to  make  it  impossible  for  the  Romans 
either  to  undertake  or  to  maintain  the  siege  of  Capua  ? 

That  his  not  doing  this  was  not  his  own  fault,  his  extraordinary  ability  and 
energy  may  sufficiently  assure  us.  But  where  the  hindrance  was,  Hi.probnbiewa.on.rof 
we  cannot  for  certain  discover.  His  army  must  have  been  worn  wi"tering in  APUU»- 
by  its  long  and  rapid  march  to  and  from  Campania,  and  by  two  battles  fought 
with  so  short  an  interval.  His  wounded  must  have  been  numerous ;  nor  can  we 
tell  how  such  hard  service  in  the  heat  of  summer  may  have  tried  the  health  of 

M1  Livy,  XXV.  19.  *•  Livy,  XXV.  22. 

m  Livy,  XXV.  20,  21. 


534  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLIV 

his  soldiers.  His  horses,  too,  must  have  needed  rest  ;  and  to  overstiain  the  main 
arm  of  his  strength  would  have  been  fatal.  Perhaps,  loo,  great  as  was  Hannibal's 
ascendency  over  his  army,  there  was  a  point  beyond  which  it  could  not  be  tried 
with  safety.  Long  marches  and  hard-fought  battles  gave  the  soldier,  especially 
the  Gaul  and  the  Spaniard,  what  in  his  eyes  was  a  rightful  claim  to  a  season  of 
rest  and  enjoyment  :  the  men  might  have  murmured  had  they  not  been  permitted 
to  taste  some  reward  of  their  victories.  Besides  all  these  reasons,  the  necessity 
of  a  second  march  into  Campania  may  not  have  seemed  urgent  :  the  extent  ol' 
Capua  was  great  ;  if  the  Roman  consuls  did  encamp  before  it,  still  the  city  was 
in  no  immediate  danger  ;  after  the  winter  another  advance  would  again  enable 
him  to  throw  supplies  into  the  town,  and  to  drive  off  the  Roman  armies.  So 
Capua  was  left  for  the  present  to  its  own  resources,  and  Hannibal  passed  the 
autumn  and  winter  in  Apulia. 

Immediately  the  Roman  armies  closed  again  upon  their  prey.  Three  grand 
magazines  of  corn  were  established,  to  feed  the  besieging  army 
canua  ™?hVld™ubie  during  the  winter,  one  at  Casilinum  within  three  miles  of  Capua  ; 
another  at  a  fort  built  for  the  purpose  at  the  mouth  of  the  Vultur- 
nus  ;  and  a  third  at  Puteoli.  Into  these  two  last  magazines  the  corn  was  con- 
veyed by  sea  from  Ostia,  whither  it  had  already  been  collected  from  Sardinia  and 
Etruria.164  Then  the  consuls  summoned  C.  Nero  from  his  camp  above  Suessula  ; 
and  the  three  armies  began  the  great  work  of  surrounding  Capua  with  double 
continuous  lines,  strong  enough  to  repel  the  besieged  on  one  side,  and  Hannibal 
on  the  other,  when  he  should  again  appear  in  Campania.  The  inner  line  was  car- 
ried round  the  city,  at  a  distance  of  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  walls  ; 
the  outer  line  was  concentric  with  it  ;  and  the  space  between  the  two  served  for 
the  cantonments  and  magazines  of  the  besiegers.  The  lines,  says  Appian,165  looked 
like  a  great  city,  inclosing  a  smaller  city  in  the  middle  ;  like  the  famous  lines  of  the 
Peloponnesians  before  Plataea.  What  time  was  employed  in  completing  them 
we  know  not  ;  they  were  interrupted  by  continual  sallies  of  the  besieged  ;  and 
Jubellius  Taurea  and  the  Capuan  cavalry  were  generally  too  strong  for  the  Roman 
horsemen.166  But  their  infantry  could  do  nothing  against  the  legions  ;  the  be- 
sieging army  must  have  amounted  nearly  to  sixty  thousand  men  ;  and  slowly  but 
surely  the  imprisoning  walls  were  raised,  and  their  circle  completed,  shutting  out 
the  last  gleams  of  light  from  the  eyes  of  the  devoted  city. 

Before  the  works  were  closed  all  round,  the  consuls,  according  to  the  senate's 
Their  offer  to  allow  »ny  directions  signified  to  them  by  the  city  praetor,  announced  to  the 
out^feiyTActeT  Capuans,  that  whoever  chose  to  come  out  of  the  city  with  his 
A.u.c.543.  A.C.2H.  fam|iy  anc[  property  before  the  ides  of  March,  might  do  so  with 
safety,  and  should  be  untouched  in  body  or  goods.167  It  would  seem  then  that 
the  works  were  not  completed  till  late  in  the  winter  ;  for  we  cannot  suppose  that 
the  term  of  grace  would  have  been  prolonged  to  a  remote  day,  especially  as  the 
ides  of  March  were  the  beginning  of  the  new  consular  year  ;  and  it  could  not  be 
known  long  beforehand  whether  the  present  consuls  would  be  continued  in  their 
command  or  no.  The  offer  was  received  by  the  besieged,  it  is  said,  with  open 
scorn  ;  their  provisions  were  as  yet  abundant,  their  cavalry  excellent  ;  their  hope 
of  aid  from  Hannibal,  as  soon  as  the  campaign  should  open,  was  confident.  But 
Fulvius  waited  his  time  ;  nor  was  his  thirst  for  Capuan  blood  to  be  disappointed 
by  his  removal  from  the  siege  at  the  end  of  the  year  :  it  would  seem  as  if  the 
new  consuls  were  men  of  no  great  consideration,  appointed  probably  for  that  very 
reason,  that  their  claims  might  not  interfere  with  those  of  their  predecessors. 
One  of  them,  P.  Sulpicius  Galba,  had  filled  no  curule  office  previously  :  the 
other,  Cn.  Fulvius  Centumalus,  had  been  praetor  two  years  before,  but  was  not 
distinguished  by  any  remarkable  action.  The  siege  of  Capua  was  still  to  be  con- 


»•  Livy,  X 
»•  VII.  37. 


XXV.  22.  m  Appian,  VII.  37.    Livy,  XXVI.  4, 

m  Livy,  XXV.  22. 


Ciur.  XLIV.]  HANNIBAL  TRIES  TO  RELIEVE  CAPUA.  533 

ducted  by  Appius  Claudius  and  Fulvius ;  and  they  were  ordered  not  to  retire 
from  their  positions  till  they  should  have  taken  the  city.168 

What  was  the  state  of  affairs  in  Capua  meantime,  we  know  not.     The  Roman 
stories  are  little  to  be  credited,  which  represent  all  the  richer  and  B 

i  i  .   .  m.          •        •  >i  ii«i          State  of  Capua. 

nobler  citizens  as  abandoning  the  government,  and  leaving  the 
office  of  chief  magistrate,  Meddix  Tuticus,  to  be  filled  by  one  Seppius  Lesius,  a 
man  of  obscure  condition,  who  offered  himself  as  a  candidate.169  Neither  Vibius 
Virrius  nor  Jubellius  Taurea  wanted  resolution  to  abide  by  their  country  to  the 
last ;  and  it  was  expressly  said  that,  down  to  the  latest  period  of  the  siege,  there 
was  no  Roman  party  in  Capua ;  no  voice  was  heard  to  speak  of  peace  or  sur- 
render ;  no  citizen  had  embraced  the  consul's  offers  of  mercy.170  Even  when  they 
had  failed  to  prevent  the  completion  of  the  Roman  lines,  they  continued  to  mako 
frequent  sallies  ;  and  the  proconsuls  could  only  withstand  their  cavalry  by  mix- 
ing light-armed  foot  soldiers  amongst  the  Roman  horsemen,  and  thus  strengthen- 
ing that  weakest  arm  in  the  Roman  service.  Still,  as  the  blockade  was  now  fully 
established,  famine  must  be  felt  sooner  or  later :  accordingly  a  Numidian  was 
sent  to  implore  Hannibal's  aid,  and  succeeded  in  getting  through  the  Roman 
lines,  and  carrying  his  message  safely  to  Bruttium.171 

Hannibal  listened  to  the  prayer,  and  leaving  his  heavy  baggage  and  the  mass 
of  his  army  behind,  set  out  with  his  cavalry  and  light  infantry,  and  Hann;bai  c^^  to  iu 
with  thirty-three  elephants.172  Whether  his  Samnite  and  Lucanian  relicf> 
allies  joined  him  on  the  march  is  not  stated ;  if  they  did  not,  and  if  secrecy  and 
expedition  were  deemed  of  more  importance  than  an  addition  of  force,  the  troops 
which  he  led  with  him  must  have  been  more  like  a  single  corps  than  a  complete 
army.  Avoiding  Beneventum,  he  descended  the  valley  of  the  Calor  towards  the 
Vulturnus,  stormed  a  Roman  post,  which  had  been  built  apparently  to  cut  of! 
the  communications  of  the  besieged  with  the  upper  valley  of  the  Vulturnus,  and 
encamped  immediately  behind  the  ridge  of  Tifata.  From  thence  he  descended 
once  more  into  the  plain  of  Capua,  displayed  his  cavalry  before  the  Roman  lines 
in  the  hope  of  tempting  them  out  to  battle,  and  finding  that  this  did  not  succeed, 
commenced  a  general  assault  upon  their  works. 

Unprovided  with  any  artillery,  his  best  hope  was,  that  the  Romans  might  be 
allured  to  make  some  rash  sally :  his  cavalry  advanced  by  squad-  Hannibai  attack.  th« 
rons  up  to  the  edge  of  the  trench,  and  discharged  showers  of  mis-  S^Ld^aX^'u 
siles  into  the  lines ;  while  his  infantry  assailed  the  rampart,  and  mnr'ch  aguinst  Rome- 
tried  to  force  their  way  through  the  palisade  which  surmounted  it.  From  within, 
the  lines  were  attacked  by  the  Campanians  and  Hannibal's  auxiliary  garrison ; 
but  the  Romans  were  numerous  enough  to  defend  both  fronts  of  their  works ; 
they  held  their  ground  steadily,  neither  yielding  nor  rashly  pursuing ;  and  Han- 
nibal, finding  his  utmost  efforts  vain,  drew  off  his  army.173  Some  resolution  must 
be  taken  promptly ;  his  cavalry  could  not  be  fed  where  he  was,  for  the  Romans 

J  previously  destroyed  or  carried  away  every  thing  that  might  serve  for  for- 
nor  could  he  venture  to  wait  till  the  new  consuls  should  have  raised  their 

ions,  and  be  ready  to  march  from  Rome  and  threaten  his  rear.     One  only 

pe  remained ;  one  attempt  might  yet  be  made,  which  should  either  raise  the 
•e  of  Capua  or  accomplish  a  still  greater  object :  Hannibal  resolved  to  march 
upon  Rome. 

A  Numidian  was  again  found,  who  undertook  to  pass  over  to  the  Roman  lines 

a  deserter,  and  from  thence  to  make  his  escape  into  Capua,  bear-  He  ^  mi  5Uddoi»»> 
a  letter  from  Hannibal,  which  explained  his  purpose,  and  con-  bJrn«ht- 
"  the  Capuans  patiently  to  abide  the  issue  of  his  attempt  for  a  little  while."* 
en  this  letter  reached  Capua,  Hannibal  was  already  gone ;  his  camp-fires  had 

m  Livy,  XXVI.  1.    Frontinus,  III.  18,  3.  "a  Livy,  XXVI.  5. 

'  Livy,  XXVI.  6.  "8  Polybius,  IX.  3.    Livy,  XXVI.  5. 

"°  Livy,  XXVI.  12.  ™  Polybius,  IX.  5.    Livy,  XXVI.  7. 
m  Livy,  XXVI.  4.    Frontinus,  IV.  7,  29. 


036  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CnAP.XLIV 

been  seen  burning,  as  usual,  all  night  in  his  accustomed  position  on  Tifata ;  but 
he  had  begun  his  march  the  preceding  evening,  immediately  after  dark,  while  the 
Romans  still  thought  that  his  army  was  hanging  over  their  heads,  and  were  look- 
ing for  a  second  assault.175 

His  army  disappeared  from  the  eyes  of  the  Romans  behind  Tifata ;  and  they 
Disunity  of  making  out  knew  not  whither  he  WAS  gone.  Even  so  it  is  with  us  at  this  day ; 
we  lose  him  from  Tifata ;  we  find  him  before  Rome ;  but  we  know 
nothing  of  his  course  between.  Conflicting  and  contradictory  accounts  have  made 
the  truth  undiscoverable :  what  regions  of  Italy  looked  with  fear  or  hope  on  the 
march  of  the  great  general  and  his  famous  soldiers,  it  is  impossible  from  our  ex- 
isting records  to  determine.  Whether  he  followed  the  track  of  Pyrrhus,  and 
spread  havoc  through  the  lands  of  the  numerous  colonies  on  the  Latin  road,  Gales, 
Casinum,  Interamna,  and  Fregellae  ;l:6  or  whether,  to  baffle  the  enemy's  pursuit, 
and  avoid  the  delay  of  crossing  the  Vulturnus,  he  plunged  northwards  into  the 
heart  of  Samnium,177  astonished  the  Latin  colonists  of  GEsernia  with  his  unlooked- 
for  passage,  crossed'  the  central  Apennines  into  the  country  of  the  Pelignians, 
and  then,  turning  suddenly  to  his  left,  broke  down  into  the  land  of  the  Mar- 
sians,  passing  along  the  glassy  waters  of  Fucinus,  and  under  the  ancient  walls  of 
Alba,  and  scaring  the  upland  glades  and  quiet  streams  of  the  aboriginal  Sabines, 
with  the  wild  array  of  his  Numidian  horsemen  ;  we  cannot  wiih  any  confidence 
decide.  Yet  the  agreement  of  all  the  stories  as  to  the  latter  part  of  his  march 
seems  to  point  out  the  line  of  its  beginning.  All  accounts  say  that,  descending 
nearly  by  the  old  route  of  the  Gauls,  he  kept  the  Tiber  on  his  right,  and  the 
Anio  on  his  left ;  and  that,  finally,  he  crossed  the  Anio,  and  encamped  at  a  dis- 
tance of  less  than  four  miles  from  the  walls  of  Rome.178 

Before  the  sweeping  pursuit  of  his  Numidians,  crowds  of  fugitives  were  seen 
Terror  in  Rome,  fortu  %ing  towards  the  city,  while  the  smoke  of  burning  houses  arose 
tudeofthe^uate.  £ar  an(j  w}de  into  thesky.  Within  the  walls  the  confusion  and 
terror  were  at  their  height :  he  was  come  at  last,  this  Hannibal,  whom  they  had 
so  long  dreaded ;  he  had  at  length  dared  what  even  the  slaughter  of  Cannae  had 
not  emboldened  him  to  venture ;  some  victory  greater  even  than  Cannae  must 
have  given  him  this  confidence ;  the  three  armies  before  Capua  must  be  utterly 
destroyed ;  last  year  he  had  destroyed  or  dispersed  three  other  armies,  and  had 
gained  possession  of  the  entire  south  of  Italy ;  and  now  he  had  stormed  the  lines 
before  Capua,  had  cut  to  pieces  the  whole  remaining  force  of  the  Roman  people, 
and  was  come  to  Rome  to  finish  his  work.  So  the  wives  and  mothers  of  Rome 
lamented,  as  they  hurried  to  the  temples ;  and  there,  prostrate  before  the  gods, 
and  sweeping  the  sacred  pavement  with  their  unbound  hair  in  the  agony  of  their 
fear,  they  remained  pouring  forth  their  prayers  for  deliverance.  Their  sons  and 
husbands  hastened  to  man  the  walls  and  the  citadel,  and  to  secure  the  most  im- 
portant points  without  the  city ;  whilst  the  senate,  as  calm  as  their  fathers  oi 
old,  whom  the  Gauls  massacred  when  sitting  at  their  own  doors,  but  with  the 
energy  of  manly  resolution,  rather  than  the  resignation  of  despair,  met  in  the 
Forum,  and  there  remained  assembled,  to  direct  every  magistrate  on  the  instant 
how  he  might  best  fulfil  his  duty.m 

But  God's  care  watched  over  the  safety  of  a  people  whom  he  had  chosen  to 
Rome  i*  preserved  from  work  out  the  purposes  of  his  providence  :  Rome  was  not  to  perish. 
HI  M*M£  rpwo  cjty  jegions  were  to  be  j-aised^  as  usual,  at  the  beginning  of 

the  year ;  and  it  so  happened  that  the  citizens  from  the  country  tribes  were  to  meet 
at  Rome  on  this  very  day  for  the  enlistment  for  one  of  these  legions ;  while  the  sol- 
diers of  the  other,  which  had  been  enrolled  a  short  time  before,  were  to  appear 
at  Rome  on  this  same  day  in  arms,  having  been  allowed,  as  the  custom  was,  to 
return  home  for  a  few  days  after  their  enlistment,  to  prepare  for  active  service. 

™  Polybius,  IX.  5.  "'  Polybius,  IX.  6.      Livy,  XXVI.  9.      Ap 

™  Livy,  XXVI.  9.  pian,  VII.  38. 

m  Polybius,  IX.  5.  ""  Polybius,  IX.  6.    Livy,  XXVI.  9. 


CHAP.  XLIV.]        THE  ROMANS  MARCH  TO  3HECK  HANNIBAL.  53-7 

Thus  it  happened  that  ten  thousand  men  were  brought  together  at  the  very  mo- 
ment when  they  were  most  needed,  and  were  ready  to  repel  any  assault  upon 
the  walls.180  The  allies,  it  seems,  were  not  ordinarily  called  out  to  servo  with 
the  two  city  legions ;  but  on  this  occasion  it  is  mentioned  that  the  Latin  colony  of 
Alba,  having  seen  Hannibal  pass  by  their  walls,  and  guessing  the  object  of  his 
march,  sent  his  whole  force  to  assist  in  the  defence  of  Rome ;  a  zeal  which  the 
Greek  writers  compared  to  that  of  Platsea,  whose  citizens  fought  alone  by  file 
side  of  the  Athenians  on  the  day  of  Marathon.181 

To  assault  the  walls  of  Rome  was  now  hopeless  ;  but  the  open  country  was  at 
Hannibal's  mercy,  a  country  which  had  seen  no  enemy  for  near  a  Hannibai  rftvaget  tue 
hundred  and  fifty  years,  cultivated  and  inhabited  in  the  full  secu-  couutry  Jouud> 
rity  of  peace.  Far  and  wide  it  was  overrun  by  Hannibal's  soldiers  ;  and  the 
army  appears  to  have  moved  about,  encamping  in  one  place  after  another,  and 
sweeping  cattle  and  prisoners  and  plunder  of  every  sort,  beyond  numbering,  within 
the  inclosure  of  its  camp.182 

It  was,  probably,  in  the  course  of  these  excursions,  that  Hannibal,  at  he  head 
of  a  large  body  of  cavalry,  came  close  up  to  the  Colline  gate,  rode  He  ride.  Up*>  the  w«ut 
along  leisurely  under  the  walls  to  see  all  he  could  of  the  city,  and  of  Ronie- 
is  said  to  have  cast  his  javelin  into  it  as  in  defiance.183  From  farthest  Spain  he 
had  come  into  Italy ;  he  had  wasted  the  whole  country  of  the  Romans  and  their 
allies  with  fire  and  sword  for  more  than  six  years,  had  slain  more  of  their  cit- 
izens than  were  now  alive  to  bear  arms  against  him ;  and  at  last  he  was  shutting 
them  up  within  their  city,  and  riding  freely  under  their  walls,  while  none  dared 
meet  him  in  the  field.  If  any  thing  of  disappointment  depressed  his  mind  at  that 
instant ;  if  he  felt  that  Rome's  strength  was  not  broken,  nor  the  spirit  of  her 
people  quelled,  that  his  own  fortune  was  wavering,  and  that  his  last  effort  had 
been  made,  and  made  in  vain ;  yet  thinking  where  he  was,  and  of  the  shame  and  loss 
which  his  presence  was  causing  to  his  enemies,  he  must  have  wished  that  his  father 
could  have  lived  to  see  that  day,  and  must  have  thanked  the  gods  of  his  country 
that  they  had  enabled  him  so  fully  to  perform  his  vow. 

For  some  time,  we  know  not  how  long,  this  devastation  of  the  Roman  territory 
lasted  without  opposition.  Meanwhile  the  siege  of  Capua  was  not  Fuivius  returM  to 
raised ;  and  Fabius,  in  earnestly  dissuading  such  a  confession  of  £U™£  a"ut^RcheTk 
fear,  showed  that  he  could  be  firm  no  less  than  cautious,  when  Han»ibal- 
boldness  was  the  highest  prudence.  But  Fuivius,  with  a  small  portion  of  the 
besieging  army,  was  recalled  to  Rome  :  Fabius  had  ever  acted  with  him,  and  was 
glad  to  have  the  aid  of  his  courage  and  ability ;  and  when  he  arrived,  and  by  a 
vote  of  the  senate  was  united  with  the  consuls  in  the  command,  the  Roman 
forces  were  led  out  of  the  city,  and  encamped,  according  to  Fabius'  old  policy, 
within  ten  stadia  of  the  enemy,  to  check  his  free  license  of  plunder.184  At  the 
same  time,  parties  acting  on  the  rear  of  Hannibal's  army  had  broken  down  the 
bridges  over  the  Anio,  his  line  of  retreat,  like  his  advance,  being  on  the  right 
bank  of  that  river,  and  not  by  the  Latin  road. 

Hannibal  had  ^purposely  waited  to  allow  time  for  his  movement  to  produce  its 
intended  effect  in  the  raising  of  the  sieo:e  of  Capua.     That  time, 

,.  ,  .  ,     ..         °  °  ..."  f    i  •  Hannibal  retire*. 

according  to  his  calculations,  was  now  come :  the  news  of  his  ar- 
rival before  Rome  must  have  reached  the  Roman  lines  before  Capua ;  and  the 
armies  from  that  quarter,  hastening  by  the  Latin  road  to  the  defence  of  their 
city,  must  have  left  the  communication  with  Capua  free.  The  presence  of  Fui- 
vius with  his  army  in  Latium,  which  Hannibal  would  instantly  discover,  by  the 
thrice-repeated  sounding  of  the  watch,  as  Hasdrubal  found  out  Nero's  arrival  in 
ic  camp  of  Livius  near  Sena,  would  confirm  him  in  his  expectation  that  the 
ther  proconsul  was  on  his  march  with  the  mass  of  the  army ;  and  he  accord- 

Polybius,  IX.  6.  «"  Livy,  XXVI.  10.    Pliny,  XXXIV.  15. 

Appian,  VII.  39.  »  Livy,  XXVI.  8,  9,  10.     Polybius,  IX.  7, 

Polybius,  IX.  6.  Appian,  VII.  40. 


538  HISTORY  OF  ROMK  [CHAP.  XLIT 

ingly  commenced  his  retreat  by  the  Tiburtine  road,  that  he  night  not  encountei 
Appius  in  front,  while  the  consuls  and  Fabius  were  pressing  on  his  rear. 

Accordingly,  as  the  bridges  were  destroyed,  he  proceeded  to  effect  his  pas- 
TheRomras  follow  him  sage  through  the  river,  and  carried  over  his  army  under  the  pro- 
« advance,  tection  of  his  cavalry,  although  the  Romans  attacked  him  during 

the  passage,  and  cut  off  a  large  part  of  the  plunder  which  he  had  collected  from 
the  neighborhood  of  Rome.185  He  then  continued  his  retreat ;  and  the  Romans 
followed  him,  but  at  a  careful  distance,  and  keeping  steadily  on  the  higher  grounds, 
to  be  safe  from  the  assaults  of  his  dreaded  cavalry.188 

In  this  manner  Hannibal  marched  with  the  greatest  rapidity  for  five  days, 
Hemnrche.  down  into  which,  if  he  was  moving  by  the  Valerian  road,  must  have  brought 
him  at  least  as  far  as  the  country  of  the  Marsians,  and  the  shores 
of  the  lake  Fucinus.187  From  thence  he  would  again  have  crossed  by  the  Forca 
Carrosa  to  the  plain  of  the  Pelignians,  and  so  retraced  his  steps  through  Sam- 
nium  towards  Capua.  But  at  this  point  he  received  intelligence  that  the  Roman 
armies  were  still  in  their  lines,  that  his  march  upon  Rome  had  therefore  failed, 
and  that  his  communications  with  Capua  were  as  hopeless  as  ever.  Instantly  he 
changed  all  his  plans  ;  and  feeling  obliged  to  abandon  Capua,  the  importance  of 
his  operations  in  the  south  rose  upon  him  in  proportion.  Hitherto  he  had  not 
thought  fit  to  delay  his  march  for  the  sake  of  attacking  the  army  which  was  pur- 
suing him ;  but  now  he  resolved  to  rid  himself  of  this  enemy ;  so  he  turned 
fiercely  upon  them,  and  assaulted  their  camp  in  the  night.  The  Romans,  sur- 
prised and  confounded,  were  driven  from  it  with  considerable  loss,  and  took  refuge 
in  a  strong  position  in  the  mountains.  Hannibal  then  resumed  his  march,  but, 
instead  of  turning  short  to  his  right  towards  Campania,  descended  towards  the 
Adriatic  and  the  plains  of  Apulia,  and  from  thence  returned  to  what  was  now 
the  stronghold  of  his  power  in  Italy,  the  country  of  the  Bruttians.188 

The  citadel  of  Tarentum  still  held  out  against  him ;  but  Rhegium,  confident  in 
He  mutes  taking  Rhe-  its  remoteness,  had  never  yet  seen  his  cavalry  in  its  territory,  and 
Rium-  was  now  less  likely  than  ever  to  dread  his  presence,  as  he  had 

so  lately  been  heard  of  in  the  heart  of  Italy,  and  under  the  walls  of  Rome. 
With  a  rapid  march  therefore  he  hastened  to  surprise  Rhegium.  Tidings  of  his 
coming  reached  the  city  just  in  time  for  the  Rhegians  to  shut  their  gates  against 
him  ;  but  half  their  people  were  in  the  country,  in  the  full  security  of  peace ;  and 
these  all  fell  into  his  power.189  We  know  not  whether  he  treated  them  kindly, 
as  hoping  through  their  means  to  win  Rhegium,  as  he  had  won  Tarentura ;  or 
whether  disappointment  was  now  stronger  than  hope,  and,  despairing  of  drawing 
the  allies  of  Rome  to  his  side,  he  was  now  as  inveterate  against  them  as  against 
the  Romans.  He  retired  from  his  fruitless  attempt  to  win  Rhegium  only  to 
receive  the  tidings  of  the  loss  of  Capua. 

The  Romans  had  patiently  waited  their  time,  and  were  now  to  reap  their  re- 
The  Romans  press  the  ward.  The  consuls  were  both  to  command  in  Apulia  with  two 
•leg*  of c»pua.  consular  armies ;  one  of  them  therefore  must  have  returned  to 
Rome,  to  raise  the  two  additional  legions  which  were  required.  .  Fulvius  hasten- 
ed back  to  the  lines  before  Capua.  His  prey  was  now  in  his  power  ;  the  strait- 
ness  of  the  blockade  could  no  longer  be  endured,  and  aid  from  Hannibal  was  not 
to  be  hoped.  It  is  said  that  mercy  was  still  promised  to  any  Capuan  who 
should  come  over  to  the  Romans  before  a  certain  day,  but  that  none  availed 
themselves  of  the  offer,  feeling,  says  Livy,  that  their  offence  was  beyond  forgive- 
ness.190 This  can  only  mean  that  they  believed  the  Romans  to  be  as  faithless  as 
they  were  cruel,  and  felt  sure  that  every  promise  of  mercy  would  be  evaded  or 
openly  broken.  One  last  attempt  was  made  to  summon  Hannibal  again  to  their 
aid ;  but  the  Numidians  employed  on  the  service  were  detected  this  time  in  tho 

«*  Polybius,  IX.  7.  *"  Polybius,  IX.  7.     Appian,  VII.  41-43. 

186  Appian,  VII.  40.  J89  Polybius,  IX.  7. 

«"  Polybius,  IX.  7.  w  Livy,  XXVI.  12. 


The  eh.rf  mntan  ^ 
«««. 


Wh 

S! 

we 
nu 


PUNISHMENT  OF  THE  CAPUANS.  539 

Roman  lines,  and  were  sent  back  torn  with  stripes,  and  with  their  hands  cut  ofl, 
into  the  city.191 

No  Capuan  writer  has  survived  to  record  the  last  struggle  of  his  country  ;  and 
never  were  any  people  less  to  be  believed  than  the  Romans,  when 
speaking  of  their  enemies.  Yet  the  greatest  man  could  not  have  c^u* 
supported  the  expiring  weakness  of  an  unheroic  people  ;  and  we 
hear  of  no  great  man  in  Capua.  Some  of  the  principal  men  in  the  senate 
met,  it  is  said,  at  the  house  of  one  of  their  number,  Vibius  Virrius,  where  a  mag- 
nificent banquet  had  been  prepared  for  them  ;  they  ate  and  drank,  and  when  the 
feast  was  over,  they  all  swallowed  poison.  Then,  having  done  with  pleasure  and 
with  life,  they  took  a  last  leave  of  each  other  ;  they  embraced  each  other,  la- 
menting with  many  tears  their  own  and  their  country's  calamity  ;  and  some  re- 
mained to  be  burned  together  on  the  same  funeral  pile,  while  others  went  away 
to  die  at  their  own  homes.  All  were  dead  before  the  Romans  entered  the 
city.192 

In  the  mean  while  the  Capuan  government,  unable  to  restrain  their  starving 
people,  had  been  obliged  to  surrender  to  the  enemy.  In  modern 

.  .  .     J  Surrender  of  the  city. 

warfare  the  surrender  of  a  besieged  town  involves  no  extreme 
suffering  ;  even  in  civil  wars,  justice  or  vengeance  only  demands  a  certain  number 
of  victims,  and  the  mass  of  the  population  scarcely  feels  its  condition  affected. 
But  surrender,  deditio,  according  to  the  Roman  laws  of  war,  placed  the  property, 
liberties,  and  lives  of  the  whole  surrendered  people  at  the  absolute  disposal  of  the 
conquerors  ;  and  that  not  formally,  as  a  right,  the  enforcement  of  which  were 
monstrous,  but  as  one  to  abate  which  in  any  instance  was  an  act  of  free  mercy. 
In  this  sense  Capua  was  surrendered  ;  in  the  morning  after  Vibius  Virrius'  fune- 
ral banquet,  the  gate  of  Jupiter,  which  looked  towards  the  Roman  head-quarters, 
was  thrown  open  ;  and  a  Roman  legion,  with  its  usual  force  of  cavalry  doubled, 
marched  in  to  take  possession.  It  was  commanded  by  C.  Fulvius,  the  brother 
of  the  proconsul,  who  immediately  placed  guards  at  all  the  gates,  caused  all  the 
arms  in  the  city  to  be  brought  to  him,  made  prisoners  of  the  Carthaginian  garri- 
son, and  sent  all  the  Capuan  senators  into  the  Roman  camp,  to  abide  his  broth- 
er's sentence. 

No  Roman  family  has  preserved  a  more  uniform  character  of  pride  and  cruelty 
through  successive  generations  than  the  Claudii;  but  in  the  treat-  Fulvius  puts  MOM  san. 
ment  of  the  Capuans,  Q.  Fulvius  was  so  much  the  principal  act-  ators  to  death> 
or,  that,  according  to  some  of  the  annals,  Appius  Claudius  was  no  longer  alive, 
Jnaving  been  mortally  wounded  some  time  before  the  end  of  the  siege.193  His 
daughter  had  been  married  to  a  Campanian  ;  and  the  senators  of  Capua  might 
perhaps  seem  to  him  worthier  of  regard  than  the  commons  of  Rome.  But 
whether  Appius  was  living  or  dead,  he  was  unable  to  arrest  the  course  of  his 
olleague's  vengeance.  The  Capuan  senators  were  immediately  chained  as  bond- 

ves,  were  commanded  to  give  up  all  their  gold  and  silver  to  the  qucestors,  and 
ere  then  sent  in  custody,  five-and-twenty  to  Gales,  and  twenty-eight  to  Tea- 
urn.  Ere  the  next  night  was  over,  Fulvius,  with  2000  chosen  horsemen,  left 
the  camp,  and  arrived  at  Teanum  by  daybreak.  He  took  his  seat  in  the  Forum, 
ordered  the  magistrates  of  Teanum  to  bring  forth  their  prisoners,  and  saw  them 
all  scourged  and  beheaded  in  his  presence.  Then  he  rode  off  to  Gales,  and  re- 
peated the  same  tragedy  there.194 

Atilla  and  Calatia  followed  the  example  of  Capua,  and  surrendered  at  dis- 
cretion to  the  Romans.  There,  also,  about  twenty  senators  were  Severe  tren»ment  of  aii 
executed,  and  about  three  hundred  persons  of  noble  birth,  in  *"  Crtmi)ttnian*- 

.e  or  other  of  the  three  cities,  were  sent  to  Rome,  and  thrown  into  the  Mamer- 

e  prison,  there  to  die  of  starvation  and  misery,  while  others  met  a  similar  fato 

101  Livy,  XXVI.  12.  «"  Livy,  XXVI.  15.     Valerius  Maximua,  IIL 

»  Livy,  XXVI.  14.  8,  1. 

m  Livy,  XXVI.  15.    Zonaras,  IX.  6. 


540  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLI7 

in  the  various  allied  cities  whither  they  were  sent  prisoners.'95  The  besieging 
army  was  then  relieved  from  its  long  services  ;  part  of  it  was  probably  sent  home, 
or  transferred  to  one  of  the  consuls  to  form  his  army  in  Apulia.  C.  Nero,  the 
propraetor,  was  sent  with  about  13,000  men  into  Spain,  where  the  Roman  affairs 
were  in  a  most  critical  state  ;196  while  Q.  Fulvius  remained  still  as  proconsul  in 
Capua,  exercising  the  utmost  severity  of  conquest  over  the  remnant  of  the  unfor- 
tunate people. 

A  few  months  afterwards,  on  the  night  of  the  18th  of  March  in  the  following 
year,  a  fire  broke  out  at  Rome  in  several  places  at  once,  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  Forum.  The  temple  of  Vesta,  and  its  eternal 
fire,  the  type  of  the  life  of  the  commonwealth,  were  saved  with  great  difficulty. 
This  fire  was  said  to  be  the  work  of  some  noble  Capuans  whose  fathers  had  been 
beheaded  by  Q.  Fulvius ;  they  were  accused  by  one  of  their  slaves ;  and  a  con- 
fession of  the  charge  having  been  forced  from  their  other  slaves  by  torture,  the 
young  men  were  put  to  death.197  Fulvius  made  this  a  pretence  for  fresh  severi- 
ties against  the  Capuans ;  and  no  doubt  it  had  an  influence  upon  the  senate  when 
the  fate  of  the  three  revolted  cities  of  Campania  was  finally  decided.  As  the 
Capuans  had  enjoyed  the  franchise  of  Roman  citizens,  the  senate  was  obliged  to 
obtain  an  act  of  the  comitia,  empowering  them  to  determine  their  future  condi- 
tion. A  number  of  decrees  were  passed  accordingly,  as  after  the  great  Latin 
war,  distinguishing  the  punishment  of  different  classes,  and  even  of  different  indi- 
viduals. AH  who  had  been  senators,  or  held  any  office,  were  reduced  to  utter  beg- 
gary, their  lands  being  forfeited  to  Rome,  together  with  the  whole  Campanian 
territory,  and  their  personal  property  of  every  kind  being  ordered  to  be  sold.  Some 
were  sold,  besides,  for  slaves,  with  their  wives  and  children ;  and  it  was  especially 
ordered  that  they  should  be  sold  at  Rome,  lest  some  of  their  countrymen  or  neigh- 
bors should  purchase  them  for  the  purpose  of  restoring  their  liberty.  All  who  had 
been  in  Capua  during  the  siege  were  transported  beyond  the  Tiber,  and  forbid- 
den to  possess  lands  or  houses  above  a  certain  measure,  or  out  of  certain  specified 
districts  ;  those  who  had  not  been  in  Capua,  or  in  any  other  revolted  city,  during 
the  war,  were  only  transported  beyond  the  Liris ;  while  those  who  had  gone  over 
to  the  Romans  before  Hannibal  entered  Capua,  were  removed  no  further  than 
across  the  Vulturnus.  In  their  exiled  state,  however,  they  were  still  to  be  per- 
sonally free,  but  were  incapable  of  enjoying  either  the  Roman  franchise  or  the 
Latin.193  The  city  of  Capua,  bereaved  of  all  its  citizens,  was  left  to  be  inhab- 
ited by  that  mixed  multitude  of  resident  foreigners,  freedmen,  and  half-citizens, 
who,  as  shopkeepers  and  mechanics,  had  always  formed  a  large  part  of  the  popu- 
lation ;  and  all  political  organization  was  strictly  denied  to  them ;  and  they  were 
placed  under  the  government  of  a  praefect  sent  thither  every  year  from  Rome.199 
The  Campanian  plain,  the  glory  of  Italy,  and  all  the  domain  lands  which  Capua 
had  won  in  former  wars,  when  she  was  the  ally  of  Rome,  as  her  share  of  the 
spoils  of  Samnium,  were  forfeited  to  the  Roman  people.  In  the  domain  lands 
some  colonies  were  planted  soon  after  the  war  ;200  but  the  Campanian  plain  was 
held  in  occupation  by  a  number  of  Roman  citizens ;  and  the  vectigal,  or  rent, 
which  they  paid  to  the  state,  was  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  an  important  part  of 
the  Roman  revenue.201  Only  two  individuals  were  found  deserving  of  favor,  it  is 
said,  among  the  whole  Capuan  people :  these  were  two  women,  one  of  whom  had 
daily  sacrificed  in  secret  during  the  siege  for  the  success  of  tne  Romans ;  and 
the  other  had  secretly  fed  some  Roman  prisoners.  These  had  their  property  re- 
stored to  them  by  a  special  decree  of  the  senate ;  and  they  were  desired  to 
go  to  Rome  and  to  petition  the  senate,  if  they  thought  proper,  for  some  addi- 
tional reward.202 

m  Livy,  XXVI.  16.  "•  Livy,  XXVI.  16. 

m  Livy,  XXVI.  -17.  **  Livy,  XXVI.  45. 

*•  Livy,  XXVI.  27.  *"  Cicero,  Ue  Leg.  Agrar.  II.  89. 

**  Livy,  XXVI.  33,  34.  «"  Livy,  XXVI,  33,  34. 


OHAP.  XLIV.]  CONCLUSION.  541 

I  have  given  the  settlement  of  Campania  and  the  fate  of  the  Capuans  in  detail, 
because  it  seems  taken  from  authentic  sources,  and  is  character-  Flllvills  ,,  wflli-d  , 
istic  of  the  stern  determination  with  which  the  Roman  government  triumfh- 
went  through  its  work.  It  is  no  less  characteristic  that  when  Q.  Fulvius  applied 
for  a  triumph,  after  his  most  important  and  splendid  success,  the  senate  refused 
to  grant  it,  because  he  had  only  recovered  what  had  belonged  to  Rome  before ; 
and  the  mere  retrieving  of  losses,  and  restoring  the  dominion  of  the  common- 
wealth to  its  former  extent,  was  no  subject  of  extraordinary  exultation.203 

But  although  not  rewarded  by  a  triumph,  the  conquest  of  Capua  was  one_of 
the  most  important  services  ever  rendered  by  a  Roman  general  imporianoe  of  the  tak- 
to  his  country.  It  did  not  merely  deprive  Hannibal  of  the  great-  "* ot  Capua' 
est  fruit  of  his  greatest  victory,  and  thus  seem  to  undo  the  work  of  Cannae ;  but 
its  effect  was  felt  far  and  wide,  encouraging  the  allies  of  Rome,  and  striking  terror 
into  her  enemies ;  tempting  the  cities  which  had  revolted  to  return  without  delay 
to  their  allegiance,  and  filling  Hannibal  with  suspicions  of  those  who  were  still 
true  to  him,  as  if  they  only  waited  to  purchase  their  pardon  by  some  act  of 
treachery  towards  his  garrisons.  By  the  recovery  of  Capua  his  great  experi- 
ment seemed  decided  against  him.  It  appeared  impossible,  under  any  circum- 
stances, to  rally  such  a  coalition  of  the  Italian  states  against  the  Roman  power 
in  Italy,  as  might  be  able  to  overthrow  it.  We  almost  ask,  with  what  reason- 
able hopes  could  Hannibal  from  this  time  forward  continue  the  war  ?  or  why 
did  he  not  change  the  seat  of  it  from  Southern  Italy  to  Etniria  and  Cisalpine 
Gaul? 

But  with  whatever  feelings  of  disappointment  and  grief  he  may  have  heard  of 
the  fall  of  Capua,  of  the  ruin  of  his  allies,  and  the  bloody  death  Hannibni'  favorable 
of  so  many  of  the  Capuan  senators,  and  of  the  brave  Jubellius  Prosi>ects- 
Taurea,  whom  he  had  personally  known  and  honored,  yet  the  last  campaign  was 
not  without  many  solid  grounds  of  encouragement.  Never  had  the  invincible 
force  of  his  army  been  more  fully  proved.  He  had  overrun  half  Italy,  had 
crossed  and  recrossed  the  passes  of  the  Apennines,  had  plunged  into  the  midst 
of  the  Roman  allies,  and  had  laid  waste  the  territory  of  Rome  with  fire  and 
sword.  Yet  no  superiority  of  numbers,  no  advantage  of  ground,  no  knowledge 
of  the  country,  had  ever  emboldened  the  Romans  to  meet  him  in  the  field,  or 
even  to  beset  his  road,  or  to  obstruct  and  harass  his  march.  Once  only,  when  he 
was  thought  to  be  retreating,  had  they  ventured  to  follow  him  at  a  cautious  dis- 
tance ;  but  he  had  turned  upon  them  in  his  strength ;  and  the  two  consuls,  and 
Q.  Fulvius  with  them,  were  driven  before  him  as  fugitives  to  the  mountains,  their 
camp  stormed,  and  their  legions  scattered.  It  was  plain,  then,  that  he  might 
hold  his  ground  in  Italy  as  long  as  he  pleased,  supporting  his  army  at  its  cost, 
and  draining  the  resources  of  Rome  and  her  allies,  year  after  year,  till  in  mere 
exhaustion  the  Roman  commons  would  probably  join  the  Latin  colonies  and  the 
allies  in  forcing  the  senate  to  make  peace. 

At  this  very  moment  Etruria  was  restless,  and  required  an  army  of  two  legions 
to  keep  it  quiet  :204  the  Roman  commons,  in  addition  to  their  heavy 

.  f  *  .  .  .  '         .  .  <.     Unfavorable       circum- 

taxation  and  military  service,  had  seen  their  lands  laid  waste,  and  •t«nce«  oMhe  R™>™« 
yet  were  called  upon  to  bear  fresh  burdens :  and  there  was  a  spirit 
of  discontent  working  in  the  Latin  colonies,  which  a  little  more  provocation  might 
excite  to  open  revolt.  Spain,  besides,  seemed  at  last  to  be  freed  from  the  enemy ; 
and  the  recent  defeats  and  deaths  of  the  two  Scipios  there  held  out  the  hope  to 
Hannibal,  that  now  at  length  his  brother  Hasdrubal,  having  nothing  to  detain  him 
in  Spain,  might  lead  a  second  Carthaginian  army  into  Italy,  and  establish  himself 
in  Etruria,  depriving  Rome  of  the  resources  of  the  Etruscan  and  Umbrian  states, 
as  she  had  already  lost  those  of  half  Samnium,  of  Lucania,  Bruttium,  and  Apulia. 

»  Valerius  Maximus,  IT.  8,  4.  »•  Livy,  XXVI.  1,  28;  XXVII.  7.     Comp. 

XXVII.  21,  22,  24. 


542  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLV. 

Then,  assailed  at  once  by  two  sons  of  Hamilcar,  on  the  north  and  the  south,  the 
Roman  power,  which  one  of  them  singly  had  so  staggered,  must,  by  the  joint 
efforts  of  both,  be  beaten  to  the  ground  and  destroyed.  With  such  hopes,  and 
with  no  unreasonable  confidence,  Hannibal  consoled  himself  for  the  loss  of  Capua, 
and  allowed  his  army,  after  its  severe  marching,  to  rest  for  the  remainder  of  the 
year  in  Apulia.205  And  now,  as  we  have  brought  the  war  in  Italy  to  this  point, 
it  is  time  to  look  abroad,  and  to  observe  the  course  of  this  mighty  contest  in 
^pain,  in  Greece,  and  in  Sicily. 


CHAPTER  XLV, 

PROGRESS  OF  THE  WAR  IN  SPAIN,  SICILY,  AND  GREECE— OPERATIONS  OF  THE 
SCIPIOS  IN  SPAIN— THEIR  DEFEAT  AND  DEATH— MACEDON  AND  GREECE- 
REVOLUTIONS  OF  SYRACUSE— MARCELLUS  IN  SICILY— SIEGE  OF  SYRACUSE- 
ARCHIMEDES— SACK  OF  SYRACUSE,  AND  REDUCTION  OF  SICILY— MUTINES, 
THE  NUMIDIAN,  IN  SICILY.— A.  U.  C.  538  TO  543. 

WARS  must  of  necessity  form  a  large  part  of  all  history ;  but  in  most  wars  the 
narrative  of  military  operations  is  without  interest  for  posterity,  and 

When  wars  ought  to  bo  .  J       *  .  T      r  .    J. 

related  circumgtanti.  should  only  be  given  by  contemporary  writers.  It  was  right  for 
Thucydides  to  relate  every  little  expedition  of  the  Peloponnesian 
war  at  length ;  but  modern  writers  do  wrong  in  following  his  example ;  for  the 
details  of  petty  warfare  are  unworthy  to  survive  their  own  generation.  And  there 
are  also  wars  conducted  on  a  great  scale,  and  very  important  in  their  conse- 
quences, the  particulars  of  which  may  safely  be  forgotten.  For  military  events 
should  only  be  related  circumstantially  to  after  ages,  when  they  either  contain  a 
great  lesson  in  the  art  of  war,  or  are  so  striking  in  their  incidents,  as  to  acquire 
the  interest  of  a  romance,  and  thus  retain  their  hold  on  the  imaginations  and 
moral  feelings  of  all  ages  and  countries.  Hannibal's  campaigns  in  Italy  have  this 
double  claim  on  our  notice :  they  are  a  most  valuable  study  for  the  soldier,  whilst 
for  readers  in  general  they  are  a  varied  and  eventful  story,  rich  in  characters, 
scenes,  and  actions.  But  the  war  in  Spain,  although  most  important  in  its  results, 
and  still  more  the  feeble  bickerings  rather  than  wars  of  the  decayed  states  of 
Greece,  may  and  ought  to  be  related  summarily.  A  closer  attention  must  be 
given  to  tte  war  in  Sicily :  there  again  the  military  and  the  general  interest  of 
the  story  are  great ;  we  have  the  ancient  art  of  defence  exhibited  it  its  highest 
perfection  ;  we  have  the  immortal  names  of  Syracuse  and  Archimedes. 

There  /s  another  reason,  however,  why  we  should  not  give  a  minute  account 
campaign  of  541  in  of  the  Spanish  war :  because  we  really  know  nothing  about  it. 
Spuin<  The  Roman  annalists,  whom  Livy  has  copied  here,  seem  to  have 

outdone  their  usual  exaggerations  in  describing  the  exploits  of  the  two  Scipios  ; 
and  what  is  the  truth  concealed  beneath  this  mass  of  fiction,  we  are  wholly  unable 
to  discover.  Spain,  we  know,  has  in  later  wars  been  overrun  victoriously  and 
lost  again  in  a  single  summer;  and  no  one  can  say  how  far  the  Scipios  may  at 
times  have  penetrated  into  the  heart  of  the  country :  but  it  is  certain  that  in  the 
first  years  of  their  command  they  made  no  lasting  impression  south  of  the  Iberus. 
Still  their  maintaining  their  ground  at  all  in  Spain  was  of  signal  service  to  Rome, 

*•  Compare  Livy,  XXVI.  8v. 


CHAP.  XLV.]  CAMPAIGN  OF  543.  543 

The  Carthaginians,  on  the  other  hand,  knew  the  importance  of  ex- 
pelling them;  but  it  appears  that  in  the  year  541,  they  became 
engaged  in  a  war  with  Syphax,  one  of  the  kings  or  chiefs  of  the  Numidians ;  and 
a  war  in  Africa  was  always  so  alarming  to  them,  that  they  recalled  Hasdrubalv 
Hannibal's  brother,  from  Spain,  with  a  part  of  their  forces  employed  in  that 
country,  and  thus  took  off  the  pressure  from  the  Romans  at  a  most  critical  mo- 
ment.1 The  Scipios  availed  themselves  of  this  relief  ably ;  and  now  they  seemed 
to  have  advanced  into  the  heart  of  Spain  with  effect,  to  have  drawn  over  many 
of  the  Spanish  tribes  to  the  Roman  alliance,  and  thus  to  have  obtained  large -re- 
cruits for  their  own  army,  which  received  but  slight  reinforcements  from  Rome. 
It  is  said  that  20,000  Celtiberians  were  raised  to  serve  under  the  Scipios,  and 
that  at  the  same  time  300  noble  Spaniards  were  sent  into  Italy  to  detach  their 
countrymen  there  from  Hannibal's  service.8  Cn.  Scipio,  we  are  told,  was  greatly 
loved  and  reverenced  by  the  Spaniards  ;3  and  his  influence  probably  attracted  the 
Celtiberians  to  the  Roman  armies ;  but  we  know  not  where  he  found  money  to 
pay  them,  as  the  Roman  treasury  was  in  no  condition  to  supply  him,  and  he  was 
obliged  to  make  war  support  war.  However,  careful  economy  of  the  plunder 
which  he  may  have  won  from  some  of  the  allies  of  Carthage,  assisted  perhaps 
by  loans  from  some  of  the  Spanish  chiefs  attached  to  himself  and  to  Rome,  had 
enabled  him  to  raise  a  large  army ;  so  that,  when  Hasdrubal  returned  from  Africa, 
apparently  late  in  542,  although  there  were  two  other  Carthaginian  generals  in 
Spain/  each  commanding  a  separate  army,  yet  the  Roman  generals  thought 
themselves  strong  enough  to  act  on  the  offensive ;  and  they  concerted  a  grand 
plan  for  the  campaign  of  543,  by  which  they  hoped  to  destroy  all  the  armies 
opposed  to  them,  and  to  drive  the  Carthaginians  out  of  Spain.  With  this  confi- 
dence they  divided  their  forces,  and  having  crossed  the  Iberus,  marched  each  in 
pursuit  of  a  separate  enemy.  Cn.  Scipio  was  to  attack  Hasdrubal,  while  his 
brother  was  to  fall  on  the  other  two  Carthaginian  generals,  Hasdrubal  the  son 
of  Giscon,  and  Mago.5 

They  had  wintered,  it  seems,  in  the  country  of  their  new  auxiliaries,  or,  ac- 
cording to  one  account,  even  further  to  the  south,  in  the  valley  of 
the Baetis  or  Guadalquiver.6  But  it  is  as  impossible  to  disentangle  f^mTdeLhll  the 
the  geography  of  this  war  as  its  history.  The  Carthaginian  gen-  Sclp'°8' 
erals  owed  their  triumph — and  more  than  this  we  cannot  ascertain — to  the  as- 
cendency of  Hasdrubal's  name  and  personal  character ;  for  the  Celtiberians,  when 
brought  into  his  neighborhood,  were  unable  to  resist  his  influence,  and  abruptly 
left  the  Roman  camp,  and  returned  home.7  Thus  abandoned,  and  at  a  great  dis- 
tance from  aft  their  resources,  the  two  Roman  generals  were  sue-  A.  u.  a  M3  A<  a 
cessively  attacked  by  the  Carthaginians,  defeated  and  killed.8  Of  8IL 
the  wreck  of  their  armies,  some  fled  to  the  towns  of  their  Spanish  allies  for  refuge, 
and  were  in  some  instances  slain  by  them,  or  betrayed  to  the  Carthaginians :  a 
remnant,  which  had  either  been  left  behind  the  Iberus  before  the  opening  of 
the  campaign,  or  had  effected  its  retreat  thither,  was  still  held  together  by 
Scipio's  lieutenant,  T.  Fonteius,  and  by  L.  Marcius.'  Marcius  was  only  a  simple 
Roman  knight,  that  is,  a  man  of  good  fortune,  who  therefore  served,  not  in  the 
infantry  of  the  legions,  but  in  the  cavalry :  he  had  a  natural  genius  for  war,  and 
was  called  irregularly,  it  seems,  by  the  common  voice  of  the  soldiers  to  take  the 
command ;  and  we  need  not  doubt  that  by  some  timely  advantages  gained  over 
some  of  the  enemies'  parties,  he  raised  the  spirits  of  the  men,  and  preserved  the 
Roman  cause  in  Spain  from  utter  extinction.  But  the  extravagant  fables  of  his 
victories  over  the  victorious  Carthaginians,  and  of  his  storming  iheir  camps, 


P1  Appian,  VI.  15.    Livy,  XXIV.  48.  •  Appian,  VI.  16. 

1  Livy,  XXV.  32.    XXI V.  49.  T  Livv,  XXV.  33. 

'  T.ivv.   YYV    Rft         AnnSfin     Vf    IK  •   7.5™     YYA7    QA 


•  Livy,  XXV.  36.    Appian,  VI.  15.  •  Livy,  XXV.  84-36.    Appian,  VL  !«. 
4  Livy,  XXV.  32.    Appian,  VI.  16.  9  Livy,  XXV.  36-39. 

•  Livy,  XXV.  32. 


544  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLV 

show  too  clearly  out  of  what  wretched  materials  the  Roman  history  has  to  be 
written.10 

If  the  defeat  of  the  Scipios  took  place,  as  seems  probable,  early  in  the  year 
543.  that  is,  a  few  weeks  before  the  fall  of  Capua,  we  may  again 

The  Rorrmnj  are  driven         •,.          ,-•  i       f    i     i-  IP  j      i  -t  •    i        i  • 

to  the  foot  of  the  PJT-  admire  the  wonderful  disposal  ot  events  by  which  the  rum  of  the 
Roman  cause  in  Spain  was  delayed  till  their  affairs  in  Italy  had 
passed  over  their  crisis,  and  were  beginning  to  mend.  The  Scipios'  army  was 
replaced  by  that  of  C.  Nero,  which  the  fall  of  Capua  set  at  liberty  :u  a  year  ear- 
lier this  resource  would  not  have  been  available.  Still  the  Carthaginians  imme- 
diately recovered  all  the  states  south  of  the  Ebro,  which  had  before  revolted, 
and  the  Romans  were  confined  to  a  narrow  strip  of  coast  between  the  Iberus  and 
the  Pyrenees,12  from  which  the  overwhelming  force  of  their  enemies  was  likely 
ere  long  to  drive  them.  And  so  it  would,  had  not  the  external  weakness  of  the 
Roman  cause  been  now  upheld  for  the  first  time  by  individual  genius  ;  so  that  a 
defeated  and  dispirited  army  became,  in  the  hands  of  the  young  P.  Scipio,  the 
instrument  by  which  all  Spain  was  conquered. 

Seventy  years  before  this  period,  a  Greek  army  under  Pyrrhus  had  shaken  the 
inefficiency  of  whole  power  of  Rome  i  yet  the  kingdom  of  Pyrrhus  was  little  more 
^|mn  a  dependency  of  Macedon,  and  Pyrrhus  had  struggled  against 
the  arms  of  the  Macedonain  kings  vigorously,  but  without  success.  Now  a 
young,  warlike,  and  popular  king  was  seated  on  the  throne  of  Macedon  :13  he 
had  just  concluded  a  war  victoriously  with  the  only  state  in  Greece  which 
seemed  capable  of  resisting  his  power.  What  Pyrrhus  had  almost  done  alone, 
would  surely  be  easy  for  Philip  to  accomplish,  with  Hannibal  and  his  invincible 
army  to  aid  him  ;  and  what  could  Rome  have  done,  if  to  the  irresistible  African 
cavalry  there  had  been  joined  a  body  of  heavy-armed  Macedonians,  and  a  force 
of  artillery  and  engineers  such  as  Greek  science  alone  could  furnish?  The 
strangest  and  most  unaccountable  blank  in  history  is  the  early  period  of  the 
Macedonian  war,  before  the  ^Etolians  became  the  allies  of  Rome  and  a  coalition 
was  formed  against  Philip  in  Greece  itself.  Philip's  treaty  with  Hannibal  was 
concluded  in  the  year  539,  or  early  enough,  at  any  rate,  to  allow  of  his  com- 
mencing operations  in  the  year  540. u  The  ^Etolians  concluded  their  treaty  with 
Rome  in  543,  after  the  fall  of  Capua.15  More  than  three  precious  years  seem 
to  have  been  utterly  wasted ;  and  during  all  this  time  M.  Valerius  Lsevinus, 
commanding  at  Brundisium  with  a  single  legion  and  a  small  fleet,  was  allowed 
to  paralyze  the  whole  power  of  Macedon.16 

The  cause  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  that  selfish  attention  to  separate  objects 
arising  from  Philip',  which  has  so  often  been  the  ruin  of  coalitions.  Philip's  object,  or 
rather  that  of  Demetrius  of  Pharos,  whose  influence  appears 
plainly  in  all  this  war  with  Rome,  was  to  undo  the  work  of  the  late  Roman  vic- 
tories in  Illyria,  and  to  wrest  the  western  coast  of  Epirus  from  their  dominion. 
In  his  treaty  with  Hannibal,  Philip  had  especially  stipulated  that  the  Romans 
should  not  be  allowed  to  retain  their  control  over  Corcyra,  Apollonia,  Epidam- 
nus,  Pharus,  Dimalla  or  Dimalus,  the  country  of  the  Parthinians,  and  Atintania;17 
places  which  in  the  Illyrian  wars  had  either  submitted  to,  or  been  conquered  by 
the  Romans.  Philip  does  not  appear  to  have  understood  that  all  these  were  to 
be  reconquered  most  surely  in  Italy ;  that  it  was  easier  to  crush  Lsevinus  at 
Brundisium,  than  to  repel  him  from  Epirus ;  more  prudent  to  march  against  him 

10  Livy,  XXV.  39.    According  to  one   ac-  "  Appian,  VI.  17. 

count,  37,000  men  were  slain  on  the  Carthagin-  "  Philip  was  not  more  than  seventeen  years 

ian    side.     Valerius   Antias    returned    17,000  old  in  the  archonship  of  Ariston,  A.  U.  C.  534. 

killed,  and  4330  prisoners.     Appian  (XI.  17)  Polybius,  IV.  5.    For  his  popular  and  warlike 

substitutes  Marcellus  by  mistake  for  Marcius,  character  sec  Polybius,  IV.  77,  82,  1. 

but  says  he  did  nothing  brilliant,  so  that  the  *  Livy,  XXIII.  33,  39.    Above,  p.  514. 

Carthaginian  power  increased,  and  spread  al-  J5  Livy,  XXVI.  24. 

most  over  the  whole  of  Spain.  M  Livy,  XXIV.  10,  44.    XXV.  3.    XXVI.  24 

»  Livy,  XXVI.  17.  "  Polybius,  VII.  9. 


liero'a  faithful  friend- 


CHIP.  XLV.]  SICILY.  545 

at  the  head  of  the  Greeks  of  Italy,  than  to  let  him  come  to  the  aid  of  the  Greeks 
on  the  coast  of  Illyria.  Thus  he  trifled  away  his  strength  in  petty  enterprises, 
and  those  not  always  successful,  till  the  Romans  found  the  time  come  to  carry  on 
the  war  against  him  in  earnest ;  and  they  were  not  apt  either  to  neglect  their 
opportunities  or  to  misuse  them. 

Philip  was  personally  brave,  and  could  on  occasion  show  no  common  activity 
and  energy.  But  he  had  not  that  steadiness  of  purpose,  without  Hewa8te9  hi»tim<>  <» 
which  energy  in  political  affairs  is  worthless.  Thus  he  was  lightly  petty  obje<:U-' 
deterred  from  an  enterprise  by  dangers  which  he  was  not  afraid  of,  but  rather 
did  not  care  to  encounter.  The  naval  power  of  Greece  had  long  since  sunk  to 
nothing ;  Philip  had  no  regular  navy,  and  the  small  vessels  which  he  could  col- 
lect were  no  match  for  the  Roman  quinqueremes ;  so  that  a  descent  upon  Italy 
appeared  hazardous,  while  various  schemes  opened  upon  him  nearer  home, 
which  his  own  temper,  or  the  interests  of  his  advisers,  led  him  to  prefer.  Hence, 
he  effected  but  little  during  three  years.  He  neither  took  Epidamnus,  nor  Apol- 
lonia,  nor  Corcyra ;  but  he  won  Lissus,  and  the  strong  fortress  which  served  as 
its  citadel  ;18  and  he  seems  also  to  have  conquered  Dimalus  or  Dimallus,  and  to 
have  enlarged  his  dominion  more  or  less  nominally  with  the  countries  of  the 
Parthinians  and  Atintanians,  of  which  the  sovereignty  had  belonged  to  the  Ro- 
mans.19 From  all  this  Hannibal  derived  no  benefit,  and  Rome  sustained  no  seri- 
ous injury. 

In  the  year  of  Rome  491,  in  the  second  year  of  the  first  Punic  war,  Hiero, 
kino-  of  Syracuse,  had  made  peace  with  the  Romans,  and  had  be- 

,  i        •          11        on          -i -i  11  i  •  i  Hiero  'a   i;ui:i 

come  their  ally.  °  Forty-seven  years  had  passed  away  since,  when  M?  to  the 
the  tidings  of  the  battle  of  Canna3  arrived  at  Syracuse,  and  seemed 
to  announce  that  a  great  part  of  Sicily  was  again  to  change  its  masters,  and  to 
be  subjected  once  more  to  the  Carthaginian  dominion.  But  Hiero,  although 
about  ninety  years  of  age,  did  not  waver.  Far  from  courting  the  friendship  of 
Carthage,  he  increased  his  exertions  in  behalf  of  Rome :  he  supplied  the  Roman 
army  in  Sicily  with  money  and  corn  at  a  time  when  all  supplies  from  home  had 
failed  ;21  and  about  a  year  afterwards,  when  a  fleet  was  prepared  to  meet  the 
hostile  designs  of  Philip  of  Macedon,  Hiero  again  sent  50,000  medimni  of  wheat 
and  barley  to  provision  it.22  This  must  nearly  have  been  his  last  A.  u.  c  539-  A  c 
public  act.  Towards  the  close  of  the  year  539,  after  a  life  of  815- 
ninety  years,  and  a  reign  of  fifty-four,  but  still  retaining  all  his  faculties,  sound 
in  mind  and  vigorous  in  body,  Hiero  died.23 

He  had  enjoyed  and  deserved  the  constant  affection  of  his  people,  and  had 
seen  his  kingdom  flourishing  more  and  more  under  his  government.  preceded  by  that  of  hi« 
One  only  thing  had  marred  the  completeness  of  his  fortune:  his  ionGelon- 
son  Gelon  had  died  before  him,  with  whom  he  had  lived  in  the  most  perfect 
harmony,  and  who  had  ever  rendered  him  the  most  devoted  and  loving  obedi- 
ence.24 He  had  still  two  daughters,  Damarata  and  Heraclea,  who  were  married 
to  two  eminent  Syracusans,  Andranodorus  and  Zoippus ;  and  he  had  one  grand- 
son, a  boy  of  about  fifteen,  the  son  of  Gelon,  Hieronymus.25 

It  is  the  most  difficult  problem  in  an  hereditary  monarchy,  how  to  educate  the 
heir  to  the  throne,  when  the  circumstances  of  his  condition,  so 
much  more  powerful  than  any  instruction,  are  apt  to  train  him  for  SandswrHie^nymi* 
evil  far  more  surely  than  the  lessons  of  the  wisest  teachers  can 
train  him  for  good.     In  the  ancient  world,  moreover,  there  was  no  fear  of  God 
to  sober  the  mind,  which  was  raised  above  all  fear  or  respect  for  man ;  and  if  the 
philosophers  spoke  of  the  superiority  of  virtue  and  wisdom  over  all  the  gifts  of 

38  Polybius,  VIII.  15, 16.  M  Livy,  XXIII.  88. 

9  In  Livy,  XXIX.  12,  we  find  these  attacked  M  Polybius,  VII.  8. 

by  the  Eoinans,  as  being  subject  to  Macedon.  M  Polybius,  VII.  8. 

"  See  p.  427.  »  Livy,  XXIV.  4. 
11  Livy,  XXIII.  22.     See  above,  p.  508. 
35 


546  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLV 

fortune,  their  own  example,  when  they  were  seen  to  sue  for  the  king's  favor,  and 
to  dread  his  anger,  no  less  than  ordinary  men,  made  their  doctrines  regarded 
either  as  folly  or  hypocrisy.  Hieronymus  at  fifteen  became  king  of  Syracuse  ;  a 
child  in  understanding,  but  with  passions  precociously  vigorous,  because  he  had 
such  large  means  of  indulging  them ;  insolent,  licentious,  and  cruel,  yet  withal 
so  thoughtless  and  so  mere  a  slave  of  every  impulse,  that  he  was  sure  to  be  the 
instrument  of  his  own  ruin. 

We  have  already  noticed  his  early  communication  with  Hannibal,  and  the 
it.  joi™  the  Cartha-  arrival  of  Hippocrates  and  Epicydes  at  Syracuse,  Syracusans  by 
gi"ianS)  extraction,  but  born  at  Carthage,  and  by  education  and  franchise 

Carthaginians,  whom  Hannibal  had  sent  to  Hieronymus  to  confirm  him  in  his 
alienation  from  Rome.86  They  won  the  youth's  ear  by  telling  him  of  Hannibal's 
marches  and  victories  ;  for  in  those  days  events  that  were  two  or  three  years  old 
were  still  news  to  foreigners  ;  common  fame  had  reported  the  general  facts,  but 
the  details  could  only  be  gathered  accidentally ;  and  Hieronymus  listened  eagerly 
to  Hippocrates  and  Epicydes,  when  they  told  him  stories  of  their  crossing  the 
Rhone,  of  their  passage  of  the  Alps  and  Apennines,  of  the  slaughter  of  the  Ro- 
mans at  Thrasy menus,  and  of  their  late  unequalled  victory  at  Cannse,  of  all 
which  they  had  themselves  been  eye-witnesses.27  And  when  they  saw  Hierony- 
mus possessed  with  a  vague  longing  that  he  too  might  achieve  such  great  deeds, 
they  asked  him  who  had  such  claims  as  he  to  be  king  of  all  Sicily.  His  mother 
was  the  daughter  of  Pyrrhus  ;  his  father  was  Hiero's  son  ;  with  this  double  title 
to  the  love  and  homage  of  all  Sicilians,  he  should  not  be  contented  to  divide  the 
island  either  with  Rome  or  Carthage  :  by  his  timely  aid  to  Hannibal  he  might 
secure  it  wholly  to  himself.  The  youth  accordingly  insisted  that  the  sovereignty 
of  all  Sicily  should  be  ceded  to  him  as  the  price  of  his  alliance  with  Carthage ; 
and  the  Carthaginians  were  well  content  to  humor  him,  knowing  that  if  they 
could  drive  the  Romans  out  of  the  islands,  they  had  little  to  fear  from  the  claims 
of  Hieronymus.28 

Appius  Claudius,  the  Roman  prcetor  in  Sicily,  aware  of  what  was  going  on, 
»nd  desert*  the  R«-  sent  some  of  his  officers  to  Syracuse,  to  warn  the  king  not  to  break 
off  his  grandfather's  long  friendship  with  Rome,  but  to  renew  the 
old  alliance  in  his  own  name.19  Hieronymus  called  his  council  together,  and  Hip- 
pocrates and  Epicydes  were  present.  His  native  subjects,  afraid  to  oppose  his 
known  feelings,  said  nothing ;  but  three  of  his  council,  who  came  from  old  Greece, 
conjured  him  not  to  abandon  his  alliance  with  Rome.  Andranodorus  alone,  his 
uncle  and  guardian,  urged  him  to  seize  the  moment,  and  become  sovereign  of  all 
Sicily.  He  listened,  and  then,  turning  to  Hippocrates  and  Epycides,  asked  them. 
"And  what  think  you?"  "We  think,"  they  answered,  "with  Andranodorus." 
"  Then,"  said  he,  "  the  question  is  decided ;  we  will  no  longer  be  dependent  on 
Rome."  He  then  called  in  the  Roman  ambassadors,  and  told  them  that  "  he  was 
willing  to  renew  his  grandfather's  league  with  Rome,  if  they  would  repay  him  all 
the  money  and  corn  with  which  Hiero  had  a"t  various  times  supplied  them ;  if 
they  would  restore  the  costly  presents  which  he  had  given  them,  especially  the 
golden  statue  of  Victory,  which  he  had  sent  to  them  only  three  years  since,  after 
their  defeat  at  Thrasymenus ;  and,  finally,  if  they  would  share  the  island  with 
him  equally,  ceding  all  to  the  east  of  the  river  Himeras."3c  The  Romans  con- 
sidered this  answer  as  a  mockery,  and  went  away  without  thinking  it  worthy  of 
a  serious  reply.  Accordingly,  from  this  moment  Hieronymus  conceived  himself 
to  be  at  war  with  Rome :  he  began  to  raise  and  arm  soldiers,  and  to  form  maga- 
zines ;  and  the  Carthaginians,  according  to  their  treaty  with  him,  prepared  to 
send  over  a  fleet  and  army  to  Sicily. 

Meanwhile  his  desertion  of  the  Roman  alliance  was  most  unwelcome  to  a  strong 

»  Polybius,  VII.  34.    Livy,  XXIV.  6.    See        «  Polybius,  VII.  4.    Livy,  XXIV.  6. 
above,  p.  514.  w  Polybius,  VII.  5.     Livy,  XXIV.  6. 

87  Polybius,  VII.  4.  *  Polybius,  VII.  5.    See  Livy,  XXII.  37. 


CHAP.  XLV.]  INSURRECTION  AT  SYRACUSE.  547 

party  in  Syracuse.  A  conspiracy  had  already  been  formed  against  He  ig  murdM6d  ^  , 
his  life,  which  was  ascribed,  whether  truly  or  not,  to  the  intrigues  COMPiracJ- 
of  this  party  ;31  and  now  that  he  had  actually  joined  the  Carthaginians,  they  be- 
came more  bitter  against  him ;  and  a  second  conspiracy  was  formed  with  better 
success.  He  had  taken  the  field  to  attack  the  cities  in  the  Roman  part  of  the 
island.  Hippocrates  and  Epicydes  were  already  in  the  enemy's  country  ;  and 
the  king,  with  the  main  body  of  his  army,  was  on  his  march  to  support  them, 
and  had  just  entered  the  town  of  Leontini.38  The  road,  which  was  also  the  prin- 
cipal street  of  the  city,  lay  through  a  narrow  gorge,  with  abrupt  cliffs  on  each 
side ;  and  the  houses  ran  along  in  a  row,  nestling  under  the  western  cliff,  and 
facing  towards  the  small  river  Lissus,  which  flowed  through  the  gorge  between 
the  town  and  the  eastern  cliff.13  An  empty  house  in  this  street  had  been  occu- 
pied by  the  conspirators :  when  the  king  came  opposite  to  it,  one  of  their  num- 
ber, who  was  one  of  the  king's  guards,  and  close  to  his  person,  stopped  just  be- 
hind him,  as  if  something  had  caught  his  foot ;  and  whilst  he  seemed  trying  to 
get  free,  he  checked  the  advance  of  the  following  multitude,  and  left  the  king  to 
go  on  a  few  steps  unattended.  At  that  moment  the  conspirators  rushed  out  of 
the  house  and  murdered  him.  So  sudden  was  the  act,  that  his  guards  could  not 
save  him :  seeing  him  dead,  they  were  seized  with  a  panic  and  dispersed.  The 
murderers  hastened,  some  into  the  market-place  of  Leontini,  to  raise  the  cry  of 
liberty  there,  and  others  to  Syracuse,  to  anticipate  the  king's  friends,  and  secure 
the  city  for  themselves  and  the  Romans.34 

Their  tidings,  however,  had  flown  before  them ;  and  Andranodorus,  the  king's 
uncle,  had  already  secured  the  island  of  Ortygia,  the  oldest  part  insarrection  at  syr«- 
of  Syracuse,  in  which  was  the  citadel,  and  where  Hiero  and  Hie-  cu'e- 
ronymus  had  resided*35  The  assassins  arrived  just  at  nightfall,  displaying  the 
bloody  robe  of  Hieronymus,  and  the  diadem  which  they  had  torn  from  his  head, 
and  calling  the  people  to  rise  in  the  name  of  liberty.  This  call  was  obeyed  :  all 
the  city,  except  the  island,  was  presently  in  their  power ;  and  in  the  island  itself 
a  strong  building,  which  was  used  as  a  great  corn  magazine  for  the  supply  of 
the  whole  city,  was  no  sooner  seized  by  those  whom  Andranodorus  had  sent  to 
occupy  it,  than  they  offered  to  deliver  it  up  to  the  opposite  party.36 

The  general  feeling  being  thus  manifested,  Andranodorus  yielded  to  it.  He 
surrendered  the  keys  of  the  citadel  and  of  the  treasury ;  and  in  Murder  of  Andranodo. 
return  he  and  Themistus,  who  had  married  a  sister  of  Hieronymus,  rus  and  Themi9tu»> 
were  elected  among  the  captains-general  of  the  commonwealth,  to  whom,  ac- 
cording to  the  old  Syracusan  constitution,  the  executive  government  was  to  be 
committed.  But  their  colleagues  were  mostly  chosen  from  the  assassins  of  Hie- 
ronymus ;  and  between  such  opposites  there  could  be  no  real  union.  Suspicions 
and  informations  of  plots  were  not  long  wanting.  An  actor  told  the  majority  of 
the  captains-general,  that  Andranodorus  and  Themistus  were  conspiring  to  mas- 
sacre them  and  the  other  leaders  of  their  party,  and  to  re-establish  the  tyranny : 
the  charge  was  made  out  to  the  satisfaction  of  those  who  were  so  well  disposed 
to  believe  it :  they  stationed  soldiers  at  the  doors  of  the  council-chamber ;  and 
as  soon  as  Andranodorus  and  Themistus  entered,  the  soldiers  rushed  in  and  mur- 
dered them.37  The  members  of  the  council  decided  that  they  were  rightfully 
slain  ;  but  the  multitude  were  inclined  to  believe  them  less  guilty  than  their  mur- 
derers, and  beset  the  council,  calling  for  vengeance.  They  were  persuaded,  how- 
ever, to  hear  what  the  perpetrators  of  the  deed  could  say  in  its  defence ;  and 
Sopater,  one  of  the  captains-general,  who  was  concerned  both  in  the  recent  mur- 
der and  in  that  of  Hieronymus,  arose  to  justify  himself  and  his  party.  The  tyr- 
annies in  the  ancient  world  were  so  hateful,  that  they  were  put  by  common 

81  Polybius,  VII.  2.  Livy,  XXIV.  5.                     »  Livy,  XXIV.  21. 

82  Livy.  XXIV.  7.  *  Livy,  XXIV.  21,  22. 
M  Polybius,  VII.  6.  «  Livy,  XXIV.  23,  24. 
84  Livy,  XXIV.  7. 


548  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CnAr.XLV 

feeling  out  of  the  pale  of  ordinary  law :  when  Sopater  accused  Andranodorus  and 
Themistus  of  having  been  the  real  authors  of  all  the  outrages  committed  by  the 
boy  Hieronymus;  when  he  inveighed  against  their  treacherous  submission  tc 
their  country's  laws,  and  against  their  ingratitude  in  plotting  the  deaths  of  those 
who  had  so  nobly  forgiven  all  their  past  offences  ;  and  when  he  said,  finally,  that 
they  had  been  instigated  to  all  these  crimes  by  their  wives,  that  Hiero's  daugh- 
ter and  grand-daughter  could  not  condescend  to  live  in  a  private  station ;  there 
arose  a  cry  from  some,  probably  of  their  own  tutored  partisans,  which  the  whole 
multitude,  in  fear  or  in  passion,  immediately  echoed,  "  Death  to  the  whole  race 
of  the  tyrants  ;  not  one  of  them  shall  be  suffered  to  live."38 

They  who  had  purposely  roused  the  multitude  to  fury,  were  instantly  ready 
and  of  aii  the  descend-  to  secure  it  for  their  own  bloody  ends.  The  captains-general  pro- 
posed a  decree  for  the  execution  of  every  person  of  the  race  of 
the  tyrants ;  and  the  instant  it  was  passed,  they  sent  parties  of  soldiers  to  carry 
it  into  effect.  Thus  the  wives  of  Andranodorus  and  Themistus  were  butchered : 
but  there  was  another  daughter  of  Hiero,  the  wife  of  Zoippus,  who  was  so  far 
from  sharing  in  the  tyranny  of  Hieronymus,  that  when  sent  by  him  as  his  am- 
bassador to  Egypt,  he  had  chosen  to  live  there  in  exile.  His  innocent  wife,  with 
her  two  young  maiden  daughters,  were  included  in  the  general  proscription. 
They  took  refuge  at  the  altar  of  their  household  gods,  but  in  vain :  the  mother 
was  dragged  from  her  sanctuary  and  murdered;  the  daughters  fled  wildly  into 
the  outer  court  of  the  palace,  in  the  hope  of  escaping  into  the  street,  and  appeal- 
ing to  the  humanity  of  the  passers-by ;  but  they  were  pursued  and  cut  down  by 
repeated  wounds.  Ere  the  deed  was  done,  a  messenger  caine  to  say  that  the 
people  had  revoked  their  sentence  ;  which  seems  to  show  that  the  captains- 
general  had  taken  advantage  of  some  expressions  of  violence,  and  had  done  in 
the  people's  name  what  the  people  had  never  in  earnest  agreed  to.  At  any  rate, 
their  rage  was  now  loud  against  their  bloody  government ;  and  they  insisted  on 
having  a  free  election  of  captains-general  to  supply  the  places  of  Andranodorus 
and  Themistus ;  a  demand  which  implies  that  some  preceding  resolutions  or  votes 
of  the  popular  assembly  had  been  passed  under  undue  influence.39 

The  party  which  favored  the  Roman  alliance  had  done  all  that  wickedness 
The  carthagmian  party  could  to  make  themselves  odious.  The  reaction  against  them  was 
natural ;  yet  the  same  foreign  policy  which  these  butchers  sup- 
ported, had  been  steadily  pursued  by  the  wise  and  moderate  Hiero.  Every  party 
in  that  corrupt  city  of  Syracuse  wore  an  aspect  of  evil :  the  partisans  of  Car- 
thage were  in  nothing  better  than  those  of  Rome.  When  Hieronymus  had  been 
murdered,  Hippocrates  and  Epicydes  were  at  the  moment  deserted  by  their  sol- 
diers, and  returned  to  Syracuse  as  private  individuals.  There  they  applied  to 
the  government  for  an  escort  to  convey  them  back  to  Hannibal  in  safety :  but 
the  escort  was  not  provided  immediately ;  and  in  the  interval  they  perceived  that 
they  could  serve  Hannibal  better  by  remaining  in  Sicily.  They  found  many 
amongst  the  mercenary  soldiers  of  the  late  king,  and  amongst  the  poorer  citizens, 
who  readily  listened  to  them,  when  they  accused  the  captains-general  of  selling 
the  independence  of  Syracuse  to  Rome  ;  and  their  party  was  so  strengthened  by 
the  atrocities  of  the  government,  that,  when  the  election  was  held  to  choose  two 
new  captains-general  in  the  place  of  Andranodorus  and  Themistus,  Hippocrates 
and  Epicydes  were  nominated  and  triumphantly  elected.40  Again,  therefore,  the 
government  was  divided  within  itself ;  and  Hippocrates  and  Epicydes  had  been 
taught  by  the  former  conduct  of  their  colleagues  that  one  party  or  the  other  must 
perish. 

The  Roman  party  had  immediately  suspended  hostilities  with  Rome,  obtained 
a  truce  from  Appius  Claudius  renewable  every  ten  days,  and  sent  ambassadors  tc 

38  Livy,  XXIV.  25.  *  Livy,  XXIV.  23,  27. 

»  Livy,  XXIV.  26. 


CHAP.  XLV.]  MARCELLUS  ARRIVES  IN  SICILY.  549 

him  to  solicit  the  revival  of  Hiero's  treaty.     A  Roman  fleet  of  a 
hundred  ships  was  lying  off  the  coast  a  little  to  the  north  of  Syr-  toetiie°m~uthceof*the 
acuse,  which  the  Romans,  on  the  first  suspicion  of  the  defection  of 
Hieronymus,  had   manned  by  the  most   extraordinary  exertions,  and   sent   to 
Sicily.     On  the  other  hand,  Himilco,  with  a  small  Carthaginian  fleet,  was  at  Pa- 
chynus,  Rome  and  Carthage  each  anxiously  watching  the  course  of  events  in 
Syracuse,  and  each  being  ready  to  support  its  party  there.     Matters  were  nicely 
balanced ;  and  the  Roman  fleet,  in  the  hope  of  turning  the  scale,  sailed  to  Syra- 
cuse, and  stationed  itself  at  the  mouth  of  the  great  harbor.41 

Strengthened  by  this  powerful  aid,  the  Roman  party  triumphed ;  even  moder- 
ate men  not  wishing  to  provoke  an  enemy  who  was  already  at  their 
gates.  The  old  league  with  Rome  was  renewed,  with  the  stipu-  ™me*\te*m0™power' 
lation,  that  whatever  cities  in  Sicily  had  been  subject  to  king  Hiero 
should  now  in  like  manner  be  under  the  dominion  of  the  Syracusan  people.  It- 
appears  that,  since  the  murder  of  Hieronymus,  his  kingdom  had  gone  to  pieces, 
many  of  the  towns,  and  Leontini  in  particular,  asserting  their  independence. 
These  were,  like  Syracuse,  in  a  state  of  hostility  against  Rome,  owing  to  Hie- 
ronymus' revolt ;  but  they  had  no  intention  of  submitting  again  to  the  Syracusan 
dominion.  Still,  when  the  Romans  threatened  them,  they  sent  to  Syracuse  for 
aid  ;  and  as  the  Syracusan  treaty  with  Rome  was  not  yet  ratified  or  made  public, 
the  government  could  not  decline  their  request.  Hippocrates  accordingly  was' 
sent  to  Leortini,  with  a  small  army,  consisting  chiefly  of  deserters  from  the  Ro- 
man fleet :  for,  in  the  exigency  of  the  time,  the  fleet  had  been  manned  by  t^aves 
furnished  by  private  families  in  a  certain  proportion,  according  to  their  census  ; 
and  the  men  thus  provided,  being  mostly  unused  to  the  sea,  and  forced  into  the 
service,  deserted  in  unusually  large  numbers,  insomuch  that  there  were  two 
thousand  of  them  in  the  party  which  Hippocrates  led  to  the  defence  of  Leon- 
tini.42 

This  auxiliary  force  did  good  service  ;  and  Appius  Claudius,  who  commanded 
the  Roman  army,  was  obliged  to  stand  on  the  defensive.  Mean-  M^ceiii*  arrive,  in 
while  M.  Marcellus  had  arrived  in  Sicily,  having  been  sent  over  SS?^tft<c£4a£! 
thither,  as  we  have  seen,  after  the  close  of  the  campaign  in  Italy,  ian  Party- 
to  take  the  supreme  command.  As  the  negotiations  with  Syracuse  were  now 
concluded,  Marcellus  required  that  Hippocrates  should  be  recalled  from  Leontini, 
and  that  both  he  and  Epicydes  should  be  banished  from  Sicily.  Epicydes  upon 
this,  feeling  that  his  personal  safety  was  risked  by  remaining  longer  at  Syracuse, 
went  also  to  Leontini ;  and  both  he  and  his  brother  inveighed  loudly  against  the 
Roman  party  who  were  in  possession  of  the  government ;  they  had  betrayed 
their  country  to  Rome,  and  were  endeavoring,  with  the  help  of  the  Romans,  to 
enslave  the  o.ther  cities  of  Sicily,  and  to  subject  them  to  their  own  dominion. 
Accordingly,  when  some  officers  arrived  from  Syracuse,  requiring  the  Leontines 
to  submit,  and  announcing  to  Hippocrates  and  Epicydes  their  sentence  of  expul- 
sion from  Sicily,  they  were  answered,  that  the  Leontines  would  not  acknowledge 
the  Syracusan  government,  nor  were  they  bound  by  its  treaties.  This  answer 
being  reported  to  Syracuse,  the  leaders  of  the  Roman  party  called  upon  Marcel- 
lus to  fulfil  his  agreement  with  them,  and  to  reduce  Leontini  to  submission.4* 
That  city  was  now  the  refuge  and  centre  of  the  popular  party  in  Sicily,  as 
Samos  had  been  in  Greece,  when  the  four  hundred  usurped  the  government  of 
Athens  ;  and  Hippocrates  and  Epicydes  looked  upon  their  army  as  the  true  rep- 
resentative of  the  Syracusan  people,  just  as  Thrasybulus  and  Thrasyllus,  and  the 
Athenian  fleet  at  Samos,  regarded  themselves,  during  the  tyranny  of  the  aristo- 
cratical  party  at  home,  as  the  true  people  of  Athens. 

But,  as  we  have  noticed  more  than  once  before,  nothing  could  less  resemble 


41  Livy,  XXIV.  27.  «  Livy,  XXIV.  29. 

43  Livy,  XXIV.  28,  29. 


550  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLV 

Harbin,  take,  L«on.  the  slowness  and  feebleness  of  Sparta  than  the  tremendous  energy 
tim;  hi.crueitie.ther.  of  Rome.  The  praetor's  army  in  Sicily  at  the  beginning  of  the 
year  consisted  of  two  legions  ;  and  it  is  probable  that  Marcellus  had  brought 
one  at  least  of  the  two  legions  which  had  formed  his  consular  army.  With  this 
powerful  force  Marcellus  instantly  attacked  Leontini,  and  stormed  it ;  and  in  ad- 
dition to  the  usual  carnage  on  the  sack  of  a  town,  he  scourged  and  in  cold  blood 
beheaded  two  thousand  of  the  Roman  deserters,  whom  he  found  bearing  arms  in 
the  army  of  Hippocrates  ;  Hippocrates  and  his  brother  escaping  only  with  a 
handful  of  "men,  and  taking  refuge  in  the  neighboring  town  of  Herbessus.44 

For  nearly  thirty  years  war  had  been  altogether  unknown  in  Sicily  ;  fifty  years 
•mite  general  indigna-  had  passed  since  a  hostile  army  had  made  war  in  the  territory  ol 
Syracuse.  All  men  therefore  were  struck  with  horror  at  the  fate 
of  Leontini :  if  2Etna  had  rolled  down  his  lava  flood  upon  the  town,  its  destruc- 
tion would  scarcely  have  been  more  sudden  and  terrible.  But  with  horror  in- 
dignation was  largely  mingled :  the  bloodiness  of  the  Romans  in  the  sack  of 
towns  went  far  beyond  the  ordinary  practice  of  the  Greeks ;  the  Syracusan 
government  had  betrayed  their  countrymen  of  Leontini  to  barbarians  more  cruel 
than  the  Mamertines. 

The  tidings  spread  far  and  wide,  and  met  a  Syracusan  army,  which  two  of 
The  Syracusan  army  the  captains-general,  Sosis  and  Dinomenes,  both  of  them  assassins 
refuw.  to  march,  Qf  jjieronymus,  and  devoted  to  the  cause  of  Rome,  were  leading 
out  to  co-operate  with  Marcellus.  The  soldiers,  full  of  grief  and  fury,  refused 
to  advance  a  step  further :  their  blood,  they  said,  would  be  sold  to  the  Romans, 
like  that  of  their  brethren  at  Leontini.  The  generals  were  obliged  to  lead  them 
back  to  Megara,  within  a  few  miles  of  Syracuse :  then  hearing  that  Hippocrates 
and  Epicydes  were  at  Herbessus,  and  dreading  their  influence  at  a  moment 
like  this,  they  led  their  troops  to  attack  the  town  where  they  had  taken  refuge.45 

Hippocrates  and  his  brother  threw  open  the  gates  of  Herbessus,  and  came  out 
and  to  act  asainBt  Hip.  to  meet  them.  At  the  head  of  the  Syracusan  army  marched  six 
pocrate.  and  Epicydes.  hun(jre(i  Cretans,  old  soldiers  in  Hiero's  service,  whom  he  had 
sent  over  into  Italy  to  act  as  light  troops  in  the  Roman  army  against  Hannibal's 
barbarians,  but  who  had  been  taken  prisoners  at  Thrasymenus,  and  with  the 
other  allies  or  auxiliaries  of  Rome  had  been  sent  home  by  Hannibal  unhurt. 
They  now  saw  Hippocrates  and  Epicydes  coming  towards  them  with  no  hostile 
array,  but  holding  out  branches  of  olive  tufted  here  and  there  with  wool,  the 
well-known  signs  of  a  suppliant.  They  heard  them  praying  to  be  saved  from  the 
treachery  of  the  Syracusan  generals,  who  were  pledged  to  deliver  up  all  foreign 
soldiers  serving  in  Sicily  to  the  vengeance  of  the  Romans.  The  Cretans  felt  that 
the  cause  of  Hippocrates  and  Epicydes  was  their  own,  and  swore  to  protect  them. 
In  vain  did  Sosis  and  Dinomenes  ride  forward  to  the  head  of  the  column,  and 
trying  what  could  be  done  by  authority,  order  the  instant  arrest  of  the  two  sup- 
pliants. They  were  driven  off  with  threats;  the  feeling  began  to  spread  through 
the  army ;  and  the  Syracusan  generals  had  no  resource  but  to  march  back  to 
Megara,  leaving  the  Cretan  auxiliaries,  it  seems,  with  Hippocrates  and  Epicydes 
in  a  state  of  open  revolt.46 

Meantime  the  Cretans  sent  out  parties  to  beset  the  roads  leading  to  Leontini ; 
Triumph  of  the  popular  and  a  letter  was  intercepted,  addressed  by  the  Syracusan  generals 
party  m  Syracuse.  ^  Marcellus,  congratulating  him  on  his  exploit  at  Leontini,  and 
urging  him  to  complete  his  work  by  the  extermination  of  every  foreign  soldier  in 
the  service  of  Syracuse.  Hippocrates  took  care  that  the  purport  of  this  letter 
should  be  quickly  made  known  to  the  army  at  Megara ;  and  he  followed  closely 
with  the  Cretans  to  watch  the  result.  The  army  broke  out  into  mutiny  :  Sosia 
and  Dinomenes,  protesting  in  vain  that  the  letter  was  a  mere  forgery  of  the 

«•  Livy,  XXIV.  30.  "  Livy,  XXIV.  30,  31, 

•  Livy,  XXIV.  30. 


OHAP.  XLV.]  DISSENSIONS  IN  SYRACUSE.  551 

enemy,  were  obliged  to  escape  for  their  lives  to  Syracuse  :  even  the  Syracusar. 
soldiers  were  accused  of  sharing  in  their  generals'  treason,  and  were  for  a  time  in 
great  danger  from  the  fury  of  the  foreigners,  their  comrades.  But  Hippocrates 
and  Epicydes  prevented  this  mischief,  and  being  received  as  leaders  by  the  whole 
army,  set  out  forthwith  for  Syracuse.  They  sent  a  soldier  before  them,  most 
probably  a  native  Syracusan,  who  had  escaped  from  the  sack  of  Leontini,  and 
could  tell  his  countrymen  as  an  eye-witness  what  acts  of  bloodshed,  outrage, 
and  rapine  the  Romans  had  committed  there.  Even  in  moderate  men,  who  for 
Hiero's  sake  were  well  inclined  to  Rome,  the  horrors  of  Leontini  overpowered  all 
other  thoughts  and  feelings :  within  Syracuse  and  without,  all  followed  one 
common  impulse.  When  Hippocrates  and  Epicydes  arrived  at  the  gates,  the 
citizens  threw  them  open :  the  captains-general  in  vain  endeavored  to  close  them ; 
they  fled  to  Achradina,  the  lower  part  of  the  city,  with  such  of  the  Syracusan 
soldiers  as  still  adhered  to  them,  whilst  the  stream  of  the  hostile  army  burst 
down  the  slope  of  Epipolse,  and,  swelled  by  all  the  popular  party,  the  foreign 
soldiers,  and  the  old  guards  of  Hiero  and  Hieronymus,  came  sweeping  after  them 
with  irresistible  might.  Achradina  was  carried  in  an  instant ;  some  of  the  cap- 
tains-general were  massacred ;  Sosis  escaped  to  add  the  betrayal  of  his  country 
hereafter  to  his  multiplied  crimes.  The  confusion  raged  wild  and  wide ;  slaves 
were  set  free ;  prisoners  were  let  loose ;  and  amidst  the  horrors  of  a  violent 
revolution,  under  whatever  name  effected,  the  popular  party,  the  party  friendly 
to  Carthage,  and  adverse  to  aristocracy  and  to  Rome,  obtained  the  sovereignty 
of  Syracuse.47 

Sosis,  now  in  his  turn  a  fugitive,  escaped  to  Leontini,  and  told  Marcellus  of  the 
violence  done  to  the  friends  of  Rome.  The  fiery  old  man,  as  ve-  A  n  c  54I  A  c 
hement  at  sixty  against  his  country's  enemies,  as  when  he  slew  the  213.  MarceiiuibwUfn 
Gaulish  king  in  single  combat  in  his  first  consulship,  immediately  yrac 
moved  his  army  upon  Syracuse.  He  encamped  by  the  temple  of  Olympian 
Jupiter,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Anapus,  where  two  solitary  pillars  still  remain, 
and  serve  as  a  sea-mark  to  guide  ships  into  the  great  harbor.  Appius  Claudius 
with  the  fleet  beset  the  city  by  sea ;  and  Marcellus  did  not  doubt  that  in  the 
wide  extent  of  the  Syracusan  walls  some  unguarded  spot  would  be  found,  and 
that  the  punishment  of  Leontini  would  soon  be  effaced  by  a  more  memorable  ex- 
ample of  vengeance.48 

Thus  was  commenced  the  last  siege  of  Syracuse ;  a  siege  not  inferior  in  in- 
terest to  the  two  others  which  it  had  already  undergone,  from  the 
Athenians,  and  from  the  Carthaginians.     It  should  be  remem-    : 
bered  that  the  city  walls  now  embraced  the  whole  surface  of  Epipolse,  terminat- 
ing, like  the  lines  of  Genoa,  in  an  angle  formed  by  the  converging  sides  of  the 
hill  or  inclined  table-land,  at  the  point  where  it  becomes  no  more  than  a  narrow 
ridge,  stretching  inland,  and  connecting  itself  with  the  hills  of  the  interior.     The 
Romans  made  their  land  attack  on  the  south  front  of  the  walls,  while  their  fleet, 
unable,  as  it  seems,  to  enter  the  great  harbor,  carried  on  its  assaults  against  the 
sea-wall  of  Achradina. 

The  land  attack  was  committed  to  Appius  Claudius,  while  Marcellus  in  person 
conducted  the  operations  of  the  fleet.  The  Roman  army  is  spoken  ig  ^^^  by  Archiine. 
of  as  large,  but  no  details  of  its  force  are  given :  it  cannot  have  des> 
been  less  than  twenty  thousand  men,  and  was  probably  more  numerous.  No 
force  in  Sicily,  whether  of  Syracusans  or  Carthaginians,  could  have  resisted  it  in 
the  field ;  and  it  had  lately  stormed  the  walls  of  Leontini  as  easily,  to  use  the 
meric  comparison,  as  a  child  tramples  out  the  towers  and  castles  which  he  has 
atched  upon  the  sand  of  the  sea-shore.  But  at  Syracuse  it  was  checked  by 
artillery  such  as  the  Romans  had  never  encountered  before,  and  which,  had 
nnibal  possessed  it,  would  long  since  have  enabled  him  to  bring  the  war  to  a 

47  Livy,  XXIV.  31,  32.  «  Livy,  XXIV.  33. 


552  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLV 

triumphant  issue.  An  old  man  of  seventy-four,  a  relation  and  friend  of  king 
Hiero,  long  known  as  one  of  the  ablest  astronomers  and  mathematicians  of  his 
age,  now  proved  that  his  science  was  no  less  practical  than  deep ;  and  amid  all 
the  crimes  and  violence  of  contending  factions,  he  alone  won  the  pure  glory  ot 
defending  his  country  successfully  against  a  foreign  enemy.  This  old  man  was 
Archimedes.49 

Many  years  before,  at  Hiero's  request,  he  had  contrived  the  engines  which 
H»  «treordinary  en-  were  now  used  so  effectively.60  Marcellus  brought  up  his  ships 
gum  todefoid  the  city,  against  the  sea-wall  of  Achradina,  and  endeavored  by  a  constant 
discharge  of  stones  and  arrows  to  clear  the  walls  of  their  defenders,  so  that  his 
men  might  apply  their  ladders,  and  mount  to  the  assault.  These  ladders  rested 
on  two  ships  lashed  together  broadside  to  broadside,  and  worked  as  one  by  their 
outside  oars ;  and  when  the  two  ships  were  brought  close  up  under  the  wall,  one 
end  of  the  ladder  was  raised  by  ropes  passing  through  blocks  affixed  to  the  two 
mast-heads  of  the  two  vessels,  and. was  then  let  go,  till  it  rested  on  the  top  of  the 
wall.  But  Archimedes  had  supplied  the  ramparts  with  an  artillery  so  powerful, 
that  it  overwhelmed  the  Romans  before  they  could  get  within  the  range  which 
their  missiles  could  reach  ;  and  when  they  came  closer,  they  found  that  all  the 
lower  part  of  the  wall  was  loopholed ;  and  their  men  were  struck  down  with  fatal 
aim  by  an  enemy  whom  they  could  not  see,  and  who  shot  his  arrows  in  perfect 
security.  If  they  still  persevered,  and  attempted  to  fix  their  ladders,  on  a  sudden 
they  saw  long  poles  thrust  out  from  the  top  of  the  wall,  like  the  arms  of  a  giant ; 
and  enormous  stones,  or  huge  masses  of  lead,  were  dropped  from  these  upon 
them,  by  which  their  ladders  were  crushed  to  pieces,  and  their  ships  were  almost 
sunk.  At  other  times  machines  like  cranes,  or  such  as  are  used  at  the  turnpikes 
in  Germany,  and  in  the  market-gardens  round  London,  to  draw  water,  were  thrust 
out  over  the  wall ;  and  the  end  of  the  lever,  with  an  iron  grapple  affixed  to  it, 
was  lowered  upon  the  Roman  ships.  As  soon  as  the  grapple  had  taken  hold, 
the  other  end  of  the  lever  was  lowered  by  heavy  weights,  and  the  ship  raised 
out  of  the  water,  till  it  was  made  almost  to  stand  upon  its  stern ;  then  the  grap- 
ple was  suddenly  let  go,  and  the  ship  dropped  into  the  sea  with  a  violence  which 
either  upset  it,  or  filled  it  with  water.  With  equal  power  was  the  assault  on  the 
land  side  repelled ;  and  the  Roman  soldiers,  bold  as  they  were,  were  so  daunted 
by  these  strange  and  irresistible  devices,  that  if  they  saw  so  much  as  a  rope  or 
a  stick  hanging  or  projecting  from  the  wall,  they  would  turn  about  and  run  away, 
crying,  "  that  Archimedes  was  going  to  set  one  of  his  engines  at  work  against 
them."  Their  attempts,  indeed,  were  a  mere  amusement  to  the  enemy,  till  Mar- 
cellus,  in  despair,  put  a  stop  to  his  attacks ;  and  it  was  resolved  merely  to  block- 
ade the  town,  and  to  wait  for  the  effect  of  famine  upon  the  crowded  population 
within.51 

Thus  far,  keeping  our  eyes  fixed  upon  Syracuse  only,  we  can  give  a  clear  and 
Difficult,  in  the  histo-  probable  account  of  the  course  of  events.  But  when  we  would 
n  of  the  Sicilian  war.  extenci  our  view  further,  and  connect  the  war  in  Sicily  with  that 
m  Italy,  and  give  the  relative  dates  of  the  actions  performed  in  the  several  coun- 
tries involved  in  this  great  contest,  we  see  the  wretched  character  of  our  mate- 
rials, and  must  acknowledge  that,  in  order  to  give  a  comprehensive  picture  of  the 
whole  war,  we  have  to  supply,  by  inference  or  conjecture,  what  no  actual  testi- 
mony has  recorded.  We  do  not  know  for  certain  when  Marcellus  came  intc 
Sicily,  when  he  began  the  siege  of  Syracuse,  or  how  long  the  blockade  was  con- 
tinued. We  read  of  Roman  and  Carthaginian  fleets  appearing  and  disappearing 
at  different  times  in  the  Sicilian  seas ;  but  of  the  naval  operations  on  either  side 
we  can  give  no  connected  report.  Other  difficulties  present  themselves,  of  nc 
great  importance,  but  perplexing  because  they  shake  our  confidence  in  the  narra- 

•  Livy,  XXIV.  34.    Polybius,  VIII.  7.  "  Polybius,    VIII.    6-9.    Livy,   XXIV.   84, 

*  Plutarch,  Marcellus,  14.  Plutarch,  Marcellus,  15-17. 


CHAP.  XLV.j  WAR  IN  SICIL1.  553 

live  which  contains  them.  So  easy  is  it  to  transcribe  the  ancient  writers ;  so 
hard  to  restore  the  reality  of  those  events  of  which  they  themselves  had  no  clear 
conception. 

The  first  attacks  upon  Syracuse  are  certainly  misplaced  by  Livy,  when  he 
classes  them  among  the  events  of  the  year  540.52  The  Sicilian 
war  belongs  to  the  year  following,  to  the  consulship  of  Q.  Fabius, 
the  dictator's  son,  and  of  Ti.  Gracchus.  Even  when  this  is  set  right,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  reconcile  Polybius'  statement,53  "  that  the  blockade  of  Syracuse  lasted 
eight  months,"  with  the  account  which  places  the  capture  of  the  city  in  the  au- 
tumn of  542.  Instead  of  eight  months,  the  blockade  would  seem  to  have  lasted 
for  more  than  twelve :  nor  is  there  any  other  solution  of  this  difficulty,  than  to 
suppose  that  the  blockade  was  not  persevered  in  to  the  end,  and  was  in  fact 
given  up  as  useless,  as  the  assaults  had  been  before.  I  notice  these  points,  be- 
cause the  narrative  which  follows  is  uncertain  and  unsatisfactory,  and  no  care  can 
make  it  otherwise. 

The  year  541  saw  the  whole  stress  of  the  war  directed  upon  Sicily.  Little  or 
nothing,  if  we  can  trust  our  accounts,  was  done  in  Italy ;  there  was  sicily  be(X)mea  thd 
a  pause  also  in  the  operations  in  Spain;  but  throughout  Sicily  the  maiu seat of war< 
contest  was  raging  furiously.  Four  Roman  officers  were  employed  there :  P. 
Cornelius  Lentulus  held  the  old  Roman  province,  that  is,  the  western  part  of  the 
island ;  and  his  head-quarters  were  at  Lilybaeum :  T.  Otacilius  had  ihe  command 
of  the  fleet  :54  Appius  Claudius  and  Marcellus  carried  on  the  war  in  the  kingdom 
of  Syracuse ;  the  latter  certainly  as  proconsul ;  the  former  as  propraetor,  or  pos- 
sibly only  as  the  lieutenant,  legatus,  of  the  proconsul.  Marcellus,  however,  as 
proconsul,  must  have  had  the  supreme  command  over  the  island ;  and  all  its  re- 
sources must  have  been  at  his  disposal ;  so  that  the  fleet  which  he  conducted  in 
person  at  the  siege  of  Syracuse,  was  probably  a  part  of  that  committed  to  T. 
Otacilius,  Otacilius  himself  either  serving  under  the  proconsul,  or  possibly  remain- 
ing still  at  Lilybseum.  It  is  remarkable  that,  although  he  is  said  to  have  had 
the  command  of  the  fleet  continued  to  him  for  five  successive  years,55  yet  his 
name  never  occurs  as  taking  an  active  part  in  the  siege  of  Syracuse ;  and  how 
he  employed  himself  we  know  not.  Nor  is  it  less  singular  that  he  should  have 
retained  his  naval  command  year  after  year,  though  he  was  so  meanly  esteemed 
by  the  most  influential  men  in  Rome,  that  his  election  to  the  consulship  was  twice 
stopped  in  the  most  decided  manner,  first  by  Q.  Fabius  in  540,  and  again  by  T. 
Manlius  Torquatus  in  544.56  But  the  clue  to  this,  as  to  other  things  which  be- 
long to  the  living  knowledge  of  these  times,  is  altogether  lost. 

While  the  whole  of  Sicily  was  become  the  scene  of  war,  an  army  of  nine  or 
ten  thousand  old  soldiers  was  purposely  kept  inactive  by  the  Ro- 

1  x  II  i     ,         ,     i  •  Wise    conduct    of    tha 

man  government,  and  was  not  even  allowed  to  take  part  m  any  semite  tow,mis  the  fu. 
active  operations.  These  were  the  remains  of  the  army  of  Canute,  8' 

d  a  number  of  citizens  who  had  evaded  their  military  service :  as  we  have  seen 
ey  had  been  all  sent  to  Sicily  in  disgrace,  not  to  be  recalled  till  the  end  of  the 
ar."  Now,  however,  that  there  was  active  service  required  in  Sicily  itself, 
ese  condemned  soldiers  petitioned  Marcellus  that  they  might  be  employed  in 
the  field,  and  have  some  opportunity  of  retrieving  their  character.  This  petition 
was  presented  to  him  at  the  end  of  the  first  year's  campaign  in  Sicily,  and  was 
referred  by  him  to  the  senate.  The  answer  was  remarkable :  "  The  senate  could 
see  no  reason  for  intrusting  the  service  of  the  commonwealth  to  men  who  had 
abandoned  their  comrades  at  Cannte,  while  they  were  fighting  to  the  death :  but 
if  M.  Claudius  thought  differently,  he  might  use  his  discretion  ;  provided  always 
that  none  of  these  soldiers  should  receive  any  honorary  exemption  or  reward, 

Livy,  XXIV.  34.  M  Livy,  XXII.  32.     XXIV.  10,  44.    XXV  8L 

Polybius,  VIII.  9.  XXVI.  1. 

Livy,  XXIV.  10.  M  Livy,  XXIV.  9.    XXVI.  22. 

67  Livy,  XXIII.  25.    See  above,  p.  523. 


f>54  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  CHAP.  XL7 

however  they  might  distinguish  themselves,  nor  be  allowed  to  return  to  Italy 
till  the  enemy  had  quitted  it."58  Here  was  shown  the  consummate  policy  of  the 
Roman  government,  in  holding  out  so  high  a  standard  of  military  duty,  while, 
without  appearing  to  yield  to  circumstances,  they  took  care  not  to  push  their 
severity  so  far  as  to  hurt  themselves.  Occasions  might  arise,  when  the  services 
of  these  disgraced  soldiers  could  not  be  dispensed  with  ;  in  such  a  case  Marcellus 
might  employ  them.  Yet  even  then  their  penalty  was  not  wholly  remitted ;  it 
was  grace  enough  to  let  them  serve  their  country  at  all ;  nothing  that  they  could 
do  was  more  than  their  bounden  duty  of  gratitude  for  the  mercy  shown  them  ; 
they  could  not  deserve  exemption  or  reward.  It  was  the  glory  and  happiness  of 
Rome  that  her  soldiers  could  bear  such  severity.  Sicily  was  full  of  mercenary 
troops,  whose  swords  were  hired  by  foreigners  to  fight  their  battles ;  and  if  these 
disgraced  Romans  had  chosen  to  offer  their  services  to  Carthage,  they  might  have 
enjoyed  wealth  and  honors,  with  full  vengeance  on  their  unforgiving  country. 
Greek  soldiers  at  this  time  would  have  done  so :  the  proudest  of  the  nobility  of 
France  in  the  sixteenth  century  did  not  scruple  to  revenge  his  private  wrongs  by 
treason.  But  these  ten  thousand  Romans,  although  their  case  was  not  only  hard, 
but  grievously  unjust,  inasmuch  as  their  rich  and  noble  countrymen,  who  had 
escaped  like  them  from  Cannae,  had  received  no  punishment,  still  bowed  with  en- 
tire submission  to  their  country's  severity,  and  felt  that  nothing  could  tempt  them 
to  forfeit  the  privilege  of  being  Romans. 

We  must  not  suppose,  however,  that  these  men  were  useless,  even  while  they 
UM  of  these  troo  were  kept  at  a  distance  from  the  actual  field  of  war.  As  soon  as 
Syracuse  became  the  enemy  of  Rome,  it  was  certain  that  the  Car- 
thaginians would  renew  the  struggle  of  the  first  Punic  war  for  the  dominion  of 
Sicily ;  and  the  Roman  province,  from  its  neighborhood  to  Carthage,  was  especi- 
ally exposed  to  invasion.  Lilybseum,  therefore,  and  Drepanum,  Eryx,  and  Panor- 
mus,  required  strong  garrisons  for  their  security ;  and  the  soldiers  of  Cannae,  by 
forming  these  garrisons,  set  other  troops  at  liberty  who  must  otherwise  have  been 
withdrawn  from  active  warfare.  As  it  was,  these  towns  were  never  attacked ; 
and  the  keys  of  Sicily,  Lilybaeum  at  one  end  of  the  island,  and  Messana  at  the 
other,  remained  throughout  in  the  hands  of  the  Romans. 

Yet  the  example  of  Syracuse  produced  a  very  general  effect.  The  cities 
Efforts  of  thit  Carth.v  which  had  belonged  to  Hiero's  kingdom  mostly  followed  it,  un- 
ginmnsia sidiy.  ]ess  w]iere  £}ie  Romans  secured  them  in  time  with  sufficient  gar- 
risons. Himilconi,  the  Carthaginian  commander,  who  had  been  sent  over  to 
Pachynus  with  a  small  fleet  to  watch  the  course  of  events,  sailed  back  to  Car- 
thage, as  soon  as  the  Carthaginian  party  had  gained  possession  of  Syracuse,  and 
urged  the  government  to  increase  its  armaments  in  Sicily.59  Hannibal  wrote  from 
Italy  to  the  same  effect ;  for  Sicily  had  been  his  father's  battle-field  for  five 
years ;  he  had  clung  to  it  till  the  last  moment ;  and  his  son  was  no  less  sensible 
of  its  importance.  Accordingly,  Himilcon  was  supplied  with  an  army,  notwith- 
standing the  pressure  of  the  Numidian  war  in  Africa,  and  landing  on  the  south  coast 
of  Sicily,  he  presently  reduced  Heraclea,  Minoa,  and  Agrigentum,  and  encouraged 
many  of  the  smaller  towns  in  the  interior  of  the  island  to  declare  for  Carthage. 
Hippocrates  broke  out  of  Syracuse  and  joined  him.  Marcellus,  who  had  left  his 
camp  to  quell  the  growing  spirit  of  revolt  among  the  Sicilian  cities,  was  obliged 
to  fall  back  again ;  and  the  enemy,  pursuing  him  closely,  encamped  on  the  banks 
of  the  Anapus.  Meanwhile  a  Carthaginian  fleet  ran  over  to  Syracuse,  and  en- 
tered the  great  harbor ;  its  object  being  apparently  to  provision  the  place,  and 
thus  render  the  Roman  blockade  nugatory.60 

It  was  clear  that  Marcellus  could  not  make  head  against  a  Carthaginian  army 
the  RO-  supported  by  Syracuse  and  half  the  other  cities  of  Sicily. 
The  fleet  also  was  unequal  to  the  service  required  of  it ;  many 

Livy,  XXV.  5-7.  *  Livy,  XXIV.  85.  °°  Livy,  XXIV.  85,  36. 


CHAP.  XLV.]  REVOLT  OF  THE  SICILIANS.  555 

ships  had  probably  been  destroyed  by  Archimedes ;  Lilybeeum  could  not  be  left 
unguarded,  and  some  ships  were  necessarily  kept  there ;  and  in  the  general  re- 
volt of  the  Sicilian  cities,  the  Roman  army  could  not  always  depend  on  being 
supplied  by  land,  and  would  require  corn  to  be  brought  sometimes  from  a  dis- 
tance by  sea.  Besides,  the  reinforcements  which  Marcellus  so  needed  must  be 
sent  in  ships  and  embarked  at  Ostia ;  for  Hannibal's  army  cut  off  all  communica- 
tion by  the  usual  line,  through  Lucania  to  Rhegium,  and  over  the  strait  to  Mes- 
sana.  Thirty  ships  therefore  had  to  sail  back  to  Rome,  to  take  on  board  a  legion 
and  transport  it  to  Panormus ;  from  whence,  by  a  circuitous  route  along  the 
south  coast  of  the  island,  the  fleet  accompanying  it  all  the  way,  it  reached  Mar- 
cellus' head-quarters  safely.  And  now  the  Romans  again  had  the  superiority  by 
sea ;  but  by  land  Himilcon  was  still  master  of  the  field ;  and  the  Roman  garri- 
son at  Murgantia,  a  little  to  the  north  of  Syracuse,  was  betrayed  by  the  inhabit- 
ants into  his  hands.61 

This  example  was  no  doubt  likely  to  be  followed,  and  should  have  increased 
the  vigilance  of  the  Roman  garrisons.  But  it  was  laid  hold  of  by  Ma8Mcre  of  the  inhab- 
it Pinarius,  the  governor  of  Enna,  as  a  pretence  for  repeating  the  Ua"l8ofEuna- 
crime  of  the  Campanians  at  Rhegium,  and  of  the  Prsenestines  more  recently  at 
Casilinurn.  Standing  in  the  centre  of  Sicily  on  the  top  of  a  high  mountain  plat- 
form, and  fenced  by  precipitous  cliffs  on  almost  every  side,  Eana  was  a  strong- 
hold nearly  impregnable,  except  by  treachery  from  within ;  and  whatever  became 
of  the  Roman  cause  in  Sicily,  the  holders  of  Enna  might  hope  to  retain  it,  as  the 
Mamertines  had  kept  Messana.  Accordingly  Pinarius,  having  previously  prepared 
his  soldiers  for  what  was  to  be  done,  on  a  signal  given  ordered  them  to  fall 
upon  the  people  of  Enna,  when  assembled  in  the  theatre,  and  massacred  them 
without  distinction.  The  plunder  of  the  town  Pinarius  and  his  soldiers  kept  to 
themselves,  with  the  consent  of  Marcellus,  who  allowed  the  necessity  of  the  times 
to  be  an  apology  for  the  deed.62 

The  Romans  alleged  that  the  people  of  Enna  were  only  caught  in  their  own 
snare  ;    that  they  had  invited  Hippocrates  and  Himilcon  to  at- 

,  .  i   i       i          •    i       ,    •     i  t       T-»-  •          Revolt  of  the  Sicilian*: 

tack  the  city,  and  had  vainly  tried  to  persuade  Pinarius  to  give  Man»uu«  *»««•  be- 
them  the  keys  of  the  gates,  that  they  might  admit  the  enemy  to 
destroy  the  garrison.  But  the  Sicilians  saw  that,  if  the  people  of  Enna  had 
meditated  treachery,  the  Romans  had  practised  it:  a  whole  people  had  been 
butchered,  their  city  plundered,  and  their  wives  and  children  made  slaves,  when 
they  were  peaceably  met  in  the  theatre  in  their  regular  assembly.;  and  this  new 
outrage,  added  to  the  sack  of  Leontini,  led  to  an  almost  general  revolt.  Marcel- 
lus having  collected  some  corn  from  the  rich  plains  of  Leontini,  carried  it  to  the 
camp  before  Syracuse,  and  made  his  dispositions  for  his  winter-quarters.  Ap- 
pius  Claudius  went  home  to  stand  for  the  consulship,  and  was  succeeded  in  his 
command  by  T.  Quinctius  Crispinus,  a  brave  soldier,  who  was  afterwards  Mar- 
cellus' colleague  as  consul,  and  received  his  death-wound  by  his  side,  when 
Marcellus  was  killed  by  Hannibal's  ambush.  Crispinus  lay  encamped  near  the 
sea,  not  far  from  the  temple  of  Olympian  Jupiter,  and  also  commanded  the  na- 
val force  employed  in  the  siege ;  while  Marcellus,  with  the  other  part  of  the 
army,  chose  a  position  on  the  northern  side  of  Syracuse,  between  the  city  and 
the  peninsula  of  Thapsus,  apparently  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  up  his  commu- 
nications with  Leontini.63  As  to  the  blockade  of  Syracuse,  it  was  in  fact  virtually 
raised ;  all  the  southern  roads  were  left  open. ;  and  as  a  large  part  of  the  Roman 
fleet  was  again  called  away  either  to  Lilybteum  or  elsewhere,  supplies  of  all  sorts 
were  freely  introduced  into  the  town  by  sea  from  Carthage. 

The  events  of  the  winter  were  not  encouraging  to  the  Romans.  Hannibal  had 
taken  Tarentum ;  and  the  Tarentine  fleet  was  employed  in  besieg-  A  g.  c.  543.  A.  c 
ing  the  Roman  garrison,  which  still  held  the  citadel.  Thus  the 
Roman  naval  force  was  still  further  divided,  as  it  was  necessary 

B1  Livy,  XXIV.  36.  «'  Livy,  XXIV.  37-39.  •»  Livy,  XXIV.  81. 


550  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLV. 

to  convey  supplies  by  sea  to  the  garrison ;  so  that,  when  spring  returned,  Mar- 
cellus  was  at  a  loss  what  to  attempt,  and  had  almost  resolved  to  break  up  from 
Syracuse  altogether,  and  to  carry  the  war  to  the  other  end  of  Sicily.  But  Sosis, 
and  other  Syracusans  of  the  Roman  party,  were  intriguing  actively  with  their 
countrymen  within  the  city  ;  and  although  one  conspiracy,  in  which  eighty  persons 
were  concerned,  was  detected  by  Epicydes,  and  the  conspirators  all  put  to  death, 
yet  the  hopes  they  had  held  out  of  obtaining  easy  terms  from  the  Romans  were 
not  forgotten ;  and  the  lawlessness  of  the  Roman  deserters,  and  of  the  other  for- 
eign soldiers,  made  many  of  the  Syracusans  long  for  a  return  of  the  happy  times 
under  Hiero,  when  Rome  and  Syracuse  were  friends.64 

Thus  the  spring  wore  away ;  and  the  summer  had  come,  and  had  reached  its 
•me  s  -rftcus  send  P™1116'  an(l  vet  ^ie  war  m  Sicily  seemed  to  slumber :  for  the 
to«>Hcitai<i  from  Ma.  greater  part  of  the  cities  which  had  revolted  to  Carthage  were 
undisturbed  by  the  Romans ;  yet  the  Carthaginians  were  not  strong 
enough  to  assail  the  heart  of  the  Roman  province,  and  to  besiege  Drepanum  or 
Lilybaeum.  In  this  state  of  things,  the  Syracusans  turned  their  eyes  to  Greece, 
and  thought  that  the  king  of  Macedon,  who  was  the  open  enemy  of  Rome,  and 
the  covenanted  ally  of  Carthage,  might  serve  his  own  cause  no  less  than  theirs 
by  leaving  his  ignoble  warfare  on  the  coast  of  Epirus,  and  crossing  the  Ionian 
sea  to  deliver  Syracuse.  Damippus,  a  Lacedaemonian,  and  one  of  the  counsel- 
lors of  Hieronymus  and  of  Hiero,  was  accordingly  chosen  as  ambassador,  and  put 
to  sea  on  his  mission  to  solicit  the  aid  of  king  Philip.6* 

Again  the  fortune  of  Rome  interposed  to  delay  the  interference  of  Macedon  in 
the  contest.  The  ship  which  was  conveying  Damippus  was  taken 

The    Romans    prepare    .  .          _  mi          r>,  -i         i     i  • 

to  scale  the  walu  «t  by  the  Romans  on  the  voyage.       Ihe  Syracusans  valued  him 

the  festival  of  Diana.       ,  J.     ,  ,  .  r     P  .   ,       ,  ,     J      ,,  ,. 

highly,  and  opened  a  negotiation  with  Marcellus  to  ransom  him. 
The  conferences  were  held  between  Syracuse  and  the  Roman  camp ;  and  a  Ro- 
man soldier,  it  is  said,  was  struck  with  the  lowness  of  the  wall  in  one  particular 
place,  and  having  counted  the  rows  of  stones,  and  so  computed  the  whole  height, 
reported  to  Marcellus  that  it  might  be  scaled  with  ladders  of  ordinary  length. 
Marcellus  listened  to  the  suggestion ;  but  the  low  point  was  for  that  very  reason 
more  carefully  guarded,  because  it  seemed  to  invite  attack ;  he  therefore  thought 
the  attempt  too  hazardous,  unless  occasion  should  favor  it.66  But  the  great  fes- 
tival of  Diana  was  at  hand,  a  three  days'  solemnity,  celebrated  with  all  honors 
to  the  guardian  goddess  of  Syracuse.  It  was  a  season  of  universal  feasting ; 
and  wine  was  distributed  largely  among  the  multitude,  that  the  neighborhood  of 
the  Roman  army  might  not  seem  to  have  banished  all  mirth  and  enjoyment. 
One  vast  revel  prevailed  through  the  city;  Marcellus,  informed  of  all  this  by 
deserters,  got  his  ladders  ready ;  and  soon  after  dark  two  cohorts  were  marched 
in  silence  and  in  a  long  thin  column  to  the  foot  of  the  wall,  preceded  by  the 
soldiers  of  one  maniple,  who  carried  the  ladders,  and  were  to  lead  the  way  to 
the  assault. 

The  spot  selected  for  this  attempt  was  in  the  wall  which  ran  along  the  north - 
They  gain  posse..!™  of  ern  e^ge  of  Epipolsc,  where  the  ground  was  steep,  and  where  ap- 
Tycue  and  NeaFtiu ;  parently  there  was  no  gate,  or  regular  approach  to  the  city.  But 
the  vast  lines  of  Syracuse  inclosed  a  wide  space  of  uninhabited  ground ;  the 
new  quarters  of  Tyche  and  Neapolis,  which  had  been  added  to  the  original  town 
since  the  great  Athenian  siege,  were  still  far  from  reaching  the  top  of  the  hill ; 
and  what  was  called  the  quarter  of  Epipolae  only  occupied  a  small  part  of  the 
sloping  ground  known  in  earlier  times  by  that  name.  Thus,  when  the  Romans 
scaled  the  northern  line,  they  found  that  all  was  quiet  and  lonely  ;  nor  was  there 
any  one  to  spread  the  alarm,  except  the  soldiers  who  garrisoned  the  several 
towers  of  the  wall  itself.  These  however,  heavy  with  wine,  and  dreaming  of  no 

64  Livy,  XXV.  23.  «  Livy,  XXV.  23.   Plutarch,  Marcellus,  18. 

*  Livy,  XXV.  23.  Polybius,  Vol.  V.  p.  82,  83. 


CHAP.  XLV.]  SIEGE  OF  SYRACUSE.  557 

danger,  were  presently  surprised  and  killed;  and  the  assailants,  thus  clearing 
their  way  as  they  went,  swept  the  whole  line  of  the  wall  on  their  right,  following 
it  up  the  slope  of  the  hill  towards  the  angle  formed  at  the  summit  by  the  meet- 
ing of  the  northern  line  with  the  southern.  Here  was  the  regular  entrance  into 
Syracuse  from  the  1  and  side  ;  and  this  point,  being  the  key  of  the  whole  forti- 
fied inclosure,  was  secured  by  the  strong  work  called  Hexapylon,  or  the  Six 
Gates ;  probably  from  the  number  of  barriers  which  must  be  passed  before  the 
lines  could  be  fully  entered.  To  this  point  the  storming  party  made  their  way 
in  the  darkness,  not  blindly,  however,  nor  uncertainly,  for  a  Syracusan  was  guid- 
ing them, — that  very  Sosis,67  who  had  been  one  of  the  assassins  of  Hieronymus, 
and  one  of  the  murderers  of  Hiero's  daughters,  and  who,  when  he  was  one  of 
the  captains-general  of  Syracuse,  must  have  become  acquainted  with  all  the  secrets 
of  the  fortifications.  Sosis  led  the  two  Roman  cohorts  towards  Hexapylon :  from 
that  commanding  height  a  fire-signal  was  thrown  up,  to  announce  the  success  of 
their  attempt ;  and  the  loud  and  sudden  blast  of  the  Roman  trumpets  from  the 
top  of  the  walls  called  the  Romans  to  come  to  the  Support  of  their  friends,  and 
told  the  bewildered  Syracusans  that  the  key  of  their  lines  was  in  the  hands  of 
the  enemy.68 

Ladders  were  now  set,  and  the  wall  was  scaled  in  all  directions ;  for  the  main 
gates  of  Hexapylon  could  not  be  forced  till  the  next  morning ;  and  ftnd  teke  the  HexaPy. 
the  only  passage  immediately  opened  was  a  small  side-gate  at  no  lon- 
great  distance  from  them.  But  when  daylight  came,  Hexapylon  was  entirely 
taken,  and  the  main  entrance  to  the  city  was  cleared ;  so  that  Marcellus  marched 
in  with  his  whole  army,  and  took  possession  of  the  summit  of  the  slope  of 
Epipolae. 

From  that  high  ground  he  saw  Syracuse  at  his  feet,  and,  he  doubted  not,  in 
his  power.     Two  quarters  of  the  city,  the  new  town  as  it  was 

*  .    .  ,  .      X      .  ,      i  *      •  if  Marcellus  looking  down 

called,  and  lyche,  were  open  to  his  first  advance ;  their  only  lor-  on  syracu.e,  shed* 
tification  being  the  general  inclosure  of  the  lines,  which  he  had 
already  carried.  Below,  just  overhanging  the  sea,  or  floating  on  its  waters,  lay 
Achradina  and  the  island  of  Ortygia,  fenced  by  their  own  separate  walls,  which 
till  the  time  of  the  first  Dionysius  had  been  the  limit  of  Syracuse,  the  walls 
which  the  great  Athenian  armament  had  besieged  in  vain.  Nearer  on  the  right, 
and  running  so  deeply  into  the  land,  that  it  seemed  almost  to  reach  the  foot  of 
the  heights  on  which  he  stood,  lay  the  still  basin  of  the  great  harbor,  its  broad 
surface  half  hidden  by  th ?  hulls  of  a  hundred  Carthaginian  ships ;  while  further 
on  the  right  was  the  camp  of  his  lieutenant,  T.  Crispinus,  crowning  the  rising 
ground  beyond  the  Anapus,  close  by  the  temple  of  Olympian  Jupiter.  So  strik- 
ing was  the  view  on  every  side,  and  so  surpassing  was  the  glory  of  his  conquest, 
that  Marcellus,  old  as  he  was,  was  quite  overcome  by  it :  unable  to  contain  the 
feelings  of  that  moment,  he  burst  into  tears.69 

A  deputation  from  the  inhabitants  of  Tyche  and  Neapolis  approached  him, 
bearing;  the  ensigns  of  suppliants,  and  imploring  him  to  save  them 

.,  ,      c  TT  i        i      •  T  i         His  troops  plunder  th» 

from  tire  and  massacre.  He  granted  their  prayer,  but  at  the  captured  Pam  of  the 
price  of  every  article  of  their  property,  which  was  to  be  given  up 
to  the  Roman  soldiers  as  plunder.  At  a  regular  signal  the  army  was  let  loose 
upon  the  houses  of  Tyche  and  Neapolis,  with  no  other  restriction  than  that  of 
offering  no  personal  violence.  How  far  such  a  command  would  be  heeded  in 
such  a  season  of  license,  we  can  only  conjecture.  The  Roman  writers  extol  the 
humanity  of  Marcellus  ;  but  the  Syracusans  regarded  him  as  a  merciless  spoiler, 
who  had  wished  to  take  the  town  by  assault,  rather  than  by  a  voluntary  sur- 
render, that  he  might  have  a  pretence  for  seizing  its  plunder.70  Such  a  prize,  in- 
deed, had  never  before  been  won  by  a  Roman  army ;  even  the  wealth  of  Taren  • 

"  Livy,  XXVI.  21.  "  Livy,  XXV.  24. 

*  Livy,  XXV.  24.     Plutarch,  Marcellus,  18.  70  Livy,  XXVI.  30. 


558  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAI-.  XLV 

turn  was  not  to  be  compared  with  that  of  Syracuse.  But  as  yet  the  appetites  01 
the  Roman  soldiers  were  fleshed  rather  than  satisfied  ;  less  than  half  of  Syracuse 
was  in  their  power ;  and  a  fresh  siege  was  necessary  to  win  the  spoils  of  Achra- 
dina  and  Ortygia.  Still  what  they  had  already  gained  gave  Marcellus  large 
means  of  corruption  ;  the  fort  of  Euryalus,  on  the  summit  of  Epipolae,  near  Hex- 
apylon,  which  might  have  caused  him  serious  annoyance  on  his  rear  while  en- 
gaged in  attacking  Achradina,  was  surrendered  to  him  by  its  governor,  Philode- 
mus,  an  Argive  ;  and  the  Romans  set  eagerly  to  work  to  complete  their  con- 
quest. Having  formed  three  camps  before  Achradina,  they  hoped  soon  to  starve 
the  remaining  quarters  of  the  city  into  a  surrender.11 

Epicydes  meanwhile  showed  a  courage  and  activity  worthy  of  one  who  had 
The  Carthaginian  army  learned  war  under  Hannibal.  A  squadron  of  the  Carthaginian  fleet 
Kuilfia'desuoyld  Put  to  sea  one  stormy  night,  when  the  Roman  blockading  ships 
by  H  fever.  were  driven  off  from  the  mouth  of  the  harbor,  and  ran  across  to 

Carthage  to  request  fresh  succors.  These  were  prepared  with  the  greatest  ex- 
pedition :  while  Hippocrates  and  Himilcon,  with  their  combined  Carthaginian  and 
Sicilian  armies,  came  from  the  western  end  of  the  island  to  attack  the  Roman 
army  on  the  land  side.  They  encamped  on  the  shore  of  the  harbor,  between 
the  mouth  of  the  Anapus  and  the  city,  and  assaulted  the  camp  of  Crispinus, 
while  Epicydes  sailed  from  Achradina  to  attack  Marcellus.  But  Roman  soldiers 
fighting  behind  fortifications  were  invincible  ;  their  lines  at  Capua  in  the  following 
year  repelled  Hannibal  himself;  and  now  their  positions  before  Syracuse  were 
maintained  with  equal  success  against  Hippocrates  and  Epicydes.  Still  the 
Carthaginian  army  remained  in  its  camp  on  the  shore  of  the  harbor,  partly  in  the 
hope  of  striking  some  blow  against  the  enemy,  but  more  to  overawe  the  remains 
of  the  Roman  party  in  Syracuse,  which  the  distress  of  the  siege,  and  the  calami- 
ties of  Neapolis  and  Tyche,  must  have  rendered  numerous  and  active.  Mean- 
while the  summer  advanced  ;  the  weather  became  hotter  and  hotter ;  and  the 
usual  malaria  fevers  began  to  prevail  in  both  armies,  and  also  in  Syracuse.  But 
the  air  here,  as  at  Rome,  is  much  more  unhealthy  without  the  city  than  within ; 
above  all,  the  marshy  ground  by  the  Anapus,  where  the  Carthaginian  army  lay, 
eras  almost  pestilential;  and  the  ordinary  summer  fevers  in  this  situation  soon 
assumed  a  character  of  extreme  malignity.  The  Sicilians  immediately  moved 
their  quarters,  and  withdrew  into  the  neighboring  cities ;  but  the  Carthaginians 
remained  on  the  ground,  till  their  whole  army  was  effectually  destroyed.  Hip- 
pocrates and  Himilcon  both  perished  with  their  soldiers.1* 

The  Romans  suffered  less  ;  for  Marcellus  had  quartered  his  men  in  the  houses 
Their  fleet  faiu  in  *  of  Neapolis  and  Tyche  ;  and  the  high  buildings  and  narrow  streets 
like  attempt.  of  ^  anc|ent  towns  kept  off  the  sun,  and  allowed  both  the  sick 

and  the  healthy  to  breathe  and  move  in  a  cooler  atmosphere.  Still  the  deaths 
were  numerous  ;  and  as  the  terror  of  Archimedes  and  his  artillery  restrained  the 
Romans  from  any  attempts  to  batter  or  scale  the  walls,  they  had  nothing  to  trust 
to  save  famine  or  treason.  But  Bomilcar  was  on  his  way  from  Carthage  with 
130  ships  of  war,  and  a  convoy  of  seven  hundred  storeships,  laden  with  supplies 
of  every  description  :  he  had  reached  the  Sicilian  coast  near  Agrigentum,  when 
prevailing  easterly  winds  checked  his  further  advance,  and  he  could  not  reach 
Pachynus.  Alarmed  at  this  most  unseasonable  delay,  and  fearing  lest  the  fleet 
should  return  to  Africa  in  despair,  Epicydes  himself  left  Syracuse,  and  went  to 
meet  it,  and  to  hasten  its  advance.  The  storeships,  which  were  worked  by  sails, 
were  obliged  to  remain  at  Heraclea ;  but  Epicydes  prevailed  on  Bomilcar  tc 
bring  on  his  ships  of  war  to  Pachynus,  where  the  Roman  fleet,  though  inferior 
in  numbers,  was  waiting  to  intercept  his  progress.  The  east  winds  at  length 
abated,  and  Bomilcar  stood  out  to  sea  to  double  Pachynus.  But  when  the  Ro- 
man fleet  advanced  against  him,  he  suddenly  changed  his  plans,  it  is  said ;  and 

"  Livy,  XXV.  25.  n  Livy,  XXV.  26. 


CHAP.  XLV.]  SIEGE  OF  SYRACUSE.  559 

having  dispatched  orders  to  the  storeships  at  Heraclea  to  return  immediately  to 
Africa,  he  himself,  instead  of  engaging  the  Romans,  or  making  for  Syracuse, 
passed  along  the  eastern  coast  of  Sicily,  without  stopping,  and  continued  his 
course  till  he  reached  Tarentum.73 

Here  again  the  story  in  its  present  state  greatly  needs  explanation.  It  is  true 
that  Hannibal  was  very  anxious  at  this  time  to  reduce  the  citadel  vde§  uiuthecit 
of  Tarentum  ;  and  he  probably  required  a  fleet  to  co-operate  with  JH  uess^LuW 
him,  in  order  to  cut  off  the  garrison's  supplies  by  sea.  But  Bo- 
milcar  had  been  sent  out  especially  to  throw  succors  into  Syracuse ;  and  we  can- 
not conceive  his  abandoning  this  object  on  a  sudden,  without  any  intelligible 
reason.  The  probability  is,  that  the  easterly  winds  still  kept  the  storeships  at 
Heraclea  ;  and  if  they  could  not  reach  Syracuse,  nothing  was  to  be  gained  by  a 
naval  battle.  And  then,  as  the  service  at  Tarentum  was  urgent,  he  thought  it 
best  to  go  thither,  and  to  send  back  the  convoy  to  Africa,  rather  than  wait  in- 
active on  the  Sicilian  coast,  till  the  wind  became  favorable.  After  all,  Syracuse 
did  not  fall  for  want  of  provisions-:  the  havoc  caused  by  sickness,  both  in  the 
city  and  in  the  Carthaginian  camp  on  the  Anapus,  must  have  greatly  reduced  the 
number  of  consumers,  and  made  the  actual  supply  available  for  a  longer  period. 
It  seems  to  have  been  a  worse  mischief  than  the  conduct  of  Bomilcar,  that  Epi- 
cydes  himself,  as  if  despairing  of  fortune,  withdrew  to  Agrigentum,  instead  of 
returning  to  Syracuse ;  for  from  the  moment  of  his  departure  the  city  seems  to 
have  been  abandoned  to  anarchy.  At  first  the  remains  of  the  Sicilian  army, 
which  now  occupied  two  towns  in  the  interior,  not  far  from  Syracuse,  began  to 
negotiate  with  Marcellus,  and  persuaded  the  Syracusans  to  rise  on  the  generals 
left  in  command  by  Epicydes,  and  to  put  them  to  death.  New  captains-generals 
were  then  appointed,  probably  for  the  Roman  party  ;  and  they  began  to  treat 
with  Marcellus  for  the  surrender  of  Syracuse,  and  for  the  general  settlement  of 
the  war  in  Sicily.74 

Marcellus  listened  to  them  readily :  but  his  army  was  longing  for  the  plunder 
of  Achradina  and  Ortygia;  and  he  knew  not  how  to  disappoint  insurrectionoftHeiner. 
them  :  for  we  may  be  sure  that  no  pay  was  issued  at  this  period  «»*fci«  *••«*« 
to  any  Roman  army  serving  out  of  Italy ;  in  the  provinces,  war  was  by  fair 
means  or  foul  to  support  war.  Meanwhile  the  miserable  state  of  affairs  in  Syra- 
cuse was  furthering  the  wish  of  the  Roman  soldiers.  A  besieged  city,  with  no 
efficient  government,  and  full  of  foreign  mercenaries,  whom  there  was  no  native 
force  to  restrain,  was  like  a  wreck  in  mutiny  :  utter  weakness  and  furious  con- 
vulsions were  met  in  the  same  body.  The  Roman  deserters  first  excited  the 
tumult,  and  persuaded  all  the  foreign  soldiers  to  join  them  ;  a  new  outbreak  of 
violence  followed;  the  Syracusan  captains-general  were  massacred  in  their  turn; 
and  the  foreign  soldiers  were  again  triumphant.  Three  officers,  each  with  a  dis- 
trict of  his  own,  were  appointed  to  command  in  Achradina,  and  three  more  in 
Ortygia.75 

The  foreign  soldiers  now  held  the  fate  of  Syracuse  in  their  hands ;  and  they 
began  to  consider  that  they  might  make  their  terms  with  the  Ro-  who  ^tray  u  to  th« 
mans,  although  the  Roman  deserters  could  not.  Their  blood  was  Romttns- 
not  called  for  by  the  inflexible  law  of  military  discipline  ;  by  a  timely  treachery 
they  might  earn  not  impunity  merely,  but  reward.  So  thought  Mericus,  a  Span- 
iard, who  had  the  charge  of  a  part  of  the  sea-wall  of  Achradina.  Accordingly 
he  made  his  bargain  with  Marcellus,  and  admitted  a  party  of  Roman  soldiers  by 
night  at  one  of  the  gates  which  opened  towards  the  harbor.  As  soon  as  morning 
dawned,  Marcellus  made  a  general  assault  on  the  land  front  of  Achradina;  the 
garrison  of  Ortygia  hastened  to  join  in  the  defence  ;  and  the  Romans  then  sent 
boats  full  of  men  round  into  the  great  harbor,  and,  effecting  a  landing  under  the 

»  Livy,  XXV.  27.  7i  Livy,  XXV.  29. 

"  XXV.  28. 


560  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLV 

walls,  carried  the  island  with  little  difficulty.  Meanwhile  Mericus  had  openly 
joined  the  Roman  party,  whom  he  had  admitted  into  Achradina ;  and  Marcellus, 
having  his  prey  in  his  power,  called  off  his  soldiers  from  the  assault,  lest  the 
royal  treasures,  which  were  kept  in  Ortygia,  should  be  plundered  in  the  general 
sack  of  the  town.76 

In  the  respite  thus  gained,  the  Roman  deserters  found  an  opportunity  to  escape 
.  out  of  Syracuse.     Whether  they  forced  their  way  out,  or  whether 

Syracuse  is  taken  ana      ,  TJ-  t  p  11  t  •   i  • 

pandered.  Archimedes  the  soldiers,  hungry  f or  plunder,  and  not  wishing  to  encounter  the 
resistance  of  desperate  men,  obliged  Marcellus  to  connive  at  their 
escape,  we  know  not :  but  with  them  all  wish  or  power  to  hold  out  longer  van- 
ished from  Syracuse ;  and  a  deputation  from  Achradina  came  once  more  to  Mar- 
cellus, praying  for  nothing  beyond  the  lives  and  personal  freedom  of  the  citizens 
and  their  families.  This,  it  seems,  was  granted ;  but  as  soon  as  Marcellus  had 
sent  his  qusestor  to  secure  the  royal  treasures  in  Ortygia,  the  soldiers  were  let 
loose  upon  the  city  to  plunder  it  at  their  discretion.  They  did  not  merely  plun- 
der, however :  blood  was  shed  unsparingly,  partly  by  the  mere  violence  of  the 
soldiers,  partly  by  the  axes  of  the  lictors,  as  the  punishment  of  rebellion  against 
the  majesty  of  Rome.  Amidst  the  horrors  of  the  sack  of  the  city,  Archimedes 
was  slain.77  The  stories  of  his  death  vary ;  and  which,  if  any  of  them,  is  the  true 
one,  we  cannot  determine.  But  Marcellus,  who  made  it  his  glory  to  carry  all 
the  finest  works  of  art  from  the  temples  of  Syracuse  to  Rome,78  would  no  doubt 
have  been  glad  to  have  seen  Archimedes  walking  amongst  the  prisoners  at  his 
triumph.  He  is  said  to  have  shown  kindness  to  the  relations  of  Archimedes  for 
his  sake  ;79  and  if  this  be  true,  he  earned  a  glory  which  few  Romans  ever  deserved, 
that  of  honoring  merit  in  an  enemy. 

Old  as  Archimedes  was,  the  Roman  soldier's  sword  dealt  kindly  with  him,  in 
M^mbie  condition  of  cutting  short  his  scanty  term  of  remaining  life,  and  saving  him  from 
beholding  the  misery  of  his  country.  It  was  a  wretched  sight  to 
see  the  condition  of  Syracuse  when  the  sack  was  over,  and  what  was  called  a 
state  of  peace  and  safety  had  returned.  Every  house  was  laid  bare,  every  tem- 
ple stript;  and  the  empty  pedestals  showed  how  sweeping  the  spoiler's  work  had 
been.  The  Syracusans  beheld  their  captive  gods  carried  to  the  Roman  quarters, 
or  put  on  shipboard  to  be  conveyed  to  Rome ;  the  care  with  which  they  were 
handled,  lest  the  conqueror's  triumph  should  lose  its  most  precious  ornaments, 
only  adding  to  the  grief  and  indignation  of  the  conquered.  Those  fathers  and 
mothers,  who  were  so  happy  as  to  gather  all  their  children  safe  around  them 
when  the  plunder  was  over,  had  escaped  the  sword,  indeed,  and  they  and  their 
sons  and  daughters  were  not  yet  sold  as  slaves ;  but  their  only  choice  was  still 
between  slavery  or  death.  They  had  lost  every  thing.  What  food  was  still 
remaining  in  the  besieged  city,  the  sack  had  either  carried  off  or  destroyed ;  and 
if  food  had  been  at  hand,  they  had  no  money  to  buy  it.  And  this  came  upon 
them  after  a  heavy  visitation  of  sickness  ;  when  the  body,  reduced  by  that  weak- 
ening malaria  fever,  needed  all  tender  care  and  comfort  to  restore  it,  instead  of 
being  harassed  by  alarm  and  anxiety,  and  exposed  to  destitution  and  starvation. 
Many  therefore  sold  themselves  to  the  Roman  soldiers,  to  escape  dying  by  hun- 
ger ;  and  the  family  circle,  which  the  sack  of  the  city  had  spared,  was  again 
broken  up  forever.  Those  who,  being  unmarried  and  childless,  had  given  no 
hostages  to  fortune,  and  who  might  yet  hope  to  live  in  personal  freedom,  were 
only  the  more  able  to  feel  the  ruin  and  degradation  of  their  country.80  Syracuse, 
who  had  led  captive  the  hosts  of  Athens,  and  seen  the  invading  armies  of  Car- 
thage melt  away  by  disease  under  her  walls,  till  scarce  any  remained  to  fly — 
Syracuse,  where  Dionysius  had  reigned,  which  Timoleon  had  freed,  which  Hiero 

70  Livy,  XXV,  30.  "  Livy,  XXV.  40.   Polybius,  IX.  10.    Cicero, 

71  Livy,  XXV.  31.    Plutarch,  Marcellus,  19.    in  Verrem,  IV.  54. 

Valerius  Muximus,  VIII.  7,  7.  70  Livy,  XXV.  31.    Plutarch,  Marcellus,  19. 

80  Diodorus,  XXVI.    Fragm.  Mai. 


CHAP.  XLV.] 


MUTINES. 


561 


had  cherished  and  sheltered  under  his  long  paternal  rule — was  now  become  sub- 
ject to  barbarians,  whom  she  had  helped  in  their  utmost  need,  and  who  were 
repaying  the  unshaken  friendship  of  Hiero  with  the  plunder  of  his  city  and  the 
subjugation  of  his  people.  If  there  was  yet  a  keener  pang  to  be  felt  by  every 
noble  Syracusan,  it  was  to  behold  their  countrymen,  who  had  fought  in  the  Ro- 
man army,  returning  in  triumph,  establishing  themselves  in  the  empty  houses  ot 
the  slaughtered  defenders  of  their  country,  and  insulting  the  general  misery  by 
displaying  the  rewards  of  their  treason.  Among  these  was  Sosis,  assassin,  mur- 
derer, and  traitor,  who  was  looking  forward  to  the  triumph  of  Marcellus,  as  one 
to  whom  the  shame  of  his  country  was  his  g^ry,  and  her  ruin  the  making  of  his 
fortune.81 

Syracuse  had  fallen ;  and  the  cities  in  the  <  astern  part  of  Sicily  had  no  other 
hope  now,  than  to  obtain  pardon,  if  it  misfht  be,  from  Rome,  by 

,.  .      .  -r.          •,  i       °       ,1  \      J     Cruelty  of  Marcellui. 

immediate  submission.  But  it  was  too  late  :  they  were  treated  as 
conquered  enemies  ;82  that  is  to  say,  Marcellus  put  to  death  those  of  their  citi- 
zens who  were  most  obnoxious,  and  imposed  such  forfeitures  of  land  on  the  cities, 
and  such  terms  of  submission  for  the  time  to  come,  as  he  judged  expedient.  It 
became  the  fashion  afterwards  to  extol  his  humanity,  and  even  his  refinement,83 
because  he  showed  his  taste  for  the  works  of  Greek  art  by  carrying  the  statues 
of  the  Syracusan  temples  to  Rome.  But  his  admiration  of  Greek  art  did  not 
make  him  treat  the  Greeks  themselves  with  less  severity  ;  and  the  Sicilians  taxed 
him  with  perfidy  as  well  as  cruelty,  and  regarded  him  as  the  merciless  oppressor 
of  their  country.84 

Meantime  Hannibal's  comprehensive  view  had  not  lost  sight  of  Sicily.  When 
he  heard  of  the  havoc  caused  by  the  epidemic  sickness,  and  of  the 
death  of  Hippocrates,  he  sent  over  another  of  his  officers  to  share  ne"""  sicnyD;  hi.  »"«" 
with  Epicydes,  and  with  the  general  who  came  from  Carthage,  in 
the  command  of  the  war.  This  was  Mutines,  or  Myttonus,  a  half-caste  Cartha- 
ginian, excluded  on  that  account  from  civil  honors  ;85  but  Hannibal's  camp  recog- 
nized no  such  distinctions ;  and  brave  and  able  men,  whatever  was  their  race  or 
condition,  were  sure  to  be  employed  and  rewarded  there.  Muti-  A.  n.  c.  543.  A.  c. 
nes  proved  the  unerring  judgment  of  Hannibal  in  his  choice  of  21U 
officers.  His  arrival  in  Sicily  was  equivalent  to  an  army :  being  put  at  the 
head  of  the  Numidian  cavalry  then  serving  under  Epicydes  and  Hanno,  he  over- 
ran the  whole  island,  encouraging  the  allies  of  Carthage,  harassing  those  of  Rome, 
and  defying  pursuit  or  resistance  by  the  rapidity  and  skill  of  his  movements. 
He  renewed  the  system  of  warfare  which  Hamilcar  had  maintained  so  long  in 
the  last  Avar ;  and  having  the  strong  place  of  Agrigentum  to  retire  to  in  case  of 
need,  he  perplexed  the  Roman  generals  not  a  little.  Marcellus  was  obliged  to 
take  the  field,  and  march  from  Syracuse  westward  as  far  as  the  Himera,  where 
the  enemy's  army  lay  encamped.  But  he  met  with  a  rough  reception ;  the  Nu- 
midian  cavalry  crossed  the  river,  and  came  swarming  round  his  camp,  insulting 
and  annoying  his  soldiers  on  guard,  and  confining  his  whole  army  to  their 
intrenchments  ;  and  Avhen  on  the  next  day,  impatient  of  this  annoyance,  he  offered 
battle  in  the  field,  Mutines  and  his  Numidians  broke  in  upon  his  lines  Avith  such 
fury,  that  he  Avas  fain  to  retreat  with  all  speed,  and  seek  the  shelter  of  his  camp 
again.  It  appears  that  other  arms  were  then  tried  with  better  success  :  the  Nu- 
midians were  tampered  Avith ;  their  irregular  habits  and  impatient  tempers  made, 
them  at  all  times  difficult  to  manage ;  and  a  party  of  them  having  left  the  Car- 
thaginian camp  in  disgust,  Mutines  went  after  them  to  pacify  and  Avin  them  back 
to  their  duty,  earnestly  conjuring  Hanno  and  Epicydes  not  to  venture  a  battle 
till  he  should  return.  But  Hanno  Avas  jealous  of  Hannibal's  officers  ;  and  hold- 
ing his  own  commission  directly  from  the  government  of  Carthage,  he  could  not 

M  Livy,  XXVI.  29-32.    Plutarch,  Marcellus, 


81  Livy,  XXVI.  21. 
M  Livy,  XXV.  40. 
83  Cicero,  ill  Verrem,  IV.  52-59. 
36 


23. 


*  Livy,  XXV.  40.    Polybius,  IX.  22. 


562  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLV 

bear  to  be  restrained  by  a  half-caste  soldier,  sent  to  Sicily  from  Hannibal's  camp, 
by  the  mere  authority  of  the  general.  His  rank  probably  gave  him  a  casting 
vote,  when  only  one  other  commander  was  present,  so  that  Epicydes  in  vain  pro- 
tested against  his  imprudence.86  A  battle  was  ventured  ;  and  not  only  was  the 
genius  of  Mutines  wanting,  but  the  Numidians  whom  he  had  left  with  Hanno, 
thinking  their  commander  insulted,  would  take  no  active  part  in  the  action,  and 
Hanno  was  defeated  with  loss. 

Marcellus,  rejoiced  at  having  thus  retrieved  his  honor,  had  no  mind  to  risk 
MRrceiiua  return*  to  another  encounter  with  Mutines  :  he  forthwith  retreated  to  Syr- 
acuse ;87  and.  as  the  term  of  his  command  was  now  expired,  his 
thoughts  were  all  turned  to  Rome,  and  to  his  expected  triumph.  He  left  Sicily 
after  the  fall  of  Capua,  towards  the  end  of  the  summer  of  543,  and  about  a  year 
after  the  conquest  of  Syracuse ;  but  he  was  not  allowed  to  carry  his  army  home 
with  him ;  and  M.  Cornelius  Cethegus,  one  of  the  praetors,  who  succeeded  him 
in  his  command,  found  that  his  province  was  far  from  being  in  a  state  of  peace. 
The  Carthaginians  had  reinforced  their  army :  Mutines,  with  his  Numidians,  was 
A.  u.  c.  544.  A.  c.  scouring  the  whole  country ;  the  soldiers  were  discontented  be- 
cause they  had  not  been  permitted  to  return  home ;  and  the  Si- 
cilians were  driven  desperate  by  the  oppressions  which  Marcellus  had  commanded 
or  winked  at,  and  were  ready  to  break  out  in  revolt  again.88 

In  fact,  it  appears  that  in  the  year  544,  nearly  two  years  after  the  fall  of  Syr- 
L»vinu.  is  Mnt  to  si-  acuse,  there  were  as  many  as  sixty-six  towns  in  Sicily  in  a  state 
of  revolt  from  Rome,  and  in  alliance  with  Carthage.89  So  greatly 
had  Mutines  restored  the  Carthaginian  cause,  that  it  was  thought  necessary  to 
send  one  of  the  consuls  over  with  a  consular  army,  to  bring  the  war  to  an  end. 
Accordingly,  M.  Valerius  Lsevinus,  who  had  been  employed  for  the  last  three  or 
four  years  on  the  coast  of  Epirus,  conducting  the  war  against  Philip,  and  who 
was  chosen  consul  with  Marcellus  in  the  year  544,  carried  over  a  regular  con- 
sular army  into  Sicily ;  while  L.  Cincius,  one  of  the  new  praetors,  and  probably 
the  same  man  who  is  known  as  one  of  the  earliest  Roman  historians,  took  the 
command  of  the  old  province,  and  of  the  soldiers  of  Cannae  who  were  still  quar- 
tered there.90  The  army  with  which  Marcellus  had  won  Syracuse  was  now  at 
last  disbanded,  and  the  men  were  allowed  to  return  home  with  as  much  of  their 
plunder  as  they  had  not  spent  or  wasted :  but  four  legions  were  even  now  em- 
ployed in  Sicily,  besides  a  fleet  of  one  hundred  ships ;  and  yet  Mutines  and  his 
Numidians  were  overrunning  all  parts  of  the  island,  and  the  end  of  the  war 
seemed  as  distant  as  ever. 

Lsevinus  advanced  towards  Agrigentum,  with  small  hope,  however,  of  taking 
Mutines  i»  insulted  by  the  place  ;  for  Mutines  sallied  whenever  he  would,  and  carried 
Agri^0entumdto  thee  RO-  back  his  plunder  in  safety  whenever  he  would  :  whilst  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Carthage  made  relief  by  sea  always  within  calculation, 
whatever  naval  force  the  Romans  might  employ  in  the  blockade.  In  this  state 
of  things,  Lsevinus  to  his  astonishment  received  a  secret  communication  from  Mu- 
tines, offering  to  put  Agrigentum  into  his  power.  The  half-caste  African,  the 
officer  of  Hannibal,  the  sole  stay  of  the  Carthaginian  cause  in  Sicily,  was  on  all 
these  accounts  odious  to  Hanno  ;  and  it  is  likely  that  Mutines  did  not  bear  his 
glory  meekly,  and  that  he  expressed  the  scorn  which  Hannibal's  soldier  was 
likely  to  feel  for  the  pride  and  incapacity  of  the  general  sent  out  by  the  govern- 
ment at  home,  and  probably  by  the  party  opposed  to  Hannibal,  and  afraid  of  his 
glory.  But  whatever  was  the  secret  of  the  quarrel,  its  effects  were  public 
enough :  Hanno  ventured  to  deprive  Mutines  of  his  command.  The  Numidians, 
however,  would  obey  no  other  leader,  while  him  they  would  obey  in  every  thing ; 
and  at  his  bidding  they  rose  in  open  mutiny,  took  possession  of  one  of  the  gates 

88  Livy,  XXV.  40.  »  Livy,  XXVI.  4.0. 

m  Livy,  XXV.  41.  °°  Livy,  XXVI.  28. 

"  Livy  XXVI.  21. 


CHAP.  XLV.]  DEPLORABLE  CONDITION  OF  SICILY.  563 

of  the  town,  and  let  in  the  Romans.  Hanno  and  Epicydes  had  just  time  to  fly 
to  the  harbor,  to  hasten  on  board  a  ship,  and  escape  to  Carthage ;  but  their  sol- 
diers, surprised  and  panic-struck,  were  cut  to  pieces  with  little  resistance  ;  and 
Leevinus  won  Agrigentum.  He  treated  it  more  severelj^  than  Marcellus  had 
dealt  with  Syracuse  ;  after  executing  the  principal  citizens,  he  sold  all  the  rest 
for  slaves,  and  sent  the  money  which  he  received  for  them  to  Rome.91 

This  blow  was  decisive.  Twenty  other  towns,  which  still  held  with  the  Cartha- 
ginians, were  presently  betrayed  to  the  Romans,  either  by  their  Lajvinng  a<.compiuh«8 
garrisons,  or  by  some  of  their  own  citizens  ;  six  were  stormed  by  theco'«iuestofsici|y. 
the  Roman  army ;  and  the  remainder,  to  the  number  of  forty,  then  submitted  at 
discretion.  The  consul  dealt  out  his  rewards  to  the  traitors  who  had  betrayed 
their  country ;  and  his  lictors  scourged  and  beheaded  the  brave  men  who  had 
persevered  the  longest  in  their  resistance  :  thus  at  last  he  was  able  to  report  to 
the  senate  that  the  war  in  Sicily  was  at  an  end. 

Four  thousand  adventurers  of  all  descriptions,  who  in  the  troubled  state  of  Sicily 
had  taken  possession  of  the  town  of  Agathyrna  on  the  north  coast  and  reduces  it  to  eutire 
of  the  island,  and  were  maintaining  themselves  there  by  robbery,  Subini8sion- 
Lcevinus  carried  over  into  Italy  at  the  close  of  the  year,  and  landed  them  at 
Rhegium,  to  be  employed  in  a  plundering  warfare  in  Bruttium.  Having  thus 
cleared  the  island  of  all  open  disturbers  of  its  peace,  he  obliged  the  Sicilians,  says 
Livy,  to  turn  their  attention  to  agriculture,  that  its  fruitful  soil  might  grow  corn 
to  supply  the  wants  of  Italy  and  of  Rome.92  And  he  assured  the  senate,  at  the 
end  of  the  year,  that  the  work  was  thoroughly  done  ;  that  not  a  single  Cartha- 
ginian was  left  in  Sicily ;  that  the  towns  were  repeopled  by  the  return  of  their 
peaceable  inhabitants,  and  the  land  was  again  cultivated ;  that  he  had  laid  the 
foundation  of  a  state  of  things  equally  happy  for  the  Sicilians  and  for  Rome.93 

So  Lsevinus  said  ;  and  so  he  probably  believed.  But  with  the  return  of  peace 
to  the  island,  there  came  a  host  of  Italian  and  Roman  speculators  ;  Durable  condition  of 
who,  in  the  general  distress  of  the  Sicilians,  bought  up  large  tracts  Siclly< 
of  land  at  a  low  price,  or  became  the  occupiers  of  estates  which  had  belonged  to 
Sicilians  of  the  Carthaginian  party,  and  had  been  forfeited  to  Rome  after  the  ex- 
ecution or  flight  of  their  owners.  The  Sicilians  of  the  Roman  party  followed  the 
example,  and  became  rich  out  of  the  distress  of  their  countrymen.  Slaves  were 
to  be  had  cheap  ;  and  corn  was  likely  to  find  a  sure  market,  whilst  Italy  was  suf- 
fering from  the  ravages  of  war.  Accordingly,  Sicily  was  crowded  with  slaves, 
employed  to  grow  corn  for  the  great  landed  proprietors,  whether  Sicilian  or 
Italian,  and  so  ill-fed  by  their  masters,  that  they  soon  began  to  provide,  for 
themselves  by  robbery.  The  poorer  Sicilians  were  the  sufferers  from  this  evil ; 
and  as  the  masters  were  well  content  that  their  slaves  should  be  maintained  at 
the  expense  of  others,  they  were  at  no  pains  to  restrain  their  outrages.  Thus, 
although  nominally  at  peace,  though  full  of  wealthy  proprietors,  and  though  ex- 
porting corn  largely  every  year,  yet  Sicily  was  teeming  with  evils,  which,  seventy 
or  eighty  years  after,  broke  out  in  the  horrible  atrocities  of  the  Servile  War.94 

11  Livy,  XXVI.  40.  M  Diodorus,  XXXIV.  Excerpt.  Photii,  p.  525. 

•»  Livy,  XXVI.  40.  &c.  and  Excerpt.  Valesii,  p.  £99.    Florus,  III, 

«  Llvyl  XXVII.  5.  .  19. 


564 


CHAPTER  XLVI, 

STATE  OF  ITALY— DISTRESS  OF  THE  PEOPLE— TWELVE  COLONIES  REFUSE  TC 
SUPPORT  THE  WAR— EIGHTEEN  COLONIES  OFFER  ALL  THEIR  RESOURCES  TO 
THE  ROMANS— EVENTS  OF  THE  WAR— DEATH  OF  MARCELLUS— FABIUS  RE- 
COVERS TARENTUM— MARCH  OF  HASDRUBAL  INTO  ITALY— HE  REACHES  THE 
COAST  OF  THE  ADRIATIC— GREAT  MARCH  OF  C.  NERO  FROM  APULIA  TO 
OPPOSE  HIM— BATTLE  OF  THE  METAURUS,  AND  DEATH  OF  HASDRUBAL.— 
A.  U.  C.  543  TO  A.  U.  C.  547. 

IN  following  the  war  in  Sicily  to  its  conclusion  we  have  a  little  anticipated  the 
A.  u.c.  5-J3.  A.  c.  course  of  our  narrative  ;  for  we  have  been  speaking  of  the  consul- 
k-  ship  °f  M.  Laevinus,  whilst  our  account  of  the  war  in  Italy  has  not 
advanced  beyond  the  middle  of  the  preceding  year.  The  latter 
part  of  the  year  543  was  marked,  however,  by  no  military  actions  of  consequence  ; 
so  great  an  event  as  the  fall  of  Capua  having,  as  was  natural,  produced  a  pause, 
during  which  both  parties  had  to  shape  their  future  plans  according  to  the  altered 
state  of  their  affairs  and  of  their  prospects. 

Hannibal  on  his  side  had  retired,  as  we  have  seen,  into  Apulia,  after  his  un- 
Hnnnibni  abandons  the  successful  attempt  upon  Rhegium,  and  there  allowed  his  soldiers 
to  enjoy  an  interval  of  rest.  The  terrible  example  of  Capua  shook 
Oie  resolution  of  his  Italian  allies,  and  made  them  consider  whether  a  timely  sub- 
mission to  Rome  might  not  be  their  wisest  policy  ;  nay,  it  became  a  question 
whether  their  pardon  might  not  be  secured  by  betraying  Hannibal's  garrisons, 
and  returning  to  their  duty  not  empty-handed.  Hannibal  therefore  neither  dared 
to  risk  his  soldiers  by  dispersing  them  about  in  small  and  distant  towns ;  nor 
could  he  undertake,  even  if  he  kept  his  army  together,  to  cover  the  wide  extent 
of  country  which  had  revolted  to  him  at  different  periods  of  the  war.  His  men 
would  be  worn  out  by  a  succession  of  flying  marches ;  and  after  all,  the  Roman 
armies  were  so  numerous,  that  he  would  always  be  in  danger  of  arriving  too  late 
at  the  point  attacked.  Accordingly  he  found  it  necessary  to  abandon  many 
places  altogether;  and  from  some  he  obliged  the  inhabitants  to  migrate,  and 
made  them  remove  within  the  limits  which  he  still  hoped  to  protect.  In  this 
manner,  it  is  probable,  the  western  side  of  Italy,  from  the  edge  of  Campania  to 
Bruttium,  was  at  once  left  to  its  fate ;  including  what  had  been  the  territory  of 
the  Capuans  on  the  shores  of  the  Gulf  of  Salernum,  the  country  of  the  Picen- 
tians,  and  Lucania;  while  Apulia  and  Bruttium  were  carefully  defended.  But 
in  evacuating  the  towns  which  they  could  not  keep,  and  still  more  in  the  com- 
pelled migrations  of  the  inhabitants,  Hannibal's  soldiers  committed  many  ex- 
cesses ;  property  was  plundered,  and  blood  was  shed ;  and  thus  the  minds  of 
the  Italians  were  still  more  generally  alienated.1 

We  have  seen  that,  immediately  after  the  fall  of  Capua,  C.  Nero,  with  a  part 
Movement,  of  the  RO-  °f  the  troops  which  had  been  employed  on  the  blockade,  had  been 
sent  off  to  Spain.2  Q.  Fulvius  remained  at  Capua,  with  another 
part,  amounting  to  a  complete  consular  army  ;3  and  some  were  probably  sent 
home.  The  two  consuls  marched  into  Apulia,  which  was  to  be  their  province;4 
but  no  active  operations  took  place  during  the  remainder  of  the  season  ;  and  at 
the  end  of  the  year  P.  Sulpicius  was  ordered  to  pass  over  into  Epirus,  and  suc- 
ceed M.  Laevinus  in  the  command  of  the  war  against  Philip.  The  home  admin- 
istration was  left  in  the  hands  of  C.  Calpurnius  Piso,  the  city  praetor. 

About  the  time  that  the  two  consuls  took  the  command  in  Apulia,  M.  Corne- 

>  Livy,  XXVI.  38.  '  Livy,  XXVI.  28. 

*  Livy,  XXVI.  17.  *  Livy,  XXVI,  22. 


CHAP.  XLVI.]  ELECTION"  OF  CONSULS.  505 

lius  Cethegus,  who  had  obtained  that  province  as  prsetor  at  the  Mftrc8]lug  ig  unnble  to 
beginning  of  the  year,  was  sent  over  to  Sicily  to  command  the  o^s»««nphi  m 
army  there,  Marcellus  having  just  left  the  island  to  return  to 
Rome.  Marcellus  was  anxious  to  obtain  a  triumph  for  his  conquest  of  Syracuse : 
but  the  war  in  Sicily  was  still  raging ;  and  Mutines  was  in  full  activity.  The 
senate  therefore  would  not  grant  a  triumph  for  an  imperfect  victory,  but  allowed 
Marcellus  the  honor  of  the  smaller  triumph  or  ovation.  He  was  highly  dissatis- 
fied at  this,  and  consoled  himself  by  going  up  in  triumphal  procession  to  the  tem- 
ple of  Jupiter  on  the  highest  summit  of  the  Alban  hills,  and  offering  sacrifice 
there,  a  ceremony  which  by  virtue  of  his  jmperium  he  could  lawfully  perform  : 
he  might  go  in  procession  where  he  pleased,  and  sacrifice  where  he  pleased,  except 
within  the  limits  of  Rome  itself.  On  the  day  after  his  triumph  on  the  hill  of  Alba, 
he  entered  Rome  with  the  ceremony  of  an  ovation,  walking  on  foot  according  to  the 
rule,  instead  of  being  drawn  in  a  chariot  in  kingly  state,  as  in  the  proper  triumph. 
But  the  show  was  unusually  splendid  :  for  a  great  picture  of  Syracuse  with  all  its 
fortifications  was  displayed,  and  with  it  some  of  the  very  artillery  which  Archi- 
medes had  made  so  famous  in  his  defence  of  them  ;  besides  an  unwonted  display  of 
the  works  of  art  of  a  more  peaceful  kind,  the  spoils  of  Hiero's  palace,  and  of  the 
temples  in  his  city,  silver  and  bronze  figures,  embroidered  carpets  and  coverings 
of  couches,  and,  above  all,  some  of  the  finest  pictures  and  statues.  Men  also  ob- 
served the  traitor  Sosis  walking  in  the  procession,  with  a  coronet  of  gold  on  his 
head,  as  a  benefactor  of  the  Roman  people:  he  was  further  to  be  rewarded  with 
the  Roman  franchise,  with  a  house  at  his  own  choice  out  of  those  belonging  to 
the  Syracusans  who  had  remained  true  to  their  country,  and  with  five  hundred 
jugera  of  land,  which  had  either  been  theirs,  or  part  of  the  royal  domain.5 

At  the  end  of  the  year  Cn.  Fulvius  was  summoned  to  Rome  from  Apulia  to 
preside  at  the  consular  comitia.  On  the  day  of  the  election,  the  A  n  c  544 
first  century  of  the  Veturian  tribe,  which  had  obtained  the  first  210.  'comitia:  noui 
voice  by  lot,  gave  its  votes  in  favor  of  T.  Manlius  Torquatus  and  Marcenu8and  i^vinui 
T.  Otacilius  Crassus.  As  the  voice  of  the  tribe  first  called  was 
generally  followed  by  the  rest,  Manlius,  who  was  present,  was  immediately  greeted 
by  the  congratulations  of  his  friends :  but,  instead  of  accepting  them,  he  made 
his  way  to  the  consul's  seat,  and  requested  him  to  call  back  the  century  which 
had  just  voted,  and  allow  him  to  say  a  few  words.  The  century  was  summoned 
again,  all  men  wondering  what  was  about  to  happen.  Manlius  had  been  consul 
five-arid-twenty  years  before,  in  the  memorable  year  when  the  temple  of  Janus 
was  shut  in  token  of  the  ratification  of  peace  with  Carthage ;  twenty  years  had 
passed  since  he  was  censor ;  and  though  his  vigor  of  body  and  mind  was  still 
great,  he  was  an  old  man,  and  age  had  made  him  nearly  blind.  "  I  am  unfit  to 
command,"  he  said  ;  "  for  I  can  only  see  through  the  eyes  of  others.  This  is  no 
time  for  incompetent  generals ;  let  the  century  make  a  better  choice."  But  the 
century  answered  unanimously,  "that  they  could  not  make  a  better;  that  they 
again  named  Manlius  and  Otacilius  consuls."  "  Your  tempers  and  my  rule,"  said 
the  old  man,  "  will  never  suit.  Give  your  votes  over  again  ;  and  remember  that 
the  Carthaginians  are  in  Italy,  and  that  their  general  is  Hannibal."  A  murmur 
of  admiration  burst  from  all  around,  and  the  voters  of  the  century  were  moved. 
They  were  the  younger  men  of  their  tribe  ;  and  they  besought  the  consul  to  sum- 
mon the  century  of  their  elders,  that  they  might  be  guided  by  their  counsel. 
Fulvius  accordingly  summoned  the  century  of  elders  of  the  Veturian  tribe  ;  and 
the  two  centuries  retired  to  confer  on  the  question.  The  elders  recommended 
that  Fabius  and  Marcellus  should  be  chosen ;  or,  if  a  new  consul  were  desirable, 
that  they  should  take  one  of  these,  and  with  him  elect  M.  Lcevinus,  who  for  somt 
years  past  had  done  good  service  in  conducting  the  war  against  Philip.  Their 
advice  was  adopted,  and  the  century  gave  its  votes  now  in  favor  of  Marcellus 

6  Livy,  XXVI.  21. 


Pa 


566  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLVl 

and  Laevinus.  All  the  other  centuries  confirmed  their  choice  ;  and  thus  T.  Ota- 
cilius  was  for  the  second  time,  by  an  extraordinary  interference  with  the  votes 
of  the  centuries,  deprived  of  the  consulship,  to  Avhich  some  uncommonly  amiable 
qualities,  or  some  peculiar  influence,  had  twice  recommended  him,  in  spite  of  his 
deficient  ability.6 

He  probably  never  knew  of  this  second  disappointment  ;  for  scarcely  was  the 
election  over,  when  news  arrived  from  Sicily  of  his  death.1  Cn.  Fulvius  re- 
turned to  his  army  in  Apulia  ;  and  as  M.  Laevinus  was  still  absent  in  Epirus, 
Marcellus  on  the  usual  day,  the  ides  of  March,  entered  upon  the  consulship  alone, 
Q.  Fulvius  was  still  at  Capua  ;  but  Q.  Fabius  and  T.  Maniius  were  at  Rome  ; 
and  their  counsels,  together  with  those  of  Marcellus,  were  of  the  greatest  influ- 
ence in  the  senate,  and  probably  directed  the  government. 

There  was  need  for  all  their  ability  and  all  their  firmness,  for  never  had  the 
of  P08^1*6  °^  affairs  been  more  alarming.  Hannibal's  unconquered 
Pa-  and  unconquerable  army,  although  it  had  not  saved  Capua,  had 
ion  wasted  Italy  more  widely  than  ever  in  the  last  campaign;  and  it 

of  the  senators  :  their    ,,  .  r  •       t       t  •  i  •    i      i        i     -,  •   t 

example^  followed  by  had  struck  particularly  at  countries  which  had  hitherto  escaped 
its  ravages,  the  valleys  of  the  Sabines,  and  the  country  of  the 
thirty-five  tribes  themselves,  up  to  the  very  gates  of  Rome.  Many  of  the  citi- 
zens had  not  only  lost  their  standing  crops,  but  their  cattle  had  been  carried  off, 
and  their  houses  burned  to  the  ground.8  Actual  scarcity  was  added  to  other 
causes  of  distress  ;  insomuch  that  the  modius  of  wheat  rose  to  nearly  three 
denarii,  which,  in  a  plentiful  season  eight  years  afterwards,  was  sold  at  four  ases, 
or  the  fourth  part  of  one  denarius.9  The  people  were  becoming  unable  to  bear 
further  burdens  ;  and  some  of  the  Latin  colonies,  which  had  hitherto  been  the 
firmest  support  of  the  commonwealth,  were  suspected  to  be  not  only  unable,  but 
unwilling.  It  was  probably  to  meet  the  urgent  necessity  of  the  case  that  the 
armies  were  somewhat  reduced  this  year,  four  legions,  it  seems,  being  dis- 
banded.10 But  this  fruit  of  the  fall  of  Capua  was  in  part  neutralized  by  the 
necessity  of  raising  fresh  seamen  ;  for  unless  the  commonwealth  maintained  its 
naval  superiority,  Sicily  would  be  lost,  and  Philip  might  be  expected  on  the 
coasts  of  Italy  ;  and  the  supply  of  corn  which  was  looked  for  from  Egypt  in  the 
failure  of  all  nearer  resources,  would  become  very  precarious.11  Accordingly  a 
tax  was  imposed,  requiring  all  persons  to  provide  a  certain  number  of  seamen,  in 
proportion  to  the  returns  of  their  property  at  the  last  census,  with  pay  and  pro- 
visions for  thirty  days.  But  our  own  tax  of  ship-money  did  not  excite  more  op- 
position, though  on  different  grounds.  The  people  complained  aloud  :  crowds 
gathered  in  the  Forum,  and  declared  that  no  power  could  force  from  them  what 
they  had  not  got  ;  that  the  consuls  might  sell  their  goods,  and  lay  hold  on  their 
persons,  if  they  chose  ;  but  they  had  no  means  of  payment.12  The  consuls  —  for 
Laevinus  was  by  this  time  returned  home  from  Macedonia  —  with  that  dignity 
which  the  Roman  government  never  forgot  for  an  instant,  issued  an  order,  giving 
the  defaulters  three  days  to  consider  their  determination  ;  thus  seeming  to  grant 
as  an  indulgence,  what  necessity  obliged  them  to  yield.  Meanwhile  they  sum- 
moned the  senate  ;  and  when  every  one  was  equally  convinced  of  the  necessity 
of  procuring  seamen,  and  the  impossibility  of  carrying  through  the  tax,  Lasvinus, 
in  his  colleague's  name  and  his  own,  proceeded  to  address  the  senators.  He  told 
them  that,  before  they  could  call  on  the  people  to  make  sacrifices,  they  must 
set  the  example.  "Let  each  senator,"  he  said,  "keep  his  gold  ring,  and  the 
rings  of  his  wife  and  children  :  let  him  keep  the  golden  bulla  worn  by  his  sons 
under  age,  and  one  ounce  of  gold  for  ornaments  for  his  wife,  and  an  ounce  for 
each  of  his  daughters.  All  the  rest  of  the  gold  which  we  possess,  let  us  offer 

•  Livy,  XXVI.  22.  10  Livy,  XXVI.  28. 
7  Livy  XXVI.  23.  "  Polybius,  IX.  10. 
9  Livy,  XXVI.  26.  B  Livy,  XXVI.  86. 

•  Polybius,  IX.  44.  Livy,  XXXI.  5. 


OHAP.  XLVI]          SEVERITY  OF  FULVIUS  AND  MARCELLUS.  567 

for  the  public  service.  Next,  let  all  of  us  who  have  borne  curule  offices,  reserve 
the  silver  used  in  the  harness  of  our  war-horses ;  and  let  all  others,  including 
those  just  mentioned,  keep  one  pound  of  silver,  enough  for  the  plate  needful  in 
sacrifices,  the  small  vessel  to  hold  the  salt,  and  the  small  plate  or  basin  for  the 
libation ;  and  let  us  each  keep  five  thousand  ases  of  copper  money.  With  these 
exceptions,  let  us  devote  all  our  silver  and  copper  to  our  country's  use,  as  we 
have  devoted  all  our  gold.  And  let  us  do  this  without  any  vote  of  the  senate, 
of  our  own  free  gift,  as  individual  senators,  and  carry  our  contributions  at  once 
to  the  three  commissioners  for  the  currency.  Be  sure  that  first  the  equestrian 
order,  and  then  the  mass  of  the  people,  will  follow  our  example."  He  spoke  to 
hearers  who  so  thoroughly  shared  his  spirit,  that  they  voted  their  thanks  to  the 
consuls  for  this  suggestion.  The  senate  instantly  broke  up  ;  xhe  senators  hastened 
home,  and  thence  came  crowding  to  the  Forum,  their  slaves  bearing  all  their  stores 
of  copper,  and  silver,  and  gold,  each  man  being  anxious  to  have  his  contribution 
recorded  first ;  so  that,  Livy  says,  neither  were  there  commissioners  enough  to 
receive  all  the  gifts  that  were  brought,  nor  clerks  enough  to  record  them.  The 
example,  as  the  consuls  knew,  was  irresistible  ;  the  equestrian  order  and  the  com- 
mons poured  in  their  contributions  with  equal  zeal ;  and  no  tax  could  have  sup- 
plied the  treasury  so  plentifully  as  this  free-will  offering  of  the  whole  people.13 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  money  thus  contributed  was  to  be  repaid  to  the 
contributors,  when  the  republic  should  see  better  days ;  but  the  Vnlue  of  thege  Mcri. 
sacrifice  consisted  in  this,  that,  while  the  prospect  of  payment  was  ficei- 
distant  and  uncertain,  the  whole  profit  of  the  money  in  the  mean  time  wa^  lost : 
for  the  Roman  state  creditors  received  no  interest  on  their  loans.  Therefore  it 
was  at  their  own  cost  mainly,  and  not  at  the  cost  of  posterity,  that  the  Romans 
maintained  their  great  struggle ;  and  from  our  admiration  of  their  firmness  and 
heroic  devotion  to  their  country's  cause,  nothing  is  in  this  case  to  be  abated. 

Nor  is  it  less  striking,  that  the  senate  at  this  very  moment  listened  to  accusa- 
tions brought  by  vanquished  enemies  against  their  conquerors,  and 

,,  /«      i         i  •     i  •     n  Complaints  of  the  ic  ver- 

these  conquerors  men  ot  the  highest  name  and  greatest  influence  uyof  Fuiviu.  und  Mar- 
ia the  commonwealth,  Marcellus  and  Q.  Fulvius.  When  Lsevinus 
passed  through  Capua  on  his  way  to  Rome,  he  was  beset  by  a  multitude  of  the 
Capuans,  who  complained  of  the  intolerable  misery  of  their  condition  under  the 
dominion  of  Q.  Fulvius,  and  besought  him  to  take  them  with  him  to  Rome,  that 
they  might  implore  the  mercy  of  the  senate.  Fulvius  made  them  swear  that  they 
would  return  to  Capua  within  five  days  after  they  received  their  answer,  telling 
Lcevinus  that  he  dared  not  let  them  go  at  liberty ;  for  if  any  Capuan  escaped 
from  the  city,  he  instantly  became  a  brigand,  and  scoured  the  country,  burning, 
robbing,  and  murdering  all  that  fell  in  his  way ;  even  at  Rome,  Laevinus  would 
find  the  traces  of  Capuan  treason,  for  the  late  destructive  fire  in  the  city  was 
their  work.  So  a  deputation  of  Campanians,  thus  hardly  allowed  to  go,  followed 
Lsevinus  towards  Rome ;  and  when  he  approached  the  city,  a  similar  deputation 
of  Sicilians  came  out  to  meet  him,  with  like  complaints  against  Marcellus.14 

The  provinces  assigned  to  the  consuls  were  this  year  to  be  the  conduct  of  the 
war  with  Hannibal,  and  Sicily  ;  and  Sicily  fell  by  lot  to  Marcellus. 

rrt,       or    T  .LI  •     i         1 1  •  1  -1   •  The   Sicilians     entreat 

Ine  Sicilians  present  were  thrown  into  despair  when  this  was  an-  that  Mm-ceiim.  may  not 
nounced  to  them :  they  put  on  mourning  and  beset  the  senate- 
house,  weeping  and  bewailing  their  hard  fate,  and  saying  that  it  would  be  better 
for  their  island  to  be  sunk  in  the  sea,  or  overwhelmed  with  the  lava  floods  of 
^Etna,  than  given  up  to  the  vengeance  of  Marcellus.  Their  feeling  met  with 
much  sympathy  in  the  senate ;  and  this  was  made  so  intelligible,  that  Marcellus, 
without  waiting  for  any  resolution  on  the  subject,  came  to  an  agreement  with  his 
colleague,  and  they  exchanged  their  provinces.16 

This  having  been  settled,  the  Sicilians  were  admitted  into  the  senate,  and 

»  Livy,  XXVI.  36.  «•  Livy,  XXVI.  27.  M  Livy,  XXVI.  29. 


568  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CiiAr.  XLV1 

Their  complaint  ii  brought  forward  their  complaint.  It  turned  principally  on  the  cru- 
coeltr^e,Lratof  elty  of  making  them  responsible  for  the  acts,  first  of  Hieronymus, 
and  then  of  a  mercenary  soldiery  which  they  had  no  means  of  re- 
sisting ;  while  the  long  and  tried  friendship  of  Hiero,  proved  by  the  Romans  in 
the  utmost  extremity  of  their  fortune,  had  been  forgotten.  Marcellus  insisted 
that  the  deputation  should  remain  in  the  senate,  and  hear  his  statement, — answer 
he  would  not  call  it,  and  far  less  defence,  as  if  a  Roman  consul  could  plead  to 
the  accusations  of  a  set  of  vanquished  Greeks, — but  his  statement  of  their  offences, 
which  had  justly  brought  on  all  that  they  had  suffered.  He  said  that  they  had 
acted  as  enemies,  had  rejected  his  frequent  offers  of  peace,  and  had  resisted  his 
attacks  with  all  possible  obstinacy,  instead  of  doing  as  Sosis,  whom  they  called  a 
traitor,  had  done,  and  surrendering  their  city  into  his  hands.  He  then  left  the 
senate-house  together  with  the  Sicilians,  and  went  to  the  Capitol  to  carry  on  the 
enlistment  of  the  newly  raised  legions.16 

There  was  a  strong  feeling  in  the  senate  that  Syracuse  had  been  cruelly  used  ; 
Decree  of  the  senate  anc^  °^  '^'  Manlius  expressed  this  as  became  him,  especially  urging 
^tronui'of'lvracu'e11*  ^e  unworthy  return  which  had  been  made  to  the  country  of  Hiero 
* '  for  all  his  fidelity  to  Rome.  But  a  sense  of  Maroellus'  signal  ser- 
vices, and  of  the  urgency  of  the  times,  prevailed  ;  and  a  resolution  was  passed  con- 
firming all  that  he  had  done,  but  declaring  that  for  the  time  to  come  the  senate 
would  consult  the  welfare  of  the  Syracusans,  and  would  commend  them  especially 
to  the  care  of  Laevinus.  A  deputation  of  two  senators  was  then  sent  to  the  con- 
sul to  invite  him  to  return  to  the  senate  ;  the  Syracusans  were  called  in,  and  the 
decree  was  read.  Then  the  Syracusan  deputies  threw  themselves  at  the  feet  of 
Marcellus,  imploring  him  to  forgive  all  that  they  had  said  against  him,  to  receive 
them  under  his  protection,  and  to  become  the  patronus  of  their  city.17  He  gave 
them  a  gracious  answer,  and  accepted  the  office ;  and  from  that  time  forward  the 
Syracusans  found  it  their  best  policy  to  extol  the  clemency  of  Marcellus ;  and 
later  writers  echoed  their  language,  not  knowing,  or  not  remembering,  that  these 
expressions  of  forced  praise  were  their  own  strongest  refutation. 

The  Campanian  deputation  was  heard  with  less  favor ;  but  still  it  was  heard ; 
severe  treatment  of  the  a^d  the  senate  took  their  complaint  into  consideration.  But  in  this 
Gampauiau.  case  no  mercv  was  shown ;  and  it  was  now  that  those  severe  de- 

crees were  passed,  fixing  the  future  fate  of  the  Campanian  people,  which  I 
have  already  mentioned  by  anticipation,  at  the  end  of  the  story  of  the  siege  of 
Capua.18 

The  military  history  of  this  year  is  again  difficult  to  comprehend,  owing  to  the 
openin-  of  the  cam-  omissions  and  incoherence  in  Livy's  narrative.  Two  armies,  as  we 
vfuf  ithde*™oyedFby  bave  seen,  were  employed  against  Hannibal :  that  of  Cn.  Fulvius, 
Ha"nibftl-  the  consul  of  the  preceding  year,  in  Apulia ;  and  that  of  Marcellus 

in  Samnium.  Where  Hannibal  had  passed  the  winter,  or  the  end  of  the  preced- 
ing summer,  we  know  not ;  not  a  word  being  said  of  his  movements  after  his  in- 
effectual attempt  upon  Rhegium,  till  we  hear  of  his  march  against  Fulvius.  We 
may  suppose,  however,  that  he  had  wintered  in  Apulia ;  and  we  are  told  that, 
Salapia  having  been  betrayed  to  the  Romans,  and  a  detachment  of  Numidians. 
having  been  cut  off  in  it,  Hannibal  again  retreated  into  Bruttium.19  With  two 
armies  opposed  to  him,  it  was  of  importance  not  to  let  either  of  them  advance  to 
attack  Tarentum  and  the  towns  on  the  coast,  while  he  was  engaged  with  the 
other.  He  was  obliged  therefore  to  abandon  his  garrisons  in  Samnium  and 
Apulia  to  their  own  resources,  and  kept  his  army  well  in  hand,  ready  to  strike  a 
blow  whenever  opportunity  should  offer.  As  usual,  he  received  perfect  inform- 
ation of  the  enemy's  proceedings  through  his  secret  emissaries;  and  having 
earned  that  Fulvius  was  in  the  neighborhood  of  Herdonea,  trying  to  win  the 

'•  Livy,  XXVI.  30,  81.  »  Above,  p.  540,  foil.     Livy,  XXVI.  88. 

n  Livy,  XXVI.  32!  *  Livy,  XXVII.  1. 


CHAP.  XLVI]  ALARMING  NEWS  FROM  AFRICA,  539 

place,  and  that,  relying  on  his  distance  from  the  Carthaginian  array,  he  was  not  suf- 
ficiently on  his  guard,  Hannibal  conceived  the  hope  of  destroying  this  army  by  an 
unexpected  attack.  Again  the  details  are  given  variously ;  but  the  result  was, 
that  Hannibal's  attempt  was  completely  successful.  The  army  of  Fulvius  was 
destroyed,  and  the  proconsul  killed  ;  and  Hannibal,  having  set  tire  to  Herdonea, 
and  executed  those  citizens  who  had  been  in  correspondence  with  the  enemy,  sent 
away  the  rest  of  the  population  into  Bruttium,  and  himself  crossed  the  mountains 
into  Lucania,  to  look  after  the  army  of  Marcellus.20 

Marcellus,  on  the  news  of  his  colleague's  defeat,  left  Samnium,  and  advanced 
into  Lucania :  his  object  now  was  to  watch  Hannibal  closely,  lest  Marceiiu.  adopts  th. 
he  should  again  resume  the  offensive;  all  attempts  to  recover  p°licy^Fabiu»- 
more  towns  in  Samnium  or  elsewhere  must  for  the  time  be  abandoned.  And 
this  service  he  performed  with  great  ability  and  resolution,  never  leaving  Hanni- 
bal at  rest,  and  taking  care  not  to  fall  into  any  ambush,  but  unable,  notwithstand- 
ing the  idle  stories  of  his  victories,  to  do  any  thing  iicore  than  keep  his  enemy  in 
sight,  as  Fabius  had  done  in  his  first  dictatorship.  Thus  the  rest  of  the  season 
passed  away  unmarked  by  any  thing  of  importance  :  Marcellus  wintered  ap- 
parently at  Venusia ;  Hannibal  in  his  old  quarters,  in  the  warm  plains  near 
the  sea.21 

In  spite,  therefore,  of  the  reduction  of  Capua,  the  Roman  affairs  in  Italy  had 
made  no  progress.     On  the  contrary,  another  army  had  been  to-   . 

•..         ,  ,      ,  •iii'ii  i    '  Advantages  gained  by 

tally  destroyed;  and  the  war,  with  all  its  burdens,  seemed  inter-  «»  Roman*  out  »i 
minable.  But  in  other  quarters  this  year  had  been  more  success-  Uy' 
ful:  Lsevinus  had  ended  the  war  in  Sicily,  and  the  resources  of  that  island  were 
now  at  the  disposal  of  the  Romans ;  while  the  Carthaginian  fleets  had  no  point 
nearer  than  Carthage  itself  to  carry  on  their  operations,  whether  to  the  annoy- 
ance of  the  enemy's  coasts,  or  the  relief  of  their  own  garrisons  at  Tarentum, 
and  along  the  southern  coast  of  Italy.  In  addition  to  this,  the  alliance  which 
Lsevinus  had  concluded  with  the  ^Etolians  before  he  quitted  Epirus,  had  left  a 
far  easier  task  to  his  successor,  P.  Sulpicius,  and  removed  all  danger  of  Philip's 
co-operating  with  Hannibal.  Meanwhile  Lsevinus  was  summoned  home  to  hold 
the  comitia,  Marcellus  being  too  busily  employed  with  Hannibal  to  leave  his 
army ;  and  accordingly  he  crossed  over  directly  from  Lilybseum  or  Panormus  to 
Ostia,  accompanied  by  the  African,  Mutines,  who  was  now  to  receive  the  reward 
of  his  desertion,  in  being  made  a  citizen  of  Rome  by  a  decree  of  the  people.22 

Before  his  departure  from  Sicily,  Lsevinus  had  sent  the  greater  part  of  his 
fleet  over  to  Africa,  partly  to  make  plundering  descents  on  the  Aiming  news  from 
coast,  but  chiefly  to  collect  information  as  to  the  condition  and  Africa< 
plans  of  the  enemy.  Messalla,  who  had  succeeded  to  T.  Otacilius  in  the  com- 
mand rf  the  fleet,  accomplished  this  expedition  in  less  than  a  fortnight ;  and  the 
information  which  he  collected  was  so  important,  that,  finding  Lsevinus  was  gone 
to  Rome,  he  forwarded  it  to  him  without  delay.  Its  substance  bore,  that  the 
Carthaginians  were  collecting  troops  with  great  diligence,  to  be  sent  over  into 
Spain;  and  that  the  general  report  was,  that  these  soldiers  were  to  form  the 
army  of  Hasdrubal,  Hannibal's  brother,  and  were  to  be  led  by  him  immediately 
into  Italy.  This  intelligence  so  alarmed  the  senate,  that  they  would  not  detain 
the  consul  to  hold  the  comitia,  but  ordered  him  to  name  a  dictator  for  that  pur- 
pose, and  then  to  return  immediately  to  his  province.23 

With  all  the  patriotism  of  the  Romans,  it  was  not  possible  that  personal  am- 
bition and  jealousy  should  be  wholly  extinct  among  them  ;  and  the 

'a  ~  •     '  j       i.   ii  •    •     i        r\    -n    i  •  j   t  •  c      A.U.  C.  545.  A.  C.  209. 

influence  exercised  at  the  present  crisis  by  Q.  labius,  and  his  pref-  A  dictat 
erence  of  Q.  Fulvius  and  Marcellus  to  all  other  commanders,  was 
no  doubt  regarded  by  some  as  excessive  and  overbearing.     The 

98  Livy,  XXVII.  1.  *  Livy,  XXVII.  5. 

31  Livy,  XXVII.  2,  4, 12-14,  20.  M  Livy,  XXVII.  5. 


570  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XL Vi 

magistrate  who  presided  at  the  comitia  enjoyed  so  great  a  power  over  the  elec- 
tions, that  the  choice  of  the  dictator  on  this  occasion  was  of  some  consequence ; 
and  Lsevinus  intended  to  name  the  commander  of  his  fleet,  M.  Messala,  not  with- 
out some  view,  possibly,  to  his  own  re-election,  if  the  comitia  were  held  under 
the  auspices  of  a  man  not  entirely  devoted  to  Fabius  and  Fulvius.  But  when  he 
declared  his  intention  to  the  senate,  it  was  objected  that  a  person  out  of  Italy 
could  not  be  named  dictator ;  and  the  consul  was  ordered  to  take  the  choice  of 
the  people,  and  to  name  whomsoever  the  people  should  fix  upon.  Indignant  at 
this  interference  with  his  rights  as  consul,  Lsevinus  refused  to  submit  the  question 
to  the  people,  and  forbade  the  praetor,  L.  Manlius  Acidinus,  to  do  so.  This,  how- 
ever, availed  him  nothing ;  for  the  tribunes  called  the  assembly,  and  the  people 
resolved  that  the  dictator  to  be  named  should  be  Q.  Fulvius.  Laevinus  probably 
expected  this,  and,  as  his  last  resource,  had  left  Rome  secretly  on  the  night  be- 
fore the  decision,  that  he  might  not  be  compelled  to  go  through  the  form  of 
naming  his  rival  dictator.  Here  was  a  new  difficulty,  for  the  dictator  could  only 
be  named  by  one  of  the  consuls :  so  it  was  necessary  to  apply  to  Marcellus  ;  and 
he  nominated  Q.  Fulvius  immediately.24  The  old  man  left  Capua  forthwith,  and 
proceeded  to  Rome  to  hold  the  comitia,  at  which  the  century  first  called  gave  its 
votes  in  favor  of  Fulvius  himself  and  Fabius.  This,  no  doubt,  had  been  precon- 
certed :  but  two  of  the  tribunes  shared  the  feelings  of  Laevinus,  and  objected  to 
such  a  monopoly  of  office  in  the  hands  of  two  or  three  men ;  they  also  complained 
of  the  precedent  of  allowing  the  magistrate  presiding  at  the  election  to  be  himself 
elected.  Fulvius,  with  no  false  modesty,  or  what  in  our  notions  would  be  real 
delicacy,  maintained  that  the  choice  of  the  century  was  good,  and  justified  by 
precedents ;  and  at  last  the  question  was  submitted  by  common  consent  to  the 
senate.  The  senate  determined  that,  under  actual  circumstances,  it  was  import- 
ant that  the  ablest  men  and  most  tried  generals  should  be  at  the  head  of  affairs  ; 
and  they  therefore  approved  of  the  election.  Accordingly  Fabius  and  Fulvius  were 
once  more  appointed  consuls ;  the  former  for  the  fifth  time,  the  latter  for  the  fourth.2* 
Thus  was  the  great  object  gained  of  employing  the  three  most  tried  generals 
of  the  republic,  Fabius,  Fulvius,  and  Marcellus,  against  Hannibal 

Plan  for  the  campaign.  ,  .,  _       -  .          -    .. 

in  the  approaching  campaign.  Jiach  was  to  command  a  lull  con- 
sular army,  Marcellus  retaining  that  which  he  now  had,  with  the  title  of  procon- 
sul ;  and  the  plan  of  operations  was,  that,  while  Marcellus  occupied  Hannibal  on 
the  side  of  Apulia,  a  grand  movement  should  be  made  against  Tarentum  and  the 
other  towns  held  by  the  enemy  on  the  southern  coast.  Fabius  was  to  attack 
Tarentum,  while  Fulvius  was  to  reduce  the  garrisons  still  retained  by  Hannibal 
in  Lucania,26  and  then  to  advance  into  Bruttium ;  and  that  band  of  adventurers 
from  Sicily,  which  Lsevinus  had  sent  over  to  Rhegium  to  do  some  service  in  that 
quarter,  was  to  attempt  the  siege  of  Caulon,  or  Caulonia.  Every  exertion  was 
to  be  made  to  destroy  Hannibal's  power  in  the  south,  before  his  brother  could 
arrive  in  Italy  to  effect  a  diversion  in  the  north.27  Laevinus,  it  seems,  paid  the 
penalty  of  his  opposition  to  Fulvius'  election,  in  being  deprived  of  his  consular 
army,  which  he  was  ordered  to  send  over  to  Italy  to  be  commanded  by  Fulvius 
himself ;  and  he  and  the  propraetor,  L.  Cincius,  were  left  to  defend  Sicily  with 
the  old  soldiers  of  Canme,  and  the  remains  of  the  defeated  armies  of  the  two 
Fulvii,  the  praetor  and  the  proconsul,  which  had  been  condemned  to  the  same 
banishment,  together  with  the  forces  which  they  had  themselves  raised  within 
the  island,  partly  native  Sicilians,  and  partly  Numidians,  who  had  come  over  to 
the  Romans  with  Mutines.28  With  these  resources,  and  with  a  fleet  of  seventy 
ships,  Sicily  was  firmly  held ;  and  Laevinus,  it  is  said,  was  able  in  the  course  of 
the  year  to  send  supplies  of  corn  to  Rome,  and  also  to  the  army  of  Fabius  be- 
fore Tarentum.29 

84  Livy,  XXVII.  5.  *  Livy,  XXVII.  12. 

»  Livy  XXVII.  6.  »  Livy,  XXVII.  7. 

«  lavy  XXVII.  7.  ffl  Livy,  XXVII.  8. 


CHAP.XLVI.]  REVOLT  OF  TWELVE  LATIN  COLONIES.  57] 

But  before  the  consuls  could  take  the  field,  a  storm  burst  forth  more  threaten- 
ing than  any  which  the  republic  had  yet  experienced.  The  sol- 

v  e  xi  ic  i     ",    TT       J  i  i     Twelve   of    the    Latic 

diers  ot  the  army  defeated  at  xierdonea,  who  were  now  to  be  sent  colonies  refuse  fr«»h 
over  to  Sicily,  were  in  a  large  proportion  Latins  of  the  colonies  ; 
and  as  they  were  to  be  banished  for  the  whole  length  of  the  war,  fresh  soldiers 
were  to  be  levied  to  supply  their  places  in  Italy.  This  new  demand  was  the 
drop  which  made  the  full  cup  overflow.  The  deputies  of  twelve  of  the  colonies, 
who  were  at  Rome  as  usual  to  receive  the  consul's  orders,  when  they  were  "re-" 
quired  to  furnish  fresh  soldiers,  and  to  raise  money  for  their  payment,  replied 
resolutely  that  they  had  neither  men  nor  money  remaining.30 

"The  Roman  people,"  says  Livy,  "had  at  this  period  thirty  colonies ;  of 
which  number  twelve  thus  refused  to  support  the  war  any  longer.  Tha  coninli  r(fmon. 
The  number  mentioned  by  the  historian  has  occasioned  great  per-  ltrate  wilh  Uwm  invaiu* 
plexity ;  but  its  coincidence  with  the  old  number  of  the  states  of  the  Latin  con- 
federacy leaves  no  doubt  of  its  genuineness  ;  and  when  the  maritime  colonies  are 
excepted,  which  stood  on  a  different  footing,  as  not  being  ordinarily  bound  to 
raise  men  for  the  regular  land-service,  it  agrees  very  nearly  with  the  list  which 
we  should  draw  up  of  all  the  Latin  colonies  mentioned  to  have  been  founded  be- 
fore this  period.  But  what  particular  causes  determined  the  twelve  recusant  colo- 
nies more  than  the  rest  to  resist  the  commands  of  Rome,  we  cannot  tell.  Amongst 
them  we  find  the  name  of  Alba,  which  two  years  before  had  shown,  such  zeal  in 
hastening  to  the  assistance  of  Rome  unsummoned,  when  Hannibal  threatened  its 
very  walls ;  we  also  find  some  of  the  oldest  colonies,  Circeii,  Ardea,  Cora, 
Nepete,  and  Sutrium  ;  Cales,  which  had  so  long  been  an  important  position  dur- 
ing the  revolt  of  Capua,  Carseoli,  Suessa,  Setia,  Narnia,  and  Interamna,  on  the 
Liris.  The  consuls,  thunderstruck  at  their  refusal,  attempted  to  shame  them 
from  their  purpose  by  rebuke.  "  This  is  not  merely  declining  to  furnish  troops 
and  money,"  they  said;  "it  is  open  rebellion.  Go  home  to  your  colonies;  for- 
get that  so  detestable  a  thought  ever  entered  your  heads ;  Remind  your  fellow- 
citizens  that  they  are  not  Campanians  nor  Tarentines,  but  Romans,  Roman  born, 
and  sent  from  Rome  to  occupy  lands  conquered  by  Romans,  to  multiply  the  race 
of  Rome's  defenders.  All  duty  owed  by  children  to  their  parents,  you  owe  to 
the  senate  and  people  of  Rome."  But  in  vain  did  Fabius  and  Fulvius,  with  all 
the  authority  of  their  years  and  their  great  name,  speak  such  language  to  the 
deputies.  They  were  coldly  answered,  "that  it  was  useless  to  consult  their 
countrymen  at  home  ;  the  colonies  could  not  alter  their  resolution :  for  they  had 
no  men  nor  money  left."  Finding  the  case  hopeless,  the  consuls  summoned 
the  senate,  and  reported  the  fatal  intelligence.  The  courage  which  had  not 
yielded  to  the  slaughter  of  Cannse,  was  shaken  now.  "  At  last,"  it  was  said, 
"  the  blow  is  struck,  and  Rome  is  lost :  this  example  will  be  followed  by  all  our 
colonies  and  allies  :  there  is  doubtless  a  general  conspiracy  amongst  them  to  give 
us  up  bound  hand  and  foot  to  Hannibal."31 

The  consuls  bade  the  senate  to  take  courage  ;  the  other  colonies  were  yet  true ; 
"  even  these  false  ones  will  return  to  their  duty,  if  we  do  not  con- 
descend to  entreat  them,  but  rather  rebuke  them  for  their  treason."  o^wShS 
Every  thing  was  left  to  the  consuls'  discretion :  they  exerted  all  t^tJ^lUc*  «MJ 
their  influence  with  the  deputies  of  the  other  colonies  privately ; 
and  having  ascertained  their  sentiments,  they  then  ventured  to  summon  them 
officially,  and  to  ask,  "  Whether  their  appointed  contingents  of  men  and  money 
were  forthcoming  ?"  Then  M.  Sextilius  of  Fregellae  stood  up  and  made  answer 
in  the  name  of  the  eighteen  remaining  colonies :  "  They  are  forthcoming ; 
and  if  more  are  needed,  more  are  at  your  disposal.  Every  order,  every  wish  of  the 
Roman  people,  we  will  with  our  best  efforts  fulfil :  to  do  this  we  have  means 
enough,  and  will  more  than  enough."  The  consuls  replied,  "Our  thanks  are  all 
too  little  for  your  desert :  the  whole  senate  must  thank  you  themselves."  They 

»  Livy,  XXVII.  9.  *»  Livy,  XXVII.  9. 


572  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLV1 

led  the  deputies  into  the  senate-house ;  and  thanks  were  voted  to  them  in  the 
warmest  terms.  Then  the  consuls  were  desired  to  lead  them  before  the  people, 
to  remind  the  people  of  all  the  services  which  the  colonies  had  rendered  to  them 
and  to  their  fathers,  services  all  surpassed  by  this  last  act  of  devotion.  The 
thanks  of  the  people  were  voted  no  less  heartily  than  those  of  the  senate.  "  Nor 
shall  these  eighteen  colonies  even  now,"  says  Livy,  "  lose  their  just  glory.  They 
were  the  people  of  Signia,  of  Norba,  of  Saticula,  of  Brundisium,  of  Fregellre,  of 
Luceria,  of  Venusia,  of  Hadria,  of  Firmum,  and  of  Ariminum  ;  and  from  the  low- 
er sea,  the  people  of  Pontia,  and  of  Pcestum,  and  of  Cosa ;  and  from  the  midland 
country,  the  people  of  Beneventum,  and  of  ^Ksernia,  and  of  Spoletum,  and  of 
Placentia,  and  of  Cremona."  The  aid  of  these  eighteen  colonies  on  that  day  saved 
the  Roman  empire.  Satisfied  now,  and  feeling  their  strength  invincible,  the  sen- 
ate forbade  the  consuls  to  take  the  slightest  notice  of  the  disobedient  colonies ; 
they  were  neither  to  send  for  them,  nor  to  detain  them,  nor  to  dismiss  them  ; 
they  were  to  leave  them  wholly  alone.32 

It  is  enough  for  the  glory  of  any  nation,  that  its  history  in  two  successive 
Magnanimity  of  their  years  should  record  two  such  events  as  the  magnanimous  liberality 
h°cnw"nce  inTi^'subse."  of  the  senate  in  sacrificing  their  wealth  to  their  country,  and  the 
SousL^llivTuVand11^  no  less  magnanimous  firmness  and  wisdom  of  their  behavior  to- 
wards their  colonies.  An  aristocracy  endowed  with  such  virtue 
deserved  its  ascendency  ;  for  its  inherent  faults  were  now  shown  only  towards 
the  enemies  of  Rome ;  its  nobler  character  alone  was  displayed  towards  her  citi- 
zens. But  when  M.  Sextilius  of  Fregellse  was  standing  before  Q.  Fulvius,  prom- 
ising to  serve  Rome  to  the  death,  and  the  old  consul's  stern  countenance  was 
softened  to  admiration  and  joy,  and  his  lips,  which  had  so  remorselessly  doomed 
the  Capuan  senators  to  a  bloody  death,  were  now  uttering  thanks  and  praises  to 
Rome's  true  colonists,  how  would  each  have  started,  could  he  have  looked  for  a 
moment  into  futurity,  and  seen  what  events  were  to  happen,  before  a  hundred 
years  were  over  !  By  a  strange  coincidence,  each  would  have  seen  the  selfsame 
hand  red  with  the  blood  of  his  descendants,  and  extinguishing  the  country  of  the 
one  and  the  family  of  the  other.  Within  ninety  years,  the  Roman  aristocracy 
were  to  become  utterly  corrupted ;  and  its  leader,  L.  Opimius,  as  base  person- 
ally as  he  was  politically  cruel,  was  to  destroy  Fregellae,  and  treacherously  in 
cold  blood  to  slay  an  innocent  youth,  the  last  direct  representative  of  the  great 
Q.  Fulvius,  after  he  had  slain  M.  Fulvius,  the  youth's  father,  in  civil  conflict  with- 
in the  walls  of  Rome.33  Fregellse,  to  whose  citizens  Rome  at  this  time  owed  her 
safety,  was  within  ninety  years  to  be  so  utterly  destroyed  by  the  Roman  arms, 
that  at  this  day  its  very  site  is  not  certainly  known :  the  most  faithful  of  colonies 
has  perished  more  entirely  than  the  rebellious  Capua.34 

Rome  could  rely  on  the  fidelity  of  the  majority  of  her  colonies ;  but  their  very 
the  sacred  trea8ure  is  readiness  made  it  desirable  to  spare  them  to  the  utmost.  There- 
brought  out.  fore  a  treasure>  which  was  reserved  in  the  most  sacred  treasury 
for  the  extremest  need,  was  now  brought  out ;  amounting,  it  is  said,  to  four 
thousand  pounds  weight  of  gold ;  and  which  had  been  accumulating  during  a 
period  of  about  150  years,  being  the  produce  of  the  tax  at  five  per  cent,  on  the 
value  of  every  emancipated  slave,  paid  by  the  person  who  gave  him  his  liberty. 
With  this  money  the  military  chests  of  the  principal  armies  were  well  replenished ; 
and  supplies  of  clothing  were  sent  to  the  army  in  Spain,  which  P.  Scipio  was  now 
commanding,  and  was  on  the  point  of  leading  to  the  conquest  of  New  Carthage.3* 

At  length  the  consuls  took  the  field.  Marcellus,  according  to  the  plan 
and  Lucania  agreed  upon,  broke  up  from  his  quarters  at  Venusia,  and  proceed- 
JllR~a:  ed  to  watch  and  harass  Hannibal ;  while  Fabius  advanced  upon 
'"•  Tarentum,  and  Fulvius  marched  into  Lucania.  Caulonia  at  the 

«  Livy,  XXVII.  10.  M  Velleius,  II.  6,  4.     Strabo,   V.  p.  868. 

n  Velleius,  II.  6,  4.     11.7,2.        Plutarch,          Auctor  ad  Herennium,  IV.  15. 
C.  Gracchus,  c.  xvi.    Appian,  B.  C.  I.  26.  *  Livy,  XXVII.  10. 


CHAP.  XLVL]  FALL  OF  TARENTUM.  573 

same  time  was  besieged  by  the  band  of  adventurers  from  Sicily.  The  mass  of 
forces  thus  employed  was  overwhelming;  and  Hannibal,  while  he  clung  to  Apu- 
lia and  Bruttium,  was  unable  to  retain  his  hold  on  Samnium  and  Lucania.  Those 
great  countries,  or  rather  the  powerful  party  in  both,  which  had  hitherto  been  in 
revolt  from  Rome,  now  made  their  submission  to  Q.  Fulvius,  and  delivered  up 
such  of  Hannibal's  soldiers  as  were  in  garrison  in  any  of  their  towns.  They  had 
apparently  chosen  their  time  well ;  and  by  submitting  at  the  beginning  of  the 
campaign  they  obtained  easy  terms.  Even  Fulvius,  though  not  inclined  to  show 
mercy  to  revolted  allies,  granted  them  full  indemnity :  the  axes  of  his  lictors 
were  suffered  this  time  to  sleep  unstained  with  blood'.  This  politic  mercy  had 
its  effect  on  the  Bruttians  also:  some  of  their  leading  men  came  to  the  Roman 
"amp  to  treat  concerning  the  submission  of  their  countrymen  on  the  terms  which 
had  been  granted  to  the  Samnites  and  Lucanians  ;  and  the  base  of  all  Hannibal's 
operations,  the  southern  coast  of  Italy,  was  in  danger  of  being  torn  away  from 
him,  if  he  lingered  any  longer  in  Apulia.36 

Then  his  indomitable  genius  and  energy  appeared  once  more  in  all  its  brilliancy. 
He  turned  fiercely  upon  Marcellus,  engaged  him  twice,  and  so  H«mibai»i  brilliant «. 
disabled  him,  that  Marcellus,  with  all  his  enterprise,  was  obliged  Cyo/ tHC RO' 
to  take  refuge  within  the  walls  of  Venusia,  and  there  lay  helpless  man9' 
curing  the  remainder  of  the  campaign."  Freed  from  this  enemy,  Hannibal  flew 
into  Bruttium  :  the  strength  of  Tarentum  gave  him  no  anxiety  for  its  immediate 
clanger;  so  he  hastened  to  deliver  Caulonia.  The  motley  band  who  were  be- 
sieging it  fled  at  the  mere  terror  of  his  approach,  and  retreated  to  a  neighboring 
hill ;  thither  he  pursued  them,  and  obliged  them  to  surrender  at  discretion.33  Ho 
then  marched  back  with  speed  to  Tarentum,  hoping  to  crush  Fabius,  as  he  had 
crushed  Marcellus.  He  was  within  five  miles  of  the  city  when  he  received  intel- 
ligence that  it  was  lost.  The  Bruttian  commander  of  the  garrison  had  betrayed 
it  to  Fabius :  the  Romans  had  entered  it  in  arms :  Carthalo,  the  Carthaginian 
commander,  and  Nico  and  Philemenus,  who  had  opened  its  gates  to  Hannibal, 
had  all  fallen  in  defending  it :  the  most  important  city  and  the  best  harbor  in 
the  south  of  Italy  were  in  the  hands  of  the  Romans.39 

The  news  of  the  fall  of  Paris,  when  Napoleon  was  hastening  from  Fontaine- 
bleau  to  deliver  it,  can  scarcely  have  been  a  heavier  disappoint- 
ment to  him,  than  the  news  of  the  loss  of  Tarentum  was  to  Han-  "Sfntoaw^b.Ti 
nibal.  Yet,  always  master  of  himself,  he  was  neither  misled  by 
passion  nor  by  alarm  :  he  halted  and  encamped  on  the  ground,  and  there  re- 
mained quiet  for  some  days,  to  show  that  his  confidence  in  himself  was  unshaken 
by  the  treason  of  his  allies.  Then  he  retreated  slowly  towards  Metapontum,  and 
contrived  that  two  of  the  Metapontines  should  go  to  Fabius  at  Tarentum,  offer- 
ing to  surrender  their  town  and  the  Carthaginian  garrison,  if  their  past  revolt 
might  be  forgiven.  Fabius,  believing  the  proposal  to  be  genuine,  sent  back  a 
favorable  answer,  and  fixed  the  day  on  which  he  would  appear  before  Metapon- 
tum with  his  army.  On  that  day  Hannibal  lay  in  ambush  close  to  the  road  lead- 
ing from  Tarentum,  ready  to  spring  upon  his  prey.  But  Fabius  came  not :  his 
habitual  caution  made  him  suspicious  of  mischief ;  and  it  was  announced  that  the 
omens  were  threatening :  the  haruspex,  on  inspecting  the  sacrifice,  which  was 
offered  to  learn  the  pleasure  of  the  gods,  warned  the  consul  to  beware  of  hidden 
snares,  and  of  the  arts  of  the  enemy.  The  Metapontine  deputies  were  sent  back 
to  learn  the  cause  of  the  delay  ;  they  were  arrested,  and,  being  threatened  with 
the  torture,  disclosed  the  truth.40 

The  remaining  operations  of  the  campaign  are  again  unknown  :  the  Romans, 
however,  seem  to  have  attempted  nothing  further  ;  and  Hannibal  Ha  remaini  mMter  a 
kept  his  army  in  the  field,  marching  whither  he  would  without  op-  the  field- 

36  Livy,  XXVIT.  15.  »  Livy,  XXVII.  15, 16. 

»  Livy,  XXVII.  12-U.  <•  Livy  XXVII.  16. 

38  Livy,  XXVII.  15,  16. 


574  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLV1 

position,  and  again  laying  waste  various  parts  of  Italy  with  fire  and  sword.41  So 
far  as  we  can  discover,  he  returned  at  the  end  of  the  season  to  his  old  winter- 
quarters  in  Apulia. 

It  is  not  wonderful  that  this  result  of  a  campaign,  from  which  so  much  had 
Dissatisfaction  at  Rome-,  keen  expected,  should  have  caused  great  disappointment  at  Rome. 
3iaiw*!^i?verth£  However  much  men  rejoiced  in  the  recovery  of  Tarentum,  they 
less  u'  elected  consul.  cou\&  not  but  feel  that  even  this  success  was  owing  to  treason; 
and  that  Hannibal's  superiority  to  all  who  were  opposed  to  him  was  more  mani- 
fest than  ever.  This  touched  them  in  a  most  tender  point  ;  because  it  enabled 
him  to  continue  his  destructive  ravages  of  Italy,  and  thus  to  keep  up  that  distress 
which  had  long  been  felt  so  heavily.  Above  all,  indignation  was  loud  against 
Marcellus  ;41  and  if  in  his  lifetime  he  indulged  in  that  braggart  language,  which 
his  son  used  so  largely  after  his  death,  the  anger  of  ILG  people  against  him  was 
very  reasonable.  If  he  called  his  defeats  victories,  as  his  son  no  doubt  called 
them  afterwards,  and  as  the  falsehood  through  him  has  struck  deep  into  Roman 
history,  well  might  the  people  be  indignant  at  hearing  that  a  victorious  general 
had  shut  himself  up  all  the  summer  within  the  walls  of  Venusia,  and  had  allowed 
the  enemy  to  ravage  the  country  at  pleasure.  The  feeling  was  so  strono-,  that 
C.  Publicius,  one  of  the  tribunes,  a  man  of  an  old  and  respected  tribunician 
family,  brought  in  a  bill  to  the  people  to  deprive  Marcellus  of  his  command. 
Marcellus  returned  home  to  plead  his  cause,  when  Fulvius  went  home  also  to 
hold  the  comitia  ;  and  the  people  met  to  consider  the  bill  in  the  Flaminian  circus, 
without  the  walls,  to  enable  Marcellus  to  be  present  ;  for  his  military  command 
hindered  his  entering  the  city.  It  is  likely  that  the  influence  of  Fulvius  was  ex- 
erted strongly  in  his  behalf  ;  and  his  own  statement,  if  he  told  the  simple  truth, 
left  no  just  cause  of  complaint  against  him.  He  had  executed  his  part  of  the 
compaign  to  the  best  of  his  ability  :  twice  had  he  fought  with  Hannibal  to  hinder 
him  from  marching  into  Bruttium  ;  and  it  was  not  his  fault,  if  the  fate  of  all 
other  Roman  generals  had  been  his  also  ;  he  had  but  failed  to  do  what  none  had 
done,  or  could  do.  The  people  felt  for  the  mortification  of  a  brave  man,  who 
had  served  them  well  from  youth  to  age,  and  in  the  worst  of  times  had  never  lost 
courage  :  they  not  only  threw  out  the  bill,  but  elected  Marcellus  once  more  con- 
sul, giving  him,  as  his  colleague,  his  old  lieutenant  in  Sicily,  T.  Quintius  Crispi- 
nus,  who  was  now  praetor,  and  during  the  last  year  had  succeeded  to  Fulvius  in 
the  command  at  Capua.43 

It  marks  our  advance  in  Roman  history,  that  among  the  praetors  of  this  year 
AV  c.546.  A.c.203  we  ^n^-  the  name  of  Sex.  Julius  Caesar  ;  the  first  Caesar  who  ap- 

' 


For  some  time  past  the  Romans  seem  to  have  mistrusted  the  fidelity  of  the 
pouws  about  the  fidei-  Etruscans  ;  and  an  army  of  two  legions  had  been  regularly  stationed 
ityof  jstruriiu  m  Etruria,  to  check  any  disposition  to  revolt.  But  now  C.  Calpur- 

nius  Piso,  who  commanded  in  Etruria,  reported  that  the  danger  was  becoming 
imminent,  and  he  particularly  named  the  city  of  Arretium  as  the  principal  seat 
of  disaffection.44  Why  this  feeling  should  have  manifested  itself  at  this  moment, 
we  can  only  conjecture.  It  is  possible  that  the  fame  of  Hasdrubal's  coming  may 
have  excited  the  Etruscans.  It  is  possible  that  Hannibal  may  have  had  some 
correspondence  with  them,  and  persuaded  them  to  co-operate  with  his  brother. 
But  other  causes  may  be  imagined  ;  the  continued  pressure  of  the  war  upon  all 
Italy,  and  the  probability  that  the  defection  of  the  twelve  colonies  must  have 
compelled  the  Romans  to  increase  the  burdens  of  their  other  allies.  If,  as  Nie- 
buhr  thinks,45  the  Etruscans  were  not  in  the  habit  of  serving  with  the  legions  in 
the  regular  infantry,  their  contributions  in  money,  and  in  seamen  for  the  fleets, 


Livy,  XXVII.  20.    «  Vagante  per  Italiam  "  Livy,  XXVII.  20,  21. 

nibale." 
43  Livy,  XXVII.  20. 


,  ,   — .«  „  _._..   —  w.  .  »,_HUVV     -,*,»     ^^.,-..,.._  -u* » J  J   -t.-^J 

llannibale."  *  *•  Livy,  XXVII.  21. 

46  See  page  505. 


CHAP.  XLVL]  STATE  OF  ETRURIA.  575 

would  have  been  proportionably  greater  ;  and  both  these  would  fall  heavily  on 
the  great  Etruscan  chiefs,  or  Lucumones,  from  whose  vassals  the  seamen  would 
be  taken,  as  their  properties  would  have  to  furnish  the  money.  Again,  in  the 
year  544,  when  corn  was  at  so  enormous  a  price,  we  read  of  a  large  quantity 
purchased  in  Etruria  by  the  Roman  government  for  the  use  of  their  garrison  in 
the  citadel  of  Tarentum.46  This  corn  the  allied  states  were  bound  to  sell  at  a  fixed 
price  ;  so  that  the  Etruscan  landowners  would  consider  themselves  greatly  injured, 
in  being  forced  to'  sell  at  a  low  price,  what  in  the  present  condition  of  the  markets- 
was  worth  four  or  five  times  as  much.  But  whatever  was  the  cause,  Marcellus 
was  sent  into  Etruria,  even  before  he  came  into  office  as  consul,  to  observe  the 
state  of  affairs,  that,  if  necessary,  he  might  remove  the  seat  of  war  from  Apulia 
to  Etruria.  The  report  of  his  mission  seemed  satisfactory  ;  and  it  did  not  appear 
necessary  to  bring  his  army  from  Apulia.47 

Yet  some  time  afterwards,  before  Marcellus  left  Rome  to  take  the  field,  the  re- 
ports of  the  disaffection  of  Arretium  became  more  serious  ;  and  C.  r»i8affection  Of  Am,- 
Hostilius,  who  had  succeeded  Calpurnius  in  the  command  of  the  Llum- 
army  stationed  in  Etruria,  was  ordered  to  lose  no  time  in  demanding  hostages 
from  the  principal  inhabitants.  C.  Terentius  Varro  was  sent  to  receive  them,  to 
the  number  of  120,  and  to  take  them  to  Rome.  Even  this  precaution  was  not 
thought  sufficient  ;  and  Varro  was  sent  back  to  Arretium  to  occupy  the  city  with 
one  of  the  home  legions,  while  Hostilius,  with  his  regular  army,  was  to  move  up 
arid  down  the  country,  that  any  attempt  at  insurrection  might  be  crushed  in  a 
moment.48  It  appears  also  that,  besides  the  hostages,  several  sons  of  the  wealthy 
Etruscans  were  taken  away  to  serve  in  the  cavalry  of  Marcellus'  army,  to  prevent 
them  at  any  rate  from  being  dangerous  at  home.49 

The  two  consuls  were  to  conduct  the  war  against  Hannibal,  whilst  Q.  Claudius, 
one  of  the  praetors,  with  a  third  army,  was  to  hold  Tarentum,  and  v^^  of  the  Ro 


the  country  of  the  Sallentines.     Fulvius  with  a  single  legion  re-  ™fre,al™oL  rouiury 
sumed  his  old  command  at  Capua.     Fabius  returned  to  Rome,  and  service< 
from  this  time  forward  no  more  commanded  the  armies  of  his  country,  although 
he  still  in  all  probability  directed  the  measures  of  the  government.50 

Crispinus  had  left  Rome  before  his  colleague,  and,  with  some  reinforcements 
newly  raised,  proceeded  to  Lucania,  to  take  the  command  of  the 

1  •    i     i       i    i      i  i  TI    i    •  TT  i  'A*  i    Plan  of  the  campaign. 

army  which  had  belonged  to  Fulvius.  His  ambition  was  to  rival 
the  glory  of  Fabius,  by  attacking  another  of  the  Greek  cities  on  the  southern 
coast.  He  fixed  upon  Locri,  and  having  sent  for  a  powerful  artillery  from  Sicily, 
with  a  naval  force  to  operate  against  the  sea  front  of  the  town,  commenced  the 
siege.  Hannibal's  approach,  however,  forced  him  to  raise  it ;  and  as  Marcellus 
had  now  arrived  at  Venusia,  he  retreated  thither  to  co-operate  with  his  colleague. 
The  two  armies  were  encamped  apart,  about  three  miles  from  each  other  :  two 
consuls,  it  was  thought,  must  at  any  rate  be  able  to  occupy  Hannibal  in  Apulia, 
while  the  siege  of  Locri  was  to  be  carried  on  by  the  fleet  and  artillery  from  Sicily, 
with  the  aid  of  one  of  the  two  legions  commanded  by  the  praetor  Q.  Claudius  at 
Tarentum.  Such  was  the  Roman  plan  of  campaign  for  the  year  546,  the  eleventh 
of  this  memorable  war.61 

The  two  armies  opposed  to  Hannibal  must  have  amounted  at  least  to  40,000 
men :  he  could  not  venture  to  risk  a  battle  against  so  larsre  a  force  : 

.  ,   .  ,  ,     ,  .,,  .     •-  Hannibal    destroys     a 

but  his  eye  was  everywhere;    and  he  was  neither  ignorant  nor  b«faa  M*  to  b«*f» 
unobservant  of  what  was  going  on  in  his  rear,  and  of  the  intended 
march  of  the  legion  from  Tarentum  to  carry  on  the  siege  of  Locri  by  land.     So 
confident  was  he  in  his  superiority,  that  he  did  not  hesitate  to  detach  a  force  of 
3000  horse  and  2000  foot  from  his  already  inferior  numbers,  to  intercept  these 

*  Livy,  XXV.  15.  *  Livy,  XXVII.  26. 

47  Livy,  XXVII.  21.  M  Livy,  XXVII.  22. 

48  Livy,  XXVII.  24.  "  Livy,  XXVII.  25. 


570  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLV1 

troops  on  their  way :  and  while  the  Romans  marched  on  in  confidence,  supposing 
that  Hannibal  was  far  away  in  Apulia,  they  suddenly  found  their  road  beset ;  and 
Hannibal's  dreaded  cavalry  broke  in  upon  the  flanks  of  their  column.  The  rout 
was  complete  in  an  instant ;  the  whole  Roman  division  was  destroyed  or  dis- 
persed ;  and  the  fugitives,  escaping  over  the  country  in  all  directions,  fled  back 
to  Tarentum.62  The  fleet  from  Sicily  were  obliged  therefore  to  carry  on  the  siege 
of  Locri  as  well  as  they  could,  with  no  other  help. 

This  signal  service  rendered,  Hannibal's  detachment  returned  to  his  camp, 
brino^inof  back  their  numerous  prisoners.     Frequent  skirmishes  took 

Position     of    the    two        .       °      <=>  ,  .        *     .  ± 

armios.  Maiwiuw  is  place  between  the  opposed  armies  ;  and  Hannibal  was  continually 
hoping  for  some  opportunity  of  striking  a  blow.  A  hill  covered 
with  copsewood  rose  between  the  two  armies,  and  had  been  occupied  hitherto 
by  neither  party;  only  Hannibal's  light  cavalry  were  used  to  lurk  amongst  the 
trees  at  its  foot,  to  cut  off  any  stragglers  from  the  enemy's  camp.  The  consuls, 
it  seems,  wished  to  remove  their  camp — for  the  two  consular  armies  were  now 
encamped  together — to  this  hill ;  or,  at  any  rate,  to  occupy  it  as  an  intrenched 
post,  from  which  they  might  command  the  enemy's  movement.  But  they  re- 
solved to  reconnoitre  the  ground  for  themselves  ;  and,  accordingly,  they  rode  for- 
ward with  two  hundred  cavalry,  and  a  few  light- armed  soldiers,  leaving  their 
troops  behind  in  the  camp,  with  orders  to  be  in  readiness  on  a  signal  given  to 
advance  and  take  possession  of  the  hill.53  The  party  ascended  the  hill  without 
opposition,  and  rode  on  to  the  side  towards  the  enemy,  to  take  a  view  of  the 
country  in  that  direction.  Meantime  the  Numidians,  who  had  always  one  of  their 
number  on  the  lookout,  to  give  timely  notice  of  any  thing  that  approached,  as 
they  were  lurking  under  the  hill,  were  warned  by  their  scout,  that  a  party  of 
Romans  were  on  the  heights  above  them.  No  doubt  he  had  marked  the  scarlet 
war-cloaks  of  the  generals,  and  the  lictors  who  went  before  them,  and  told  his 
companions  of  the  golden  prize  that  fortune  had  thrown  into  their  hands.  The 
Numidians  stole  along  under  the  hill,  screened  by  the  trees,  till  they  got  round 
it,  between  the  party  on  the  summit  and  the  Roman  camp  ;  and  then  they  charged 
up  the  ascent,  and  fell  suddenly  upon  the  astonished  enemy.  The  whole  affair 
was  over  in  an  instant :  Marcellus  was  run  through  the  body  with  a  spear,  and 
killed  on  the  spot;  his  son  and  Crispinus  were  desperately  wounded  ;  the  Etrus- 
can horsemen,  who  formed  the  greater  part  of  the  detachment,  had  no  inclination 
to  fight  in  a  service  which  they  had  been  forced  to  enter ;  the  Fregellans,  who 
formed  the  remainder  of  it,  were  too  few  to  do  any  thing ;  all  were  obliged  to 
ride  for  their  lives,  and  to  leap  their  horses  down  the  broken  ground  on  the  hill- 
sides to  escape  to  their  camp.  The  legions  in  the  camp  saw  the  skirmish,  but 
could  not  come  to  the  rescue  in  time.  Crispinus  and  the  young  Marcellus  rode 
in  covered  with  blood,  and  followed  by  the  scattered  survivors  of  the  party ;  but 
Marcellus,  six  times  consul,  the  bravest  and  stoutest  of  soldiers,  who  had  dedi- 
cated the  spoils  of  the  Gaulish  king,  slain  by  his  own  hand,  to  Jupiter  Feretrius 
in  the  capitol,  was  lying  dead  on  a  nameless  hill ;  and  his  arms  and  body  were 
Hannibal's.54 

The  Numidians,  hardly  believing  what  they  had  done,  rode  back  to  their  camp 
to  report  their  extraordinary  achievement.    Hannibal  instantly  put 

The  Roman   armv  re-    ,   .          *  .  .  ,  •     i       i         /»         i   i  -11          mi  i         /•  j 

ufHti.  Hanmbni /raises  his  army  in  motion,  and  occupied  the  fatal  hill.  I  here  he  tound 
the  body  of  Marcellus,  which  he  is  said  to  have  looked  at  for  some 
time  with  deep  interest,  but  with  no  word  or  look  of  exultation :  then  he  took  the 
ring  from  the  finger  of  the  body,  and  ordered,  as  he  had  done  before  in  the  case 
of  Flaminius  and  Gracchus,  that  it  should  be  honorably  burned,  and  that  the 
ashes  should  be  sent  to  Marcellus'  son.55  The  Romans  left  their  camp  undei 
cover  of  the  night,  and  retreated  to  a  position  of  greater  security  :  they  no  longei 

"  Livy,  XXVII.  26.  "  Livy,  XXVII.  27. 

M  Livy,  XXVII.  26.  "  Plutarch.  Marcellus,  c,  20. 


CHAP.  XLVL]  HASDRUBAL  IN  GAUL.  577 

thought  of  detaining  Hannibal  from  Bruttium  ;  their  only  hope  was  to  escape  out 
of  his  reach.  Then  Hannibal  flew  once  more  to  the  relief  of  Locri  :  the  terror 
of  the  approach  of  his  Numidian  cavalry  drove  the  Romans  to  their  ships  ;  all 
their  costly  artillery  and  engines  were  abandoned  ;  and  the  siege  of  Locri,  no 
less  disastrous  to  the  Roman  naval  force  than  to  their  land  army,  was  effectually 
raised.56 

During  the  rest  of  the  season  the  field  was  again  left  free  to  Hannibal  ;  and 


his  destructive  ravages  were  carried  on,  we  may  be  sure,  more  He 


continus>  Iliastsr  of 

.PS 
wouud8- 


widely  than  even  in  the  preceding  year.  The  army  of  Marcellus  $*•,$££  J<£ 
lay  within  the  walls  of  Venusia ;  that  of  Crispinus  retreated  to 
Capua  ;57  officers  having  been  sent  by  the  senate  to  ^ake  the  command  of  each 
provisionally.  Crispinus  was  desired  to  name  a  dictator  for  holding  the  comitia ; 
and  he  accordingly  nominated  the  old  T.  Manlius  Torquatus  ;  soon  after  which 
he  died  of  the  effect  of  his  wounds ;  and  the  republic,  for  the  first  time  on  rec- 
ord, was  deprived  of  both  its  consuls  before  the  expiration  of  their  office,  by  a 
violent  death.68 

The  public  anxiety  about  the  choice  of  new  consuls  was  quickened  in  the  high- 
est degree  by  the  arrival  of  an  embassy  from  Massilia.  The  Mas- 
silians,  true  to  their  old  friendship  with  Rome,  made  haste  to  ac-  SinR?Iof"lH^ruS5 
quaint  their  allies  with  the  danger  that  was  threatening  them.  bemffm 
Hasdrubal,  Hannibal's  brother,  had  suddenly  appeared  in  the  interior  of  Gaul ; 
he  had  brought  a  large  treasure  of  money  with  him,  and  was  raising  soldiers 
busily.  Two  Romans  were  sent  back  to  Gaul  with  the  Massilian  ambassadors 
to  ascertain  the  exact  state  of  affairs  ;  and  these  officers,  on  their  return  to  Rome, 
informed  the  senate,  that,  through  the  connections  of  Massilia  with  some  of  the 
chiefs  in  the  interior,  they  had  made  out  that  Hasdrubal  had  completed  his  levies, 
and  was  only  waiting  for  the  first  melting  of  the  snows  to  cross  the  Alps.  The 
senate  therefore  must  expect  in  the  next  campaign  to  see  two  sons  of  Hamilcai 
in  Italy.59 

Reserving  the  detail  of  the  war  in  Spain  for  another  place,  I  need  only  relate 
here  as  much  as  is  necessary  for  understanding  Hasdrubal's  expe-  Hii  ronte  out  of  Spain 
dition.  Early  in  the  season  of  546,  while  the  other  Carthaginian  throu8hGaul- 
generals  were  in  distant  parts  of  the  peninsula,  Hasdrubal  had  been  obliged  witl 
his  single  army  to  give  battle  to  Scipio  at  Baccula,  a  place  in  the  south  of  Spain, 
in  the  upper  part  of  the  valley  of  the  Bsetis  ;  and  having  been  defeated  there,  had 
succeeded,  nevertheless,  in  carrying  off  his  elephants  and  money,  and  had  retreated 
first  towards  the  Tagus,  and  then  towards  the  western  Pyrenees,  whither  Scipio 
durst  not  follow  him,  for  fear  of  abandoning  the  sea-coast  to  the  othe?  Carthagin- 
ian generals.60  By  this  movement  Hasdrubal  masked  his  projects  from  the  view 
of  the  Romans  ;  they  did  not  know  whether  he  had  merely  retired  to  recruit  hi> 
army,  in  order  to  take  the  field  against  Scipio,  or  whether  he  was  preparing  for 
a  march  into  Italy.61  But  even  if  Italy  were  his  object,  it  was  supposed  that  lift 
would  follow  the  usual  route,  bj-  the  eastern  Pyrenees  along  the  coast  of  the  Med- 
iterranean ;  and  Scipio  accordingly  took  the  precaution  of  securing  the  passes 
of  the  mountains  in  this  direction,  on  the  present  road  between  Barcelona  ana 
Perpignan  ;62  perhaps  also  he  secured  those  other  passes  more  inland,  leading 
from  the  three  valleys  which  meet  above  Lerida  into  Languedoc,  and  to  the  streams 
which  feed  the  Garonne.  But  Hasdrubal's  real  line  of  march  was  wholly  unsus- 
pected :  for  passing  over  the  ground  now  so  famous  in  our  own  military  annals, 
near  the  highest  part  of  the  course  of  the  Ebro,  he  turned  the  Pyrenees  at  their 
western  extremity,  and  entered  Gaul  by  the  shores  of  the  ocean,  by  the  Bidassoa 
*md  the  Adour.63  Thence  striking  eastward,  and  avoiding  the  neighborhood  of 

*  Livy,  XXVII.  28.  »  Livv,  XXVII.  18,  19.    Polybins,  X.  38,  39. 

7  Livy,  XXVII.  29.  OI  Polybius,  X.  39,  7.     Livy/XXVII.  20. 

8  Livy,  XXVII.  33.  «  Polybius,  X.  40,  11. 

•  Livy,  XXVII.  36.  «  Livy,  XXVII.  20. 

37 


578  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLYI 

the  Mediterranean,  he  penetrated  into  the  country  of  the  Arverni ;  and  so  would 
cross  the  Rhone  near  Lyons,  and  join  Hannibal's  route  for  the  first  time  in  the 
plains  of  Dauphine,  at  the  very  foot  of  the  Alps.  This  new  and  remote  line  of 
march  concealed  him  so  long,  even  from  the  knowledge  of  the  Massilians,  and 
obliged  them  to  seek  intelligence  of  his  movements  from  the  chiefs  of  the  inte- 
rior.64 

Now  then  the  decisive  year  was  come,  the  year  of  the  great  struggle  so  long 
Doubts  at  Rome  about  delayed,  but  which  the  Carthaginians  had  never  lost  sight  of, 
the  choice  of  con»uu.  when  itaiy  was  to  be  assailed  at  once  from  the  north  and  from  the 
south  by  two  Carthaginian  armies,  led  by  two  sons  of  Hamilcar.  And  at  this 
moment  Marcellus,  so  long  the  hope  of  Rome,  was  gone ;  Fabius  and  Fulvius 
were  enfeebled  by  age ;  Lsevinus,«  whose  services  in  Macedonia  and  Sicily  had 
been  so  important,  had  offended  the  ruling  party  in  the  senate  by  his  opposition 
to  the  appointment  of  Fulvius  as  dictator  two  years  before ;  and  no  important 
command  would  as  yet  be  intrusted  to  him.  In  this  state  of  things  the  general 
voice  pronounced  that  the  best  consul  who  could  be  chosen  was  C.  Claudius 
Nero.65 

C.  Nero  came  of  a  noble  lineage,  being  a  patrician  of  the  Claudian  house,  and 
A.  u.  c.  547.  A.  c.  a  great-grandson  of  the  famous  censor,  Appius  the  blind.  He  had 
served  throughout  the  war,  as  lieutenant  to  Marcellus  in  540 ;  as 
praetor  and  propraetor  at  the  siege  of  Capua,  in  542  and  543 ;  as  propraetor  in 
Spain  in  544 ;  and  lastly  as  lieutenant  of  Marcellus  in  545.66  Yet  it  is  strange 
that  the  only  mention  of  him  personally  before  his  consulship  which  has  reached 
us,  is  unfavorable :  he  is  said  to  have  shown  a  want  of  vigor  when  serving  under 
Marcellus  in  540,  and  a  want  of  ability  in  his  command  in  Spain.67  But  these 
stories  are,  perhaps,  of  little  authority ;  and  if  they  are  true,  Nero  must  have  re- 
deemed his  faults  by  many  proofs  of  courage  and  wisdom ;  for  his  countrymen 
were  not  likely  to  choose  the  general  rashly,  who  was  to  command  them  in  the 
most  perilous  moment  of  the  whole  war ;  and  we  know  that  their  choice  was 
amply  justified  by  the  event. 

But  if  Nero  were  one  consul,  who  was  to  be  his  colleague  ?  It  must  be  some 
one  who  was  not  a  patrician,  to  comply  with  the  Licinian  law,  and 
the  now  settled  practice  of  the  constitution.  But  there  was  no 
Decius  living,  no  Curius,  no  Fabricius  ;  and  the  glory  of  the  great  house  of  the 
Metelli  had  hitherto,  during  the  second  Punic  war,  been  somewhat  in  eclipse, 
bearing  the  shame  of  that  ill-advised  Metellus,  who  dared  after  the  rout  of 
Cannee  to  speak  of  abandoning  Italy  in  despair.  The  brave  and  kindly  Gracchus, 
the  bold  Flaminius,  the  unwearied  and  undaunted  Marcellus,  had  all  fallen  in 
their  country's  cause.  Varro  was  living,  and  had  learnt  wisdom  by  experience, 
and  was  serving  the  state  we!  and  faithfully  ;  but  it  would  be  of  evil  omen  to 
send  him  again  with  the  last  army  of  the  commonwealth  to  encounter  a  son  of 
Hamilcar.  At  last  men  remembered  a  stern  and  sullen  old  man,  M.  Livius,  who 
had  been  consul  twelve  years  before,  and  had  then  done  good  service  against  the 
Illyrians,  and  obtained  a  triumph,  the  last  which  Rome  had  seen  ;68  but  whose 
hard  nature  had  made  him  generally  odious,  and  who,  having  been  accused  be- 
fore the  people  of  dividing  the  Illyrian  spoil  amongst  his  soldiers  unfairly,  had 
been  found  guilty  and  fined.69  The  shame  and  the  sense  of  wrong  had  so  struck 
him — for  though  ungracious  and  unjust  from  temper,  he  was  above  corruption — 
that  for  some  years  he  lived  wholly  in  the  country ;  and  though  he  had  since  re- 
turned to  Rome,  and  the  last  censors  had  obliged  him  to  resume  his  place  in  the 
senate,  yet  he  had  never  spoken  there,  till  this  very  year,  when  the  attacks  made 
on  his  kinsman,  the  governor  of  Tarentum,  had  induced  him  to  open  his  lips  in 

«  Livy,  XXVII.  39.  CT  Livy.  XXIV.  17.    XXVII.  14. 

•»  Livy,  XXVII.  34.  M  See  above,  p.  470. 

•»  Livy,  XXIV.  17.    XXV.  2,  3,  22.  XXVI.        69  Frontinus,  IV.  I.  45. 
17.    XXYlI.14. 


CHAP.  XLVL]  THE  ROMAN  ARMAMENT.  570 

his  defence.  He  was  misanthropical  to  all  men,  and  especially  at  enmity  with 
C.  Nero :  yet  there  were  qualities  in  him  well  suited  to  the  present  need  ;  and 
the  senators  suggested  to  their  friends,  and  tribesmen,  and  dependents,  that  no 
better  consuls  could  be  appointed  than  C.  Nero  and  M.  Livius.70 

The  people  might  agree  to  choose  Livius,  but  would  he  consent  to  be  chosen  ? 
At  first  he  refused  altogether  :  "If  he  were  fit  to  be  consul,  why  He consentg reiuffant,, 
had  they  condemned  him?  if  he  had  been  justly  condemned,  how  tobech«encon.«i; 
could  he  deserve  to  be  consul  ?"  But  the  senators  reproved  him  for  this  bitter- 
ness, telling  him  "  that  his  country's  harshness  was  to  be  borne  like  a  parent's, 
and  must  be  softened  by  patient  submission."  Overpowered,  but  not  melted,  he 
consented  to  be  elected  consul. 

Then  the  senators,  and  especially  Q.  Fabius,  besought  him  to  be  reconciled  to 
his  colleague.  "  To  what  purpose  ?"  he  replied  :  "  we  shall  both  flnd  is  reconcued  to 
serve  the  commonwealth  the  better,  if  we  feel  that  an  enemy's  eye  Nero- 
is  watching  for  our  faults  and  negligences."  But  here  again  the  senate's  authority 
prevailed  ;  and  the  consuls  were  publicly  reconciled.71  Yet  the  vindictive  tem- 
per of  Livius  still  burnt  within  him  so  fiercely,  that,  before  he  took  the  field,  when 
Q.  Fabius  was  urging  him  not  to  be  rash  in  hazarding  a  battle,  until  he  had  well 
learnt  the  strength  of  his  enemy,  he  replied,  "that  he  would  fight  as  soon  as  ever 
he  came  in  sight  of  him ;"  and  when  Fabius  asked  him  why  he  was  so  impatient, 
he  answered,  "  Because  I  thirst  either  for  the  glory  of  a  victory,  or  for  the 
pleasure  of  seeing  the  defeat  of  my  unjust  countrymen."72 

It  is  worth  while  to  remark  what  gigantic  efforts  the  Romans  made  for  this 
great  campaign.  One  consul  was  to  have  Cisalpine  Gaul  for  his  Enofmoua  armament of 
province,  the  other  Lucania  and  Bruttium  ;  each  with  the  usual  the  Romans- 
consular  army  of  two  legions,  and  an  equal  force  of  Italian  allies.  The  army  of 
the  north  was  supported  by  two  others  of  equal  force ;  one,  commanded  by  L. 
Porcius,  one  of  the  praetors,  was  to  co-operate  with  it  in  the  field ;  the  other, 
commanded  by  C.  Varro,  was  to  overawe  Etruria,  and  form  a  reserve.  In  like 
manner  the  consul  of  the  army  of  the  south  had  two  similar  armies  at  his  dis- 
posal, besides  his  own ;  one  in  Bruttium,  of  which  old  Q.  Fulvius  once  more  took 
the  command,  and  another  in  the  neighborhood  of  Tarentum.  Besides  these 
twelve  legions,  one  legion  occupied  Capua,  and  two  new  home  legions  were  raised 
for  the  immediate  defence  of  Rome.  Thus  fifteen  legions,  containing  75,000  Ro- 
man citizens,  besides  an  equal  number  of  Italian  allies,  were  in  arms  this  year  for 
the  protection  of  Italy.  In  this  same  year  the  return  of  the  whole  population  of 
Roman  citizens  of  an  age  to  bear  arms  according  to  the  census,  amounted  only  to 
137,108;  and  in  addition  to  the  forces  employed  in  Italy,  eight  legions  were 
serving  abroad  ;  two  in  Sicily,  two  in  Sardinia,  and  four  in  Spain.78 

Soldiers  were  raised  with  a  strictness  never  known  before  ;  insomuch  that  even 
the  maritime  colonies  were  called  upon  to  furnish  men  for  the  le-  Means  takcn  to  raiw 
gions,  although  ordinarily  exempted  from  this  service,  on  the  ground  troopB> 
that  their  citizens  were  responsible  for  the  defence  of  the  sea-coast  in  their  neigh- 
borhood. Only  Antium  and  Ostia  were  allowed  to  retain  their  customary  exemp- 
tion ;  and  the  men  within  the  military  age  in  both  these  colonies  were  obliged  to 
swear  that  they  would  not  sleep  out  of  their  cities  more  than  thirty  nights,  so  long 
as  the  enemy  should  be  in  Italy.  The  slaves  also  were  again  invited  to  enlist ; 
and  t\vo  legions  were  composed  out  of  them  ;  and  after  all,  so  perilous  was  the 
aspect  of  affairs  in  the  north  from  the  known  disaffection  of  Etruria,  and  even  of 
Umbria,  that  P.  Scipio  is  said  to  have  draughted  10,000  foot  and  1000  horse 
from  the  forces  of  his  province,  and  sent  them  by  sea  to  reinforce  the  army  of  the 
north  ;  while  the  praetor  commanding  in  Sicily  sent  4000  archers  and  slingers  for 

70  Livy,  XXVII.  34.  «  Livy,  XXVII.  40.    Valerius  Maximus,  IX, 

"  Livy,  XXVII.  35.    Valerius  Maximus,  IV.    8, 1. 
,2,    VII.  2,  6.  '•  Livy,  XXVII.  86. 


580  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XL VI 

the  army  of  the  south.  The  lot  decided  that  M.  Livius  was  to  be  opposed  to 
Ilasdrubal,  C.  Nero  to  Hannibal.74 

Meantime  Hasdrubal  had  begun  his  march  from  the  plains  between  the  Rhone 
and  the  Isere,  and  proceeded  to  cross  the  Alps  by  the  route  for- 
Ai^.,™ndadva^es»up!  merly  followed  by  his  brother.  It  is  said  that  he  found  the  ob- 
stacles of  all  kinds,  both  those  presented  by  nature,  and  those 
offered  by  the  hostility  of  the  inhabitants,  far  less  than  had  been  experienced  by 
Hannibal.  The  inhabitants  were  now  aware  that  the  stranger  army  meant  them 
no  ill ;  that  it  was  merely  passing  through  their  valleys  on  its  way  to  a  distant 
land,  to  encounter  its  enemies  there.  Nay,  it  is  added  that  traces  of  Hannibal's 
engineering  were  still  in  existence,  that  the  roads  which  he  had  built  up  along  the 
steep  mountain-sides,  and  the  bridges  which  he  had  thrown  over  the  torrents,  and 
the  cuttings  which  he  had  made  through  the  rocks,  after  having  been  exposed  for 
eleven  years  to  the  fury  of  the  avalanches,  and  the  chafing  of  the  swollen  streams, 
were  even  now  serviceable  to  Hasdrubal.  At  any  rate,  Hasdrubal  appeared  in 
Italy  sooner  than  either  friend  or  foe  had  expected  him  ;75  and  having  issued  from 
the  Alpine  valleys,  and  crossed  the  Po,  he  descended  along  its  right  bank,  and 
sat  down  before  the  Latin  colony  of  Placentia.  But  the  colony  was  one  of  the 
faithful  eighteen,  and  did  not  forget  its  duty.  It  closed  its  gates  ;  and  Hasdrubal 
had  no  artillery  to  batter  down  its  walls ;  he  only  lay  before  it  therefore  long 
enough  for  the  Cisalpine  Gauls  and  Ligurians  to  join  him,  and  then  pressed  for- 
ward on  his  march  by  the  line  of  the  later  JEmilian  road,  towards  Ariminum  and  the 
shores  of  the  Adriatic.  The  praetor  L.  Porcius  retreated  before  him  ;  and  Has- 
drubal sent  off  four  Gaulish  horsemen  and  two  Numidians  to  his  brother,  to  an- 
nounce his  approach,  and  to  propose  that  they  should  unite  their  two  armies  in 
Umbria,  and  from  thence  advance  by  the  Flaminian  road  straight  upon  Rome.76 
Livius  had  by  this  time  arrived  on  the  scene  of  action,  and  had  effected  his  junc- 
tion with  L.  Porcius ;  yet  their  combined  forces  were  unable  to  maintain  their 
ground  on  the  frontier  of  Italy  ;  Ariminum  was  abandoned  to  its  fate  ;  they  fell 
back  behind  the  Metaurus  ;  and  still  keeping  the  coast  road, — for  the  later  branch 
of  the  Flaminian  road,  which  ascends  the  valley  of  the  Metaurus,  was  not  yet 
constructed, — they  encamped  about  fourteen  miles  further  to  the  south,  under 
the  walls  of  the  maritime  colony  of  Sena." 

On  the  other  side  of  Italy,  C.  Nero,  availing  himself  of  the  full  powers  with 
Nero  encamps  at  venu.  which  the  consuls  were  invested  for  this  campaign,  had  incorpo- 
rated the  two  legions,  which  Q.  Fulvius  was  to  have  commanded  in 
Bruttium,  with  his  own  army,  leaving  Fulvius  at  the  head  of  a  small  army  of  re- 
serve at  Capua.  With  an  army  thus  amounting  to  40,000  foot  and  2500  horse, 
Nero  fixed  his  head-quarters  at  Venusia;  his  object  being  by  all  means  to  occupy 
Hannibal,  and  to  hinder  him  from  moving  northwards  to  join  his  brother.78 

At  no  part  of  the  history  of  this  war  do  we  more  feel  the  want  of  a  good  mili- 
Difficuities  in  ti.e  his.  tary  historian,  than  at  the  opening  of  this  memorable  campaign, 
tory  of  thu  campaign.  \vnat  we  }iave  jn  Livv  is  absolutely  worthless  ;  it  is  so  vague,  as 
well  as  so  falsified,  that  the  truth  from  which  it  has  been  corrupted  can  scarcely 
be  discovered.  We  are  told  that  Hannibal  moved  later  from  his  winter-quarters 
than  he  might  have  done,  because  he  thought  that  his  brother  could  not  arrive  in 
Cisalpine  Gaul  so  early  as  he  actually  did ;  and  we  are  told  that  he  received  in- 
formation of  his  having  reached  Placentia.79  Yet,  after  having  heard  this,  he 
wastes  much  time  in  moving  about  in  the  south,  first  into  Lucania,  then  to  Apulia, 
thence  falling  back  into  Bruttium,  and  finally  advancing  again  into  Apulia,  and 
there  remaining  idle,  till  the  fatal  blow  had  been  struck  in  the  north.  It  is  add- 
ed, that  in  the  course  of  these  movements  he  was  several  times  engaged  with  the 

74  Livy,  XXVII.  88.  n  Appian,  VII.  52. 

76  Livy,  XXVII.  39.     Appian,  VII.  52.  ™  Livy,  XXVII.  40. 

76  Livy,  XXVII.  43.  n  Livy,  XXVII.  39. 


CHAT.  XLVI]  NERO'S  MARCH.  58] 

Romans,  and  lost  nearly  15,000  men,  killed  or  taken.80  Putting  aside  these  ab- 
surdities, in  which  we  cannot  but  recognize  the  perversions  of  Valerius  Antias,  or 
some  annalist  equally  untrustworthy,  we  must  endeavor  as  far  as  possible  to  con- 
jecture the  outline  of  the  real  story. 

With  40,000  men  under  an  active  general  opposed  to  him  in  the  field,  and  with 
20,000  more  in  his  rear  in  the  neighborhood  of  Tarentum,  Hannibal 

•,  ,          i  !  ff  i*3  ,  11   i  •  •    «  Hannibal'i movements. 

could  only  act  on  the  offensive  by  gathering  all  his  remaining  gar- 
risons into  one  mass,  and  by  raising  additional  soldiers,  if  it  were  possible,  amongst 
the  allies  who  yet  adhered  to  him.  This  was  to  be  accomplished  in  the  face  of  a 
superior  enemy,  and,  as  Hasdrubal  was  already  arrived  on  the  Po,  without  loss 
of  time.  It  was  for  this  object  apparently  that  he  entered  Lucania,  to  raise  sol- 
diers amongst  his  old  partisans  there ;  with  this  view  he  crossed  back  into  Apulia, 
and  then  moved  into  Bruttium  to  join  the  new  Bruttian  levies,  which  had  been 
collected  by  Hanno,  the  governor  of  Metapontum.  All  this  he  effected,  baffling 
the  pursuit  of  Nero,  or  beating  off  his  attacks  ;  and  having  amassed  a  force  suffi- 
cient for  his  purpose,  he  again  turned  northwards,  re-entered  Apulia,  advanced, 
followed  closely  by  Nero,  to  his  old  quarters  near  Canusium,  and  there  halted.81 
Whether  he  was  busy  in  collecting  corn  for  his  further  advance,  or  whether  he 
was  waiting  for  more  precise  intelligence  from  his  brother,  we  know  not ;  but  we 
do  not  find  that  he  moved  his  army  beyond  Canusium. 

Admitting,  however,  that  Hannibal  was  aware  of  Hasdrubal's  arrival  before 
Placentia,  we  can  understand  why  his  own  movements  could  not  He  Wait8  for  tidinga 
but  be  suspended,  after  he  had  collected  all  his  disposable  force  from  hi8  brother< 
together,  till  he  should  receive  a  fresh  communication  from  his  brother.  For  from 
Placentia  Hasdrubal  had  a  choice  of  roads  before  him  ;  and  it  was  impossible  for 
Hannibal  to  know  beforehand  which  he  might  take.  But  on  this  knowledge  his 
own  plans  were  to  depend  ;  if  Hasdrubal  crossed  the  Apennines  into  Etruria,  in 
order  to  rally  the  disaffected  Etruscans  around  him,  Hannibal  might  then  ad- 
vance into  Samnium  and  Campania  :  if,  on  the  other  hand,  Hasdrubal  were  to 
move  eastward  towards  the  Adriatic,  thinking  it  desirable  that  the  two  armies 
should  act  together,  then  Hannibal  also  would  keep  near  the  coast,  and  retracing 
the  line  of  his  own  advance  after  the  battle  of  Thrasymenus,  would  be  ready  to 
meet  his  brother  in  Picenum,  or  in  Umbria.  And  it  was  in  order  to  determine 
Hannibal's  movements,  that  Hasdrubal,  when  he  left  Placentia,  sent  off  the  six 
horsemen,  as  has  been  already  mentioned,  to  say  that  he  was  marching  upon  Ari- 
minum,  instead  of  upon  Etruria,  and  that  the  two  brothers  were  to  effect  their 
junction  in  Umbria. 

With  marvellous  skill  and  good  fortune  Hasdrubal's  horsemen  made  their  way 
through  the  whole  length  of  Italy.  But  Hannibal's  rapid  move-  Ha8drubai's  me«en. 
ment  into  Bruttium  disconcerted  them ;  they  attempted  to  follow  Ss.Tnd' brought 
him  thither ;  but  mistaking  their  way,  and  getting  too  near  to  Ta-  Nero- 
rentum,  they  fell  in  with  some  foragers  of  the  army  of  Q.  Claudius,  and  were 
made  prisoners.  The  praetor  instantly  sent  them  under  a  strong  escort  to  Nero. 
They  were  the  bearers  of  a  letter  from  Hasdrubal  to  his  brother,  containing  the 
whole  plan  of  their  future  operations ;  it  was  written,  not  in  cipher,  but  in  the 
common  Carthaginian  language  and  character ;  and  the  interpreter  read  its  con- 
tents in  Latin  to  the  consul.82 

Nero  took  his  resolution  on  the  instant.     He  dispatched  the  letter  to  the  senate, 
urging  the  immediate  recall  of  Fulvius  with  his  army  from  Capua 
to  Rome,  the  calling  out  every  Roman  who  could  bear  arms,  and 
the  marching  forward  the  two  home  legions  to  Narnia,  to  defend  that  narrow 
gorge  of  the  Flaminian  road  against  the  invader.     At  the  same  time  he  told  the 
senate  what  he  was  going  to  do  himself.     He  picked  out  7000  men,  of  whom 
1000  were  horse,  the  flower  of  his  whole  army;  he  ordered  them  to  hold  them- 

Livy,  VYVIT.  41,  42.  81  Livy,  XXVII.  42.  «  Livy,  XXVII.  43. 


582  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [Ciur.  XLV1 

selves  in  readiness  for  a  secret  expedition  into  Lucania,  to  surprise  one  of  Hanni- 
bal's garrisons ;  and  as  soon  as  it  was  dark,  he  put  himself  at  their  head,  leaving 
his  lieutenant,  Q.  Catius,  in  the  command  of  the  main  army,  and  began  his 
march.83 

His  march  was  not  towards  Lucania.  Already  before  he  left  his  camp  had 
»n«i  marche.  to  join  ^e  sen^  forward  horsemen  on  the  road  leading  to  Picenum  and 
Uyiu*-  Umbria,  with  the  consul's  orders,  that  all  the  provisions  of  the 

country  should  be  brought  down  to  the  road-side,  that  all  horses  and  draught 
cattle  should  be  led  thither  also,  and  carriages  for  the  transport  of  the  weak  and 
wearied  soldiers.  Life  and  death  were  upon  his  speed,  the  life  and  death  of  his 
country.  His  march  was  towards  the  camp  of  his  colleague,  before  Sena ;  his 
hope  was  to  crush  Hasdrubal  with  their  combined  and  overwhelming  forces, 
whilst  Hannibal,  waiting  for  that  letter  which  he  would  never  receive,  should  re- 
main still  in  Apulia. 

When  Nero  had  reached  a  sufficient  distance  from  Hannibal,  he  disclosed  the 
secret  of  his  expedition  to  his  soldiers.  They  felt  the  glory  of  their 

Nero  joint  Lmufc  .      .  j      i  j     -i  •    •,       /•    ,1      •      i       j  -XT  "•,         T,    i 

mission,  and  shared  the  spirit  of  their  leader.  Nor  was  it  a  little 
thing  to  witness  the  universal  enthusiasm  which  everywhere  welcomed  their 
march.  Men  and  women,  the  whole  population  of  the  country,  crowded  to  the 
road-side  ;  meat,  drink,  clothing,  horses,  carriages,  were  pressed  upon  the  soldiers ; 
and  happy  was  the  man  from  whom  they  would  accept  them.  Every  tongue 
blessed  them  as  deliverers ;  incense  rose  on  hastily  built  altars,  where  the  people, 
kneeling  as  the  army  passed,  poured  forth  prayers  and  vows  to  the  gods  for  their 
safe  and  victorious  return.  The  soldiers  would  scarcely  receive  what  was  offered 
to  them :  they  would  not  halt ;  they  ate  standing  in  their  ranks ;  night  and  day 
they  hastened  onwards,  scarcely  allowing  themselves  a  brief  interval  of  rest.84  In 
six  or  seven  days  the  march  was  accomplished :  Livius  had  been  forewarned  of 
his  colleague's  approach ;  and,  according  to  his  wish,  Nero  entered  the  camp  by 
night,  concealing  his  arrival  from  Hasdrubal  no  less  successfully  than  he  had 
hidden  his  departure  from  Hannibal.85 

The  new-comers  were  to  be  received  into  the  tents  of  Livius'  soldiers ;  for  any 
Th«Tdetermine  to  fight  enlargement  of  the  camp  would  have  betrayed  the  secret;  and 
without  delay.  faey  were  m0re  than  seven  thousand  men :  for  their  numbers  had 

been  swelled  on  their  march ;  veterans  who  had  retired  from  war,  and  youths  too 
young  to  be  enlisted,  having  pressed  Nero  to  let  them  share  in  his  enterprise.  A 
council  was  held  the  next  morning ;  and  though  Livius  and  L.  Porcius,  the  prae- 
tor, urged  Nero  to  allow  his  men  some  rest  before  he  led  them  to  battle,  he 
pleaded  so  strongly  the  importance  of  not  losing  a  single  day,  lest  Hannibal 
should  be  upon  their  rear,  that  it  was  agreed  to  fight  immediately.  The  red 
ensign  was  hoisted  as  soon  as  the  council  broke  up ;  and  the  soldiers  marched 
out  and  formed  in  order  of  battle.86 

The  enemy,  whose  camp,  according  to  the  system  of  ancient  warfare,  was  only 
Hwdr  bairet,  ^a^  a  m^e  distant  from  that  of  the  Romans,  marched  out  and 

formed  in  line  to  meet  them.  But  as  Hasdrubal  rode  forward  to 
reconnoitre  the  Roman  army,  their  increased  numbers  struck  him  ;  and  other  cir- 
cumstances, it  is  said,  having  increased  his  suspicions,  he  led  back  his  men  into 
their  camp,  and  sent  out  some  horsemen  to  collect  information.  The  Romans 
then  returned  to  their  own  camp ;  and  Hasdrubal's  horsemen  rode  round  it  at  a 
distance  to  see  if  it  were  larger  than  usual,  or  in  the  hope  of  picking  up  some 
stragglers.  One  thing  alone,  it  is  said,  revealed  the  secret :  the  trumpet  which 
gave  the  signal  for  the  several  duties  of  the  day,  was  heard  to  sound  as  usual 
once  in  the  camp  of  the  praetor,  but  twice  in  that  of  Livius.  This,  we  are  told, 
satisfied  Hasdrubal  that  both  the  consuls  were  before  him ;  unable  to  understand 

88  Livy,  XXVII.  43.  *  Livy,  XXVII.  46. 

«*  Lhy,  XXVII.  45.  *  Livy,  XXVII.  46. 


CHAP.  XLVI]  HASDRUBAL  IS  OVERTAKEN.  583 

how  Nero  had  escaped  from  Hannibal,  and,  dreading  the  worst,  he  resolved  to 
retire  to  a  greater  distance  from  the  enemy ;  and  having  put  out  all  his  fires, 
he  set  his  army  in  motion  as  soon  as  night  fell,  and  retreated  towards  the  Me- 
taurus.87 

Whose  narrative  Livy  has  followed  here,  we  cannot  tell ;  it  is  not  that  of  Po- 
lybius,  except  in  part ;  and  some  points  speak  ill  for  the  credibility  8long  the  ^^  of  ^ 
of  its  author.    According  to  this  account,  Hasdrubal  marched  back  Metauru»- 
fourteen  miles  to  the  Metaurus :  but  his  guides  deserted  him  and  escaped  unob- . 
served  in  the  darkness,  so  that,  when  the  army  reached  the  Metaurus,  they  could 
not  find  the  fords,  and  began  to  ascend  the  right  bank  of  the  river,  in  the  hope 
of  passing  it  easily  when  daylight  came,  and  they  should  be  arrived  at  a  higher 
part  of  its  course.     But  the  windings  of  the  river,  it  is  said,  delayed  him  :  as  he 
ascended  further  from  the  sea,  he  found  the  banks  steeper  and  higher ;  and  no 
ford  was  to  be  gained.88 

The  Metaurus,  in  the  last  twenty  miles  of  its  course,  flows  through  a  wide 
valley  or  plain,  the  ground  rising  into  heights  rather  than  hills,  Description  of  th. 
while  the  mountains  from  which  it  has  issued  ascend  far  off  in  the  couree^'tb«Metauru.. 
distance,  and  bound  the  low  country  near  the  sea  with  a  gigantic  wall.  But,  as 
is  frequently  the  case  in  northern  Italy,  the  bed  of  the  river  is  like  a  valley  within 
a  valley,  being  sunk  down  between  steep  cliffs,  at  a  level  much  below  the  ordi- 
nary surface  of  the  country ;  which  yet  would  be  supposed  to  be  the  bottom  of 
the  plain  by  those  who  looked  only  at  the  general  landscape,  and  did  not  observe 
the  kind  of  trough  in  which  the  river  was  winding  beneath  them.  Yet  this  lower 
valley  is  of  considerable  width ;  and  the  river  winds  about  in  it  from  one  side  to 
the  other,  at  times  running  just  under  its  high  banks,  at  other  times  leaving  a 
large  interval  of  plain  between  it  and  the  boundary.  The  whole  country,  both 
in  the  lower  valley  and  in  the  plain  above,  is  now  varied  with  all  sorts  of  culti- 
vation, with  scattered  houses  and  villages,  and  trees ;  an  open,  joyous,  and  hab- 
itable region,  as  can  be  found  in  Italy.  But  when  Hasdrubal  was  retreating 
through  it,  the  dark  masses  of  uncleared  wood  still,  no  doubt,  in  many  parts  cov- 
ered the  face  of  the  higher  plain,  overhanging  the  very  cliffs  of  the  lower  valley ; 
and  the  river  below,  not  to  be  judged  of  by  its  present  scanty  and  loitering 
stream,  ran  like  the  rivers  of  a  half-cleared  country,  with  a  deep  and  strong  body 
of  waters. 

These  steep  cliffs  would,  no  doubt,  present  a  serious  obstacle  to  an  army  wish- 
ing to  descend  to  the  edge  of  the  river ;  and  if  their  summits  were  ^9  Romatli  OYertak. 
covered  with  wood,  they  would  at  once  intercept  the  view,  and  Hasdrubul- 
make  the  march  more  difficult.  Thus  Hasdrubal  was  overtaken  by  the  Romans, 
and  obliged  to  fight.  It  is  clear  from  Polybius  that  he  had  encamped  for  the 
night  after  his  wearisome  march  ;  and  retreat  being  fatal  to  the  discipline  of  bar- 
barians, the  Gauls  became  unmanageable,  and  indulged  so  freely  in  drinking, 
that,  when  morning  dawned,  many  of  them  were  lying  drunk  in  their  quarters, 
utterly  unable  to  move.89  And  now  the  Roman  army  was  seen  advancing  in 
order  t  ?  battle ;  and  Hasdrubal,  finding  it  impossible  to  continue  his  retreat, 
marched  out  of  his  camp  to  meet  them.90 

No  credible  authority  tells  us  what  was  the  amount  of  his  army :  that  the 
Roman  writers  extravagantly  magnified  it,  is  certain;  and  that  Who<irflw8uPhUarmy 
he  was  enormously  outnumbered  by  his  enemy  is  no  less  so.  Po-  forbaltle- 
lybius91  says,  that  he  deepened  his  lines,  diminishing  their  width,  and  drawing  up 
his  whole  force  in  a  narrow  space,  with  his  ten  elephants  in  front.  We  hear 
nothing  of  his  cavalry,  the  force  with  which  his  brother  had  mainly  won  his  vic- 
tories ;  and  he  had  probably  brought  scarcely  any  African  horse  from  Spain : 
what  Gaulish  horsemen  had  joined  him  since  he  had  crossed  the  Alps,  we  know 

«  Livy,  XXVII.  47.  90  Livy,  XXVII.  43. 

88  Livy,  XXVII.  47.  *»  Polybius,  XL  1. 

*  Pclybius,  XL  3. 


584  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [Cn 

not.  His  Gaulish  infantry,  as  many  as  were  fit  for  action,  were  stationed  on  his 
left,  in  a  position  naturally  so  strong  as  to  be  unassailable  in  front ;  and  its  flank 
would  probably  be  covered  by  the  river.  He  himself  took  part  with  his  Spanish 
infantry,  and  attacked  the  left  wing  of  the  Roman  army,  which  was  commanded 
by  Livius.  Nero  was  on  the  Roman  right,  the  praetor  in  the  centre.92 

Between  Hasdrubal  and  Livius  the  battle  was  long  and  obstinately  disputed, 
He  u  abated  and  the  elephants  being,  according  to  Polybius,  an  equal  aid,  or  rather 
*uin'  an  equal  hindrance,  to  both  parties  ;93  for,  galled  by  the  missiles 

of  the  Romans,  they  broke  sometimes  into  their  own  ranks,  as  well  as  into  those 
of  the  enemy.  Meanwhile  Nero,  seeing  that  he  could  make  no  progress  on  his 
front,  drew  off  his  troops  out  of  the  line,  and  passing  round  on  the  rear  of  the 
praetor  and  of  Livius,  fell  upon  the  right  flank  and  the  rear  of  the  enemy.  Then 
the  fate  of  the  day  was  decided  ;  and  the  Spaniards,  outnumbered  and  surrounded, 
were  cut  to  pieces  in  their  ranks,  resisting  to  the  last.  Then  too,  when  all  was 
lost,  Hasdrubal  spurred  his  horse  into  the  midst  of  a  Roman  cohort,  and  there 
fell  sword  in  hand,  fighting,  says  Livy  with  honorable  sympathy,  as  became  the 
son  of  Hamilcar  and  brother  of  Hannibal.94 

The  conquerors  immediately  stormed  the  Carthaginian  camp,  and  there  slaugh- 
tered many  of  the  Gauls,  whom  they  found  still  lyinar  asleep  in 

EffecU  of  the  victory.          ,        -      ,     .     J  ...  .  •',       mi  -i      »     i  ° 

the  helplessness  ot  brute  intoxication/5  Ihe  spoil  of  the  camp  was 
rich,  amounting  in  value  to  300  talents :  of  the  elephants,  six  were  killed  in  the 
action  ;  the  other  four  were  taken  alive.  All  the  Carthaginian  citizens  who  had 
followed  Hasdrubal  were  either  killed  or  taken ;  and  3000  Roman  prisoners  were 
found  in  the  camp,  and  restored  to  liberty.  The  loss  of  men  on  both  sides  was 
swelled  prodigiously  by  the  Roman  writers,  ambitious,  it  seems,  of  making  the 
victory  an  exact  compensation  for  the  defeat  of  Cannae ;  but  Polybius96  states  it 
at  10,000  men  on  the  side  of  the  vanquished,  and  2000  on  that  of  the  Romans ; 
a  decisive  proof  that  Hasdrubal's  army  actually  engaged  cannot  have  been  numer- 
ous, for  of  those  in  the  field  few  can  have  escaped.  But  the  amount  of  the  slain 
mattered  little ;  Hasdrubal's  army  was  destroyed,  and  he  himself  had  perished  ; 
and  Hannibal  was  left  to  fight  out  the  war  with  his  single  army,  which,  how- 
ever unconquerable,  could  not  conquer  Italy. 

Polybius97  praises  the  heroic  spirit  of  Hasdrubal,  saying  that  he  knew  when  it 
value  of  Hasdrubal'.  was  time  for  him  to  die ;  that,  having  been  careful  of  his  life,  so 
long  as  there  was  any  hope  of  accomplishing  his  grand  enterprise, 
when  all  was  lost,  he  gave  his  country,  what  Pericles  calls  the  greatest  and  no- 
blest gi'ft  of  a  true  citizen,  the  sacrifice  of  his  own  life.  And  doubtless  none  can 
blame  the  spirit  of  self-devotion  to  the  highest  known  duty  :  Hasdrubal  was  true 
to  his  country  in  his  death  as  in  his  life.  Yet  the  life  of  a  son  of  Hamilcar  was 
to  Carthage  of  a  value  beyond  all  estimate :  Hasdrubal's  death  outweighed  the 
loss  of  many  armies ;  and  had  he  deigned  to  survive  his  defeat,  he  might  again 
have  served  his  country,  not  only  in  peace  as  Hannibal  did  after  his  defeat  at 
Zama,  but  as  the  leader  of  a  fresh  army  of  Gauls  and  Ligurians,  of  Etruscans  and 
Umbrians,  co-operating  with  his  brother  in  marching  upon  Rome. 

With  no  less  haste  than  he  had  marched  from  Apulia,  Nero  hastened  back  thi- 
ther to  rejoin  his  army.  All  was  quiet  there  :  .Hannibal  still  lav 

Pnnnibui    receives  in-    .       ,  .  J  ...          t        •    ,    w  e  TT        i        i      l        TT 

teiiigence  of  hi»  broth-  m  his  camp,  waiting  lor  intelligence  from  Hasdrubal.  rie  received 
it  too  soon ;  not  from  Hasdrubal,  but  from  Nero  :  the  Carthaginian 
prisoners  were  exhibited  exultingly  before  his  camp ;  two  of  them  were  set  at 
liberty,  and  sent  to  tell  him  the  story  of  their  defeat ;  and  a  head  was  thrown 
down  in  scorn  before  his  outposts,  if  his  soldiers  might  know  whose  it  was.  They 
look  it  up,  and  brought  to  Hannibal  the  head  of  his  brother.98  He  had  not 

w  Livy,  XXVII.  48.  M  XL  3. 

w  XL  l.  "  XL  2. 

84  Livy  XXVII.  49.  Polybius.  XI.  2.  98  Livy,  XXVII.  51. 

*  Folybius,  XL  3. 


CHAP.  XLVI]  ANXIETY  AND  JOY  AT  ROME.  585 

dealt  so  with  the  remains  of  the  Roman  generals  :  but  of  this  Nero  recked  noth- 
ing; as  indifferent  to  justice  and  humanity  in  his  dealings  with  an  enemy,  as  his 
imperial  descendants  showed  themselves  towards  Rome,  and  all  mankind. 

Meanwhile,  from  the  moment  that  Nero's  march  from  the  south  had  been 
heard  of  at  Rome,  intense  anxiety  possessed  the  whole  city.  Anxiety  and  joy  at 
Every  day  the  senate  sat  from  sunrise  to  sunset ;  and  not  a  sena-  R 
tor  was  absent :  every  day  the  Forum  was  crowded  from  morning  till  evening,  as 
each  hour  might  bring  some  great  tidings  ;  and  every  man  wished  to  be  among 
the  first  to  hear  them.  A  doubtful  rumor  arose,  that  a  great  battle  had  been 
fought,  and  a  great  victory  won  only  two  days  before  :  two  horsemen  of  Narnia 
had  ridden  oft' from  the  field  to  carry  the  news  to  their  home ;  it  had  been  heard 
and  published  in  the  camp  of  the  reserve  army,  which  was  lying  at  Narnia  to 
cover  the  approach  to  Rome.  But  men  dared  not  lightly  believe  what  they  so 
much  wished  to  be  true ;  and  how,  they  said,  could  a  battle  fought  in  the  ex- 
tremity of  Umbria  be  heard  of  only  two  days  after  at  Rome  ?  Soon,  however,  it 
was  known  that  a  letter  had  arrived  from  L.  Manlius  Acidinus  himself,  who  com- 
manded the  army  at  Narnia :  the  horsemen  had  certainly  arrived  there  from  the 
field  of  battle,  and  brought  tidings  of  a  glorious  victory.  The  letter  was  read  first 
in  the  senate,  and  then  in  the  Forum  from  the  rostra :  but  some  still  refused 
to  believe :  fugitives  from  a  battle-field  might  carry  idle  tales  of  victory  to  hide 
their  own  shame :  till  the  account  came  directly  from  the  consuls  it  was  rash  to 
credit  it."  At  last  word  was  brought  that  officers  of  high  rank  in  the  consuls' 
army  were  on  their  way  to  Rome ;  that  they  bore  a  dispatch  from  Livius  and  Nero. 
Then  the  whole  city  poured  out  of  the  walls  to  meet  them,  eager  to  anticipate 
the  moment  which  was  to  confirm  all  their  hopes.  For  two  miles,  as  far  as  the 
Milvian  bridge  over  the  Tiber,  the  crowd  formed  an  uninterrupted  mass ;  and 
when  the  officers  appeared,  they  could  scarcely  make  their  way  to  the  city,  the 
multitude  thronging  around  them,  and  overwhelming  them  and  their  attendants 
with  eager  questions.  As  each  man  learnt  the  joyful  answers,  he  made  haste  to 
tell  them  to  others  :  "  The  enemy's  army  is  destroyed ;  their  general  slain ;  our 
own  legions  and  both  the  consuls  are  safe."  So  the  crowd  re-entered  the  city; 
and  the  three  officers,  all  men  of  noble  names,  L.  Veturius  Philo,  P.  Licinius 
Varus,  and  Q.  Metellus,  still  followed  by  the  thronging  multitude,  at  last  reached 
the  senate-house.  The  people  pressed  after  them  into  the  senate-house  itself: 
but  even  at  such  a  moment  the  senate  forgot  not  its  accustomed  order ;  the 
crowd  was  forced  back  ;  and  the  consuls'  dispatch  was  first  read  to  the  senators 
alone.  Immediately  afterwards  the  officers  came  out  into  the  Forum  ;  there  L. 
Veturius  again  read  the  dispatch  ;  and  as  its  contents  were  short,  and  it  told 
only  the  general  result  of  the  battle,  he  himself  related  the  particulars  of  what 
he  had  seen  and  done.  The  interest  of  his  hearers  grew  more  intense  with  every 
word,  till  at  last  the  whole  multitude  broke  out  into  a  universal  cheer,  and  then 
rushed  from  the  Forum  in  all  directions  to  carry  the  news  to  their  wives  and  chil- 
dren at  home,  or  ran  to  the  temples  to  pour  out  their  gratitude  to  the  gods.  The 
senate  ordered  a  thanksgiving  of  three  days  ;  the  praetor  announced  it  in  the  Fo- 
rum ;  and  for  three  days  every  temple  was  crowded  ;  and  the  Roman  wives  and 
mothers,  in  their  gayest  dresses,  took  their  children  with  them,  and  poured  forth 
their  thanks  to  all  the  gods  for  this  great  deliverance.  It  was  like  the  burst  of 
all  nature,  when  a  long  frost  suddenly  breaks  up,  and  the  snow  melts,  and  the 
ground  resumes  its  natural  coloring,  and  the  streams  flow  freely.  The  Roman 
people  seemed  at  last  to  breathe  and  move  at  liberty ;  confidence  revived ;  and  with 
it  the  ordinary  business  of  life  regained  its  activity  :  he  who  wanted  money  found 
that  men  were  not  afraid  to  lend  it ;  what  had  been  hoarded  came  out  into  cir- 
culation ;  land  might  be  bought  without  the  dread  that  the  purchase  would  bo 
rendered  worthless  by  Hannibal's  ravages ;  and  in  the  joy  and  confidence  of  the 


Livy,  XXVII.  50. 


586  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.XLVIL 

moment,  men  almost  forgot  that  their  great  enemy  with  his  unbroken  army  was 
still  in  Italy.100 

At  the  end  of  the  year  both  consuls  returned  to  Rome,  and  triumphed.  Many 
years  had  passed  since  this  spectacle  had  been  exhibited  in  its  full 
solemnity ;  for  Marcellus  had  only  obtained  the  smaller  triumph, 
or  ovation,  in  which  the  general  passed  through  the  streets  on  foot.  But  now  the 
kingly  chariot  once  more  carried  a  Roman  consul  in  the  pomp  of  kingly  state  up 
to  the  temple  of  the  Capitoline  Jupiter ;  and  the  streets  once  more  resounded 
with  the  shouts  and  rude  jests  of  the  victorious  soldiers,  as  they  moved  in  long 
array  after  their  general.  The  spoil  of  Hasdrubal's  camp  was  large  ;  each  sol- 
dier received  a  donation  of  three  denarii  and  a  half ;  and  three  millions  of  sester- 
ces in  silver,  besides  80,000  pounds  of  the  old  Italian  copper  money,  were  carried 
into  the  treasury.  Nero  rode  on  horseback  by  the  side  of  his  colleague's  chariot ; 
a  distinction  made  between  them,  partly  because  Livius  had  happened  to  have 
the  command  on  the  day  of  the  battle,  and  partly  because  Nero  had  come  with- 
out his  army  ;  his  province  still  requiring  its  usual  force,  as  Hannibal  was  there. 
But  the  favor  of  the  multitude,  if  we  can  trust  the  writers  under  Augustus,  when 
they  speak  of  his  adopted  son's  ancestor,  amply  compensated  to  Nero  for  this 
formal  inferiority  :  they  said  that  he  was  the  real  conqueror  of  Hasdrubal,  while 
his  name,  even  in  absence,  had  overawed  Hannibal.10'  One  thing,  however,  is  re- 
markable, that  Nero  was  never  employed  again  in  a  military  command  :  we  only 
hear  of  him  after  his  consulship  as  censor.  Fabius  and  Fulvius  and  Marcellus  had 
been  sent  out  year  after  year  against  Hannibal ;  whilst  the  man  whose  military 
genius  eclipsed  all  the  Roman  generals  hitherto  engaged  in  Italy,  was  never  op- 
posed to  him  again.  Men's  eyes  were  turned  in  another  direction  ;  and  the  con- 
queror of  the  Metaurus  was  less  regarded  than  a  young  man  whose  career  of 
success  had  been  as  brilliant  as  it  was  uninterrupted,  and  who  was  now  almost 
entitled  to  the  name  of  conqueror  of  all  Spain.  It  is  time  that  we  should  trace 
the  events  of  the  war  in  the  west,  and  describe  the  dawn  of  the  glory  of  Scipio. 


CHAPTER  XLVII, 

P.  CORNELIUS  SCIPIO— HIS  OPERATIONS  IN  SPAIN— SIEGE  AND  CAPTURE  OF 
NEW  CARTHAGE— BATTLE  OF  B.ECULA— THE  CARTHAGINIANS  EVACUATE 
THE  SPANISH  PENINSULA— SCIPIO  RETURNS  TO  ROME,  AND  IS  ELECTED 
CONSUL.— A.  U.  C.  543  TO  A.  U.  C.  548. 

THREE  generations  of  Scipios  have  already  been  distinguished  in  Roman  his- 
tory :  L.  Scipio  Barbatus,  who  was  actively  engraved  in  the  third 

F»ttilyoftheScipio».       „,     J      .  "   T      ~    .     .        . '.  *  &,  =*      ,       .      x1        ~       . 

Samnite  war ;  L.  Scipio,  his  son,  who  was  consul  early  m  the  nrst 
Punic  war,  and  obtained  a  triumph ;  and  Publius  and  Cnseus  Scipio,  the  sons  of 
L.  Scipio,  who  served  their  country  ably  in  Spain  in  the  second  Punic  war,  and, 
as  we  have  seen,  were  at  last  cut  off  there  by  the  enemy  towards  the  end  of  the 
siege  of  Capua.  Publius  Scipio,  who  was  killed  in  Spain,  left  two  sons  behind 
him,  Lucius  and  Publius :  of  these,  Lucius,  the  elder,  became  afterwards  the 
conqueror  of  king  Antiochus  ;  Publius,  the  younger,  was  the  famous  Scipic 
Africanus. 

Athens  abounded  in  writers  at  the  time  of  the  Peloponnesian  war ;  but,  had 

M  Livy,  XXVII.  51.  101  Livy,  XXIX.  37. 


CHAP.  XLVIL]  SCIPIO'S  CHARACTER.  587 

not  Thucydides  been  one  of  them,  how  hard  would  it  be  rightly  contradictory  account. 
to  estimate  the  characters  of  the  eminent  men  of  that  period  !  And  Ol 
even  Thucydides  seems  in  one  instance  to  have  partaken  of  the  common  weak- 
nesses of  humanity :  his  personal  gratitude  and  respect  for  Antiphon  has  colored, 
not  indeed  his  statement  of  his  actions,  but  his  general  estimate  of  his  worth :  he 
attributes  an  over-measure  of  virtue  to  the  conspirator,  who  scrupled  not  to  use 
assassination  as  a  means  of  overthrowing  the  liberty  and  independence  of  his 
country.  But  Polybius,  whose  knowledge  of  Rome  was  that  of  a  foreigner,  and 
for  a  long  time  of  a  prisoner,  could  not  be  to  Roman  history  what  Thucydides  is 
to  that  of  G  reece,  even  if  in  natural  powers  he  had  approached  more  nearly  to  him  ; 
and  all  his  accounts  of  the  Scipios  are  affected  by  his  intimacy  with  the  younger 
Africanus,  and  are  derived  from  partial  sources,  the  anecdotes  told  by  the  elder 
Laelius,  or  the  funeral  orations  and  traditions  of  the  family.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  was  a  large  party  in  Rome  to  whom  Scipio  was  personally  and  politically 
obnoxious,  and  their  writers  would  naturally  circulate  stories  unfavorable  to  him. 
Hence,  the  accounts  of  his  early  life  and  character  are  varying,  and  sometimes 
contradictory ;  and  points,  apparently  the  most  notorious,  are  stated  very  differ- 
ently, so  that  we  know  not  what  to  believe.  His  friend  and  companion,  Lselius, 
told  Polybius,1  that  in  his  first  battle,  when  only  seventeen,  he  saved  his  father's 
life ;  but  Coelius  Antipater  said  that  this  was  a  false  pretension  ;  that  the  consul, 
P.  Scipio,  was  saved,  not  by  his  son,  but  by  the  fidelity  of  a  Ligurian  slave.2  By 
his  friends  again  Scipio  is  represented  as  one  who,  amid  all  temptations  of  youth 
and  power,  maintained  the  complete  mastery  over  his  passions  :3  while  his  ene- 
mies said  that  his  youth  was  utterly  dissolute ;  and  that  the  famous  story  of  his 
noble  treatment  of  the  Spanish  captive  maiden  was  invented  to  veil  conduct  which 
had  really  been  of  the  very  opposite  nature.4  His  common  admirers  extolled 
his  singular  devotion  to  the  gods :  he  delighted,  it  was  said,  to  learn  their  pleas- 
ure, and  to  be  guided  by  their  counsel ;  nor  would  he  ever  engage  in  any  im- 
portant matter,  public  or  private,  till  he  had  first  gone  up  to  the  capitol,  and  en- 
tered the  temple  of  Jupiter,  and  there  sat  for  a  time  alone,  as  it  seemed,  in  the 
presence  of  the  god,  and  doubtless  enjoying  unwonted  communications  from  his 
divine  wisdom.5  But  Polybius,  by  temper  and  by  circumstances  a  rationalist,  is 
at  great  pains  to  assure  his  readers,  that  Scipio  owed  no  part  of  his  greatness  to 
the  gods,  and  that  his  true  oracle  was  the  clear  judgment  of  his  own  mind.6  Ac- 
cording to  him  Scipio  did  but  impose  upon  and  laugh  at  the  credulity  of  the  vul- 
gar ;  speaking  of  the  favor  shown  him  by  the  gods,  while  he  knew  the  gods  to 
be  nothing.  Livy,  with  a  truer  feeling,  which  taught  him  that  a  hero  cannot  be 
a  hypocrite,  suggests  a  doubt,  though  timidly,  as  if  in  fear  of  the  skepticism  of 
his  age,  whether  the  great  Scipio  was  not  really  touched  by  some  feelings  of 
superstition,1  whether  he  did  not  in  some  degree  speak  what  he  himself  believed. 
A  mind  like  Scipio's,  working  its  way  under  the  peculiar  influences  of  his  time 
and  country,  cannot  but  move  irregularly ;  it  cannot  but  be  full  of 
contradictions.  Two  hundred  years  later,  the  mind  of  the  dicta- 
tor Caesar  acquiesced  contentedly  in  Epicureanism :  he  retained  no  more  of  en- 
thusiasm than  was  inseparable  from  the  intensity  of  his  intellectual  power,  and 
the  fervor  of  his  courage,  even  amidst  his  utter  moral  degradation.  But  Scipio 
could  not  be  like  Csesar.  His  mind  rose  above  the  state  of  things  around  him ; 
his  spirit  was  solitary  and  kingly ;  he  was  cramped  by  living  among  those  as  his 
equals,  whonr  he  felt  fitted  to  guide  as  from  some  higher  sphere ;  and  he  retired 
at  last  to  Liternum  to  breathe  freely,8  to  enjoy  the  simplicity  of  childhood,  since 

1  X.  3.  •  Polybius,  X.  2,  5,  T. 

1  Livy  XXI.  46.  '  XXVI.  19.    Sive  et  ipse  captl  quadam  su- 


^••Jl     u.*.^.XJ.  ^i-^i.  T   i.     J.«7.  *J 

*  Polybius,  X.  18, 19.    Livy,  XXVI.  49,  50.      perstitione  animi. 
4  Cn.  Nievius  and  Valerius  Antias,  quoted  by       *  Livy,  XXXVI 


XXXVIII.  52,  53.  Valerius  Maxiraus, 
A.  Gellius,  VI.  8.  V.  3,  2. 

•  Polybius,  X.  2,  5,  11.    Livy,  XXVI.  19. 


588  HISTORY  OF  HOME.  [CHAP.  XL VI I 

he  could  not  fulfil  his  natural  calling  to  be  a  hero  king.  So  far  he  stood  apart 
from  his  countrymen,  admired,  reverenced,  but  not  loved.  But  he  could  not  shake 
off  all  the  influences  of  his  time ;  the  virtue,  public  and  private,  which  still  existed 
at  Rome,  the  reverence  paid  by  the  wisest  and  best  men  to  the  religion  of  their 
fathers,  were  elements  too  congenial  to  his  nature  not  to  retain  their  hold  on  it ; 
they  cherished  that  nobleness  of  soul  in  him,  and  that  faith  in  the  invisible  and 
divine,  which  two  centuries  of  growing  unbelief  rendered  almost  impossible  in  the 
days  of  Caesar.  Yet  how  strange  must  the  conflict  be,  when  faith  is  combined 
with  the  highest  intellectual  power,  and  its  appointed  object  is  no  better  than 
paganism !  Longing  to  believe,  yet  repelled  by  palpable  falsehood,  crossed  in- 
evitably with  snatches  of  unbelief,  in  which  hypocrisy  is  ever  close  at  the  door, 
it  breaks  out  desperately,  as  it  may  seem,  into  the  region  of  dreams  and  visions, 
and  mysterious  communings  with  the  invisible,  as  if  longing  to  find  that  food  in 
its  own  creations,  which  no  outward  objective  truth  offers  to  it.  The  proportions 
of  belief  and  unbelief  in  the  human  mind  in  such  cases,  no  human  judgment  can 
determine  :  they  are  the  wonders  of  history  ;  characters  inevitably  misrepresented 
by  the  vulgar,  and  viewed  even  by  those  who  in  some  sense  have  the  key  to  them 
AS  a  mystery,  not  fully  to  be  comprehended,  and  still  less  explained  to  others. 
The  genius  which  conceived  the  incomprehensible  character  of  Hamlet,  would 
alone  be  able  to  describe  with  intuitive  truth  the  character  of  Scipio  or  of  Crom- 
well. 

In  both  these  great  men,  the  enthusiastic  element  which  clearly  existed  in  them, 
did  but  inspire  a  resistless  energy  into  their  actions,  while  it  in  no 

IU  effect  on  hi*  life.  .  "  &J  .      » 

way  interfered  with  the  calmest  and  keenest  judgment  in  the 
choice  of  their  means  :  nor  in  the  case  of  Scipio  did  it  suggest  any  other  end  of 
life,  than  such  as  was  appreciated  by  ordinary  human  views  of  good.  Where 
religion  contained  no  revelation  of  new  truth,  it  naturally  left  men's  estimate  of 
the  end  of  their  being  exactly  what  it  had  been  before,  and  only  furnished  en- 
couragement to  the  pursuit  of  it.  It  so  far  bore  the  character  of  magic,  that  it 
applied  superhuman  power  to  the  furtherance  of  human  purposes :  the  gods  aided 
man's  work ;  they  did  not  teach  and  enable  him  to  do  theirs. 

The  charge  of  early  dissoluteness  brought  against  Scipio  by  his  enemies  is  likely 
char  ea  ainst  Mm  *°  ^ave  keen  exaggerated,  like  the  stories  of  our  Henry  V.  Yet 
the  sternest  and  firmest  manhood  has  sometimes  followed  a  youth 
marked  with  many  excesses  of  passion  ;  and  what  was  considered  an  unbecom- 
ing interruption  to  the  cares  of  public  business,  was  held  to  be  in  itself  nothing 
blamable.  That  sanction  of  inherited  custom,  which  at  Rome  at  this  period 
was  the  best  safeguard  of  youthful  purity,  Scipio  was  not  inclined  implicitly  to 
regard. 

With  all  his  greatness  there  was  a  waywardness  in  him,  which  seems  often  to 
accompany  genius ;  a  self-idolatry,  natural  enough  where  there 

Comparison      between    .  TJ&  .'  J  >  «  .     «   «    »A      3       • 

bis  character  aud  Han-  is  so  keen  a  consciousness  ot  power  and  ot  lofty  designs ;  a  sen- 
dependence,  which  feels  even  the  most  sacred  external  relations 
to  be  unessential  to  its  own  perfection.  Such  is  the  Achilles  of  Homer,  the  highest 
conception  of  the  individual  hero,  relying  on  himself,  and  sufficient  to  himself. 
But  the  same  poet  who  conceived  the  character  of  Achilles,  has  also  drawn  that 
of  Hector ;  of  the  truly  noble,  because  unselfish  hero,  who  subdues  his  genius  to 
make  it  minister  to  the  good  of  others,  who  lives  for  his  relations,  his  friends,  and 
his  country.  And  as  Scipio  lived  in  himself  and  for  himself,  like  Achilles,  so  the 
virtue  of  Hector  was  worthily  represented  in  the  life  of  his  great  rival  Hannibal, 
who,  from  his  childhood  to  his  latest  hour,  in  war  and  in  peace,  through  glory 
and  through  obloquy,  amid  victories  and  amid  disappointments,  ever  remembered 
to  what  purpose  his*  father  had  devoted  him,  and  withdrew  no  thought  or  desire 
or  deed  from  their  pledged  service  to  his  country. 

Scipio  had  fought  at  Cannae,  and,  after  the  battle,  had  been  forward,  it  was 
said,  in  putting  down  that  dangerous  spirit,  which  showed  itself  among  some  of 


OHAP.  XLV1L]  WAR  IN  SPAIN.  589 

high  birth  and  name,  when  they  were  purposing  to  abandon  Italy  ^ 
in  despair,  and  seek  their  fortune  in  Greece,  or  Egypt,  or  Asia.9 
His  early  manhood  had  attracted  the  favor  of  the  people ;  and  although  the  de- 
tails are  variously  given,  it  is  certain  that  he  was  made  curule  sedile  at  an  early 
age,  and  with  strong  marks  of  the  general  good-will.10    But  he  had  A  u  c  543 
filled  no  higher  office  than  the  Eedileship,  when  his  father  and  uncle 
were  killed  in  Spain,  and  when  C.  Nero,  after  the  fall  of  Capua,  was  sent  out  as 
propraetor  to  command  the  wreck  of  their  army,  and  joining  it  to  the  force  which 
he  brought  from  Italy,  to  maintain  the  almost  desperate  cause  of  the  Roman 
arms  in  the  west. 

He  held  his  ground,  and  even  ventured,  if  we  may  believe  a  story  overrun  with 
improbabilities,  to  act  on  the  offensive,  and  to  penetrate  into  the  A.  Ut  c.  544.  A.  c. 
south  of  Spain,  as  far  as  the  Beetis.11  The  faults  of  the  Cartha-  SrtuS^  Kl 
ginian  generals  were  ruining  their  cause,  and  vexing  the  spirit  of  Scipios- 
Hasdrubal,  the  son  of  Hamilcar,  who  alone  knew  the  value  of  the  present  oppor- 
tunity, and  was  eager  to  make  use  of  it.  But  the  other  Hasdrubal  and  Mago 
thought  their  work  was  done,  and  were  :  nly  anxious  to  enrich  themselves  out  of 
the  plunder  of  Spain.  They  disgusted  the  Spanish  chiefs  by  their  insolence  and 
rapacity,  while  they  were  jealous  of  each  other,  and  both,  as  was  natural,  hated 
and  dreaded  the  son  of  Hamilcar.12  Accordingly,  all  concert  between  the  Car- 
thaginian generals  was  at  an  end ;  they  engaged  in  separate  enterprises  in  differ- 
ent parts  of  the  country :  Hasdrubal,  the  son  of  Gisco,  and  Mago,  moved  off  to 
the  extreme  west  of  the  peninsula,  to  subdue  and  plunder  the  remoter  Spanish 
tribes ;  and  only  Hasdrubal,  the  son  of  Hamilcar,  remained  to  oppose  the  Ro- 
mans. Nero,  therefore,  whether  he  acted  on  the  offensive  or  no,  was  certainly 
unassailed  behind  the  Iberus ;  and  at  the  end  of  the  year  544,  eighteen  months 
at  least  after  the  defeat  of  the  Scipios,  the  Roman  arms  had  met  with  no  fresh 
disaster ;  and  the  coast  of  the  Mediterranean  between  the  Pyrenees  and  the  Ibe- 
rus still  acknowledged  the  Roman  dominion. 

It  was  at  this  period  that  the  government  resolved  to  increase  its  efforts  in 
Spain,  to  employ  a  larger  army  there,  and  to  place  it  under  the  A.u.c.  545.  A.C.SOO. 
command  of  an  officer  of  higher  rank  than  Nero,  who  was  only  J-otecutTTt^ithmo^ 
propraetor.  It  was  probable  that  Hasdrubal's  expedition  to  Italy  vigor> 
was  now  seriously  meditated,  and  that  the  Romans,  being  aware  of  this,  were 
anxious  to  detain  him  in  Spain ;  but,  even  without  this  special  object,  the  im- 
portance of  the  Spanish  war  was  evident ;  and  it  was  not  wise  to  leave  the  Roman 
cause  in  Spain  it  its  present  precarious  state,  in  which  it  was  preserved  only  by 
the  divisions  and  want  of  ability  of  the  enemy's  generals.  Accordingly,  the  tribes 
were  to  meet  to  appoint  a  proconsul,  who  should  carry  out  reinforcements  to 
Spain,  and,  with  a  propraetor  acting  under  him,  take  the  supreme  command  of 
the  Roman  forces  in  that  country. 

To  the  surprise  of  the  whole  people,  P.  Scipio,  then  only  in  his  twenty-seventh 
year,  and  who  had  filled  no  higher  office  than  that  of  curule  sedile, 

/.  -t  T  i     ,       10°    T,    •  •  -i    ,1       ,    T        i        i  ,•       Scipio    is  elected  pro- 

came  forward  as  a  candidate.13  It  is  said  that  he  had  no  competi-  consul  for  the  spurt 
tors,  all  men  being  deterred  from  undertaking  a  service  which 
seemed  so  unpromising  ;  whereas  Scipio  himself  had  formed  a  truer  judgment  of 
the  state  of  affairs  in  Spain,  and  felt  that  they  might  be  restored,  and  that  he 
himself  was  capable  of  restoring  them.  He  expressed  his  confidence  strongly  in 
all  his  addresses  to  the  people  ;  and  there  was  that  in  him  which  distinguished 
his  boldness  from  a  young  man's  idle  boastings,  and  communicated  his  hope  to 
his  hearers.14  At  the  same  age,  and  nearly  under  the  same  circumstances,  in 
which  Napoleon  was  appointed  in  1796  to  take  the  command  of  the  French  army 

9  Livy,  XXII.  53.     See  above,  p.  502.  ia  Polybiua,  IX.  11.     X.  36. 

»  Polybius.X.  4.    Livy,  XXV.  2.  »  Livy,  XXVI.  18.    Polybins,  X.  6. 

"  Livy,  XXVI.  IT.  "  Livy,  XXVI.  19.    Polybius,  X.  6. 


590  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLVU 

of  Italy,  was  P.  Scipio  chosen  by  the  unanimous  voice  of  the  Roman  people,  tc 
take  the  command  of  their  army  in  Spain.  And  great  as  were  the  consequences 
of  the  appointment  of  Napoleon,  those  which  followed  the  appointment  of  Scipio 
were  greater  and  far  more  lasting. 

At  the  same  time  a  new  propraetor  was  to  be  sent  out  in  the  room  of  C.  Nero, 
and  goM  with  large  re-  whose  year  of  command  was  come  to  an  end.  His  successor  was 
Moreen™*  to  spam.  ^  Jimius  Silanus,15  who  had  been  praetor  two  years  before,  and 
since  that  time  had  been  employed  in  overawing  the  party  disaffected  to  Rome 
in  Etruria.  The  two  new  generals  were  to  take  with  them  large  reinforcements, 
amounting  to  10,000  foot,  1000  horse,  and  a  fleet  of  thirty  quinqueremes.  The 
troops  were  embarked  at  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber  ;  and  the  fleet  proceeded  along 
the  coasts  of  Etruria,  Liguria,  and  Gaul,  till  it  arrived  safely  at  Emporiae,  a  Mas- 
saliot  colony,  lying  immediately  on  the  Spanish  side  of  the  Pyrenees.  Here  the 
soldiers  were  disembarked,  and  proceeded  by  land  to  Tarraco  ;  the  fleet  followed  ; 
and  the  head-quarters  of  the  proconsul  were  established  at  Tarraco  for  the 
winter,  as  it  was  too  late  in  the  season  to  admit  of  any  active  operations  immedi- 
ately.16 

And  now  that  Spain  has  received  that  general  and  that  army,  by  whom  her 
view  of  air  ^e  was  ^xe(^  through  all  after  time,  —  for  the  expulsion  of  the 

Carthaginians  from  the  peninsula  decided  its  subjection  to  the  Ro- 
mans, and  though  the  work  of  conquest  was  slow,  and  often  interrupted,  it  was 
not  the  less  sure,  —  let  us  for  a  moment  survey  the  earliest  known  state  of  this 
great  country  ;  what  Spain  was,  and  who  were  the  earliest  Spaniards,  before  Ro- 
mans, Goths,  and  Moors,  had  filled  the  land  with  stranger  races,  and  almost  ex- 
tirpated the  race  and  language  of  its  original  people. 

The  Spanish  peninsula,  joined  to  the  main  body  of  Europe  by  the  isthmus  of 
Description  of  the  span-  W  Pyrenees,  may  be  likened  to  one  of  the  round  bastion  towers 
u,hpenin.uia.  which  stand  out  from  the  walls  of  an  old  fortified  town,  lofty  at 

once  and  massy.  Spain  rises  from  the  Atlantic  on  one  side,  and  the  Mediter- 
ranean on  the  other,  not  into  one  or  two  thin  lines  of  mountains  divided  by  vast 
tracts  of  valleys  or  low  plains,  but  into  a  huge  tower,  as  I  have  called  it,  of  table- 
land, from  which  the  mountains  themselves  rise  again  like  the  battlements  on  the 
summit.  The  plains  of  Castile  are  mountain  plains,  raised  nearly  2000  feet  above 
the  level  of  the  sea;  and  the  elevation  of  the  city  of  Madrid  is  nearly  double  that 
of  the  top  of  Arthur's  Seat,  the  hill  or  mountain  which  overhangs  Edinburgh. 
Accordingly  the  centre  of  Spain,  notwithstanding  its  genial  latitude,  only  par- 
tially enjoys  the  temperature  of  a  southern  climate  ;  while  some  of  the  valleys  of 
Andalusia,  which  lie  near  the  sea,  present  the  vegetation  of  the  tropics,  the  palm- 
tree,  the  banana,  and  the  sugar-cane.  Thus  the  southern  coast  seemed  to  invite 
an  earlier  civilization  ;  while  the  interior,  with  its  bleak  and  arid  plains,  was  fitted 
to  remain  for  centuries  the  stronghold  of  barbarism. 

Accordingly  the  first  visits  of  the  Phoenicians  to  Spain  are  placed  at  a  very 
remo^e  6™^-  Some  stories  ascribed  the  foundation  of  Gades  to 


Phoenician  Bet- 
uemenu  m  spuin^jhe  Archelaus,  the  son  of  Phoenix  —  Phoenix  and  Cadmus  being  the 

the  aboriginal  inhabit-  supposed  founders  of  Tyre  and  Sidon,  and  belonging  to  the  earli- 
est period  of  Greek  tradition  ;  while  other  accounts  of  a  more  his- 
torical character  made  the  origin  of  Gades  contemporary  with  the  reign  of  the 
Athenian  Codrus,  that  is,  about  a  thousand  years  before  the  Christian  era.17 
Three  hundred  years  later,  the  Prophet  Isaiah18  describes  the  downfall  of  Tyre 
as  likely  to  give  deliverance  to  the  land  of  Tarshish  ;  that  is,  to  the  south  of 
Spain,  where  the  Phoenicians  had  established  their  dominion.  In  the  time  of 
Ezekiel,  the  Tyrian  trade  with  Spain  was  most  flourishing  ;  and  the  produce  of 
the  Spanish  mines,  silver,  iron,  tin,  and  lead,  are  especially  mentioned  as  the  ar- 

*  Livy,  XXVI.  19.  "  Velleius,  I.  II.  5. 

»  Livy,  XXVI.  19,  20.  w  XXIII.  10. 


•]  EARLY  SETTLERS  IN  SPAIN.  59] 

tides  which  came  from  Tarshish  to  the  Phoenician  ports.19  Nor  did  the  Phoe- 
nicians confine  themselves  to  a  few  points  on  the  sea-coast ;  they  were  spread 
over  the  whole  south  of  Spain ;  and  the  greatest  number  of  the  towns  of  Tur- 
ditania  were  still  inhabited  in  Strabo's  time  by  people  of  Phoenician  origin.20 
They  communicated  many  of  the  arts  of  life  to  the  natives,  and  among  the  rest 
the  early  use  of  letters  ;  for  the  characters  which  the  Iberians  used  in  their 
writing  before  the  time  of  the  Romans,21  can  scarcely  have  been  any  other  than 
Phoenician.  The  Phoenicians  visited  Spain  at  a  very  remote  period ;  but  they 
found  it  already  peopled.  Who  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  were,  and  from 
whence  they  came,  it  is  impossible  to  determine.  The  Greeks  called  them 
Iberians,  and  said  that,  although  they  were  divided  into  many  tribes,  and  spoke 
many  various  dialects,  they  yet  all  belonged  to  the  same  race.28  It  cannot  be 
doubted  that  their  race  and  language  still  exist ;  that  the  Basques,  who  inhabit 
the  Spanish  provinces  of  Guipuscoa,  Biscay,  Alava,  and  Navarre,  and  who  in 
France  occupy  the  country  between  the  Adour  and  the  Bidassoa,  are  the  gen- 
uine descendants  of  the  ancient  Iberians.  Their  language  bears  marks  of  ex- 
treme antiquity ;  and  its  unlikeness  to  the  other  languages  of  Europe  is  very 
striking,  even  when  compared  with  Welsh,  or  with  Sclavonic.  The  affinities  of 
the  Welsh  numerals  with  those  of  the  Teutonic  languages,  and  the  Greek  and 
Latin,  are  obvious  at  the  first  glance ;  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  most  of  the 
Sclavonic  numerals :  but  the  Basque  are  so  peculiar,  that  it  is  difficult  to  identify 
any  one  of  them,  except  "  sei,"  "  six,"  with  those  of  other  languages.23  And  an 
evidence  of  its  great  antiquity  seems  furnished  by  the  fact,  that  the  inflexions  of 
the  nouns  and  verbs  are  manifestly  so  many  distinct  words,  inasmuch  as  they 
exist  in  a  separate  form  as  such.  We  suspect  this  reasonably  of  the  terminations 
of  the  nouns  and  verbs  of  Greek  and  Latin ;  but  in  the  Basque  language  it  can 
be  proved  beyond  question.24 

We  have  seen  that  the  Phoenicians  were  settled  amongst  the  Itterians  in  the 
south ;  and  Keltic  tribes  were  said  to  be  mixed  up  with  them  in  various  traditions  of 
parts  of  the  north  and  centre,  forming  a  people,  whom  the  Greeks  ^'y*6"16™60*- 
called  Keltiberians.  How  far  strangers  of  other  races  were  to  be  found  in  Iberia, 
it  is  difficult  to  decide.  One  or  two  Greek  colonies  from  Massalia,  such  as  Rhoda 
and  Emporiae,  were  undoubtedly  planted  on  the  shore  of  the  Mediterranean,  just 
within  the  limits  of  Iberia,  immediately  to  the  south  of  the  Pyrenees.25  These 
belong  to  the  times  of  certain  history  ;  but  stories  are  told  of  invasions  of  Spain, 
and  of  colonies  founded  on  its  territory,  on  which  in  their  present  form  we  can 
place  no  reliance.  Carthaginian  writers  spoke  of  a  great  expedition  of  the  Tyrian 

»  XXVII.  12.  »  I  give  the  Welsh  from  Pughe's  Welsh 

20  III.  p.  149.  Grammar,  Denbigh,  1832  ;  the  Sclavonic  (Bo- 

21  Strabo,  III.  p.  139.  hernian),  from  Dobrowsky,  Lehrgebaude  der 
23  Herodotus,  in  a  fragment  of  Stephamis    Bohmischen  Sprache,  Prag.  1819 ;  the  Basque 

Byzantius,  v.^J/fypfoi,  preserved  by  Constantino  from  Larramendi,  Arte  de  la  Lingua  Bascon- 
Porphyrogenitus,  and  given  by  Berkelius :  To  gada,  Salamanca,  1.729. 

Kara  <pv\a. 

Numerals  from  1  to  10. 

WELSH.  SCLAVONIC.  BASQUE. 

One  Un  Geden  Bat 

Two  Dau  Dwa  Bi 

Three  Tri  Tri  Hini 

Four  Pedwar  Etyn  Lau 

Five  Pump  Pet  Bost 

Six  Chwech  Ssest  Sei 

Seven  Saith  Sedm  Zazpi 

Eight  Wyth  Osm  Zortzi 

Nine  Naw  Dewet  Bederstzi 

Ten  Deg  Deset  Amar. 

See  W.  Humboldt's  Dissertation  on  the        '*  Strabo,  III.  pp.  159, 160. 
Basque  Language  in  Adelung's  Mithridates, 
Tol.  iv.  p.  314-332. 


592  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CiiAp.XLVIL 

Hercules  into  Spain,  at  the  head  of  an  army  of  Medes,  Persians,  Armenians,  and 
other  nations  of  the  east.26  Megasthenes,27  the  Greek  traveller  and  historian  of 
India,  said  that  Tearco,  king  of  ^Ethiopia,  and  Nabuchodonosor,  king  of  the  Chal- 
dceans,  had  both  carried  their  arms  as  far  as  Spain.  Amongst  the  innumerable 
countries  which  were  made  the  scene  of  the  adventures  of  the  Greek  chiefs  on 
their  return  from  Troy,  after  they  had  been  scattered  by  the  famous  storm,  the 
coasts  of  Iberia,  and  even  its  coasts  upon  the  ocean,  are  not  forgotten.28  Other 
stones,  as  we  have  seen,  claimed  a  Greek  origin  for  Saguntum  ;  while  others 
again  called  it  a  Rutulian  colony,  from  the  Tyrrheno-Pelasgian  city  of  Ardea.29 
The  settlements  of  the  Greek  chiefs  on  their  way  home  from  Troy  are  mere  ro- 
mances, as  unreal  as  the  famous  siege  of  Paris  by  the  Saracens  in  the  days  of 
Charlemagne,  or  as  the  various  adventures  and  settlements  of  Trojan  exiles,  which 
were  invented  in  the  middle  ages.  Whether  any  real  events  are  disguised  in  the 
stories  of  the  expeditions  of  Hercules,  of  Tearco,  and  of  Nabuchodonosor,  is  a 
question  more  difficult  to  answer  :  for  the  early  migrations  from  the  east  to  the 
west  are  buried  in  impenetrable  obscurity.  But  the  Persians  and  ^Ethiopians 
may  have  made  their  way  into  Spain  before  historical  memory,  as  the  Vandals 
and  Arabs  invaded  it  in  later  times ;  the  fact  itself  is  not  incredible,  if  it  rested 
on  any  credible  authority. 

Not  knowing,  then,  what  strange  nations  may  at  one  time  or  other  have  in- 
state of  agriculture  m  vaded  or  settled  in  Spain,  we  cannot  judge  how  much  the  Iberian 
character  and  manners  were  affected  by  foreign  influence.  Agri- 
culture was  practised  from  a  period  beyond  memory :  but  the  vine  and  olive,  and 
perhaps  the  flax,  were  first  introduced  into  the  south  of  Spain  by  the  Phoenicians, 
and  only  spread  northwards  gradually,  the  vine  and  fig  advancing  first,  and  the 
olive,  as  becomes  its  greater  tenderness,  following  them  more  slowly  and  cau- 
tiously. Even  in  Strabo's  time  the  vine  had  scarcely  reached  the  northern  coast 
of  Spain ;  aid  the  olive,  when  Polybius  wrote,  appears  not  to  have  been  culti- 
vated north  of  the  Sierra  Morena.30  Butter  supplied  the  place  of  oil  to  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  northern  coast,  and  beer  that  of  wine.31 

In  the  character  of  the  people  some  traits  may  be  recognized,  which  even  to 
character  of  the  ibe-  this  day  mark  the  Spaniard.  The  grave  dress,32  the  temperance 
and  sobriety,  the  unyielding  spirit,  the  extreme  indolence,  the  per- 
severance in  guerilla  warfare,  and  the  remarkable  absence  of  the  highest  military 
qualities,  ascribed  by  the  Greek  and  Roman  writers  to  the  ancient  Iberians,  are 
all  more  or  less  characteristics  of  the  Spaniards  of  modern  times.  The  courtesy 
and  gallantry  of  the  Spaniard  to  women  has  also  come  down  to  him  from  his 
Iberian  ancestors :  in  the  eyes  of  the  Greeks  it  was  an  argument  of  an  imperfect 
civilization,  that  among  the  Iberians  the  bridegroom  gave,  instead  of  receiving,  a 
dowry ;  that  daughters  sometimes  inherited  to  the  exclusion  of  sons,  and,  thus 
becoming  the  heads  of  the  family,  gave  portions  to  their  brothers,  that  they  might 
be  provided  with  suitable  wives.33  In  another  point,  the  great  difference  between 
the  people  of  the  south  of  Europe,  and  those  of  the  Teutonic  stock,  was  remarked 
also  in  Iberia :  the  Iberians  were  ignorant,  but  not  simple-hearted  ;  on  the  con- 
trary, they  were  cunning  and  mischievous,  with  habits  of  robbery  almost  indom- 
itable, fond  of  brigandage,  though  incapable  of  the  great  combinations  of  war.3* 
These,  in  some  degree,  are  qualities  common  to  almost  all  barbarians  ;  but  they 
offer  a  strong  contrast  to  the  character  of  the  Germans,  whose  words  spoke  whai 
was  in  their  hearts,  and  of  whose  most  powerful  tribe  it  is  recorded,  that  their 
ascendency  was  maintained  by  no  other  arms  than  those  of  justice.35 

26  Sallust,  Jugurth.  c.  XVIII.  »  Livy,  XXI.  7,  See  Niebuhr,  vol.  i.  note  127. 

27  Quoted  by  Strabo,  XV.  1,  §  6,  p.  687,  and        w  III.  p.  164. 

by  Josephus,   Antiq.  X.  11,  §  1,  and  contr.  S1  Strabo,  III.  p.  155.     Polybius  in  Athenae- 

Apion.   I.   20.    Stnibo's  character  of  Megas-  us,  I.  28. 

thenes  is  not    favorable  :    t>ia$tp6vTu>s  dxiffreiv  M  Strabo,  III.  p.  145,  /j£Xav£///ov£?  uiravrtg. 

a$tov  A»?r//axw  re  rai  Mcya<r6ivet.     II.  1,  p.  70.  33  Strabo,  III.  p.  165.      34  Strabo,  III.  p.  154. 

ab  Sttabo,  III.  pp.  149,  150.  M  Tacitus,  German.  22,  85. 


CHAP.  XLVIL]  SPANISH  MINES.  593 

Spanish  soldiers  had  for  more  than  two  centuries  formed  one  of  the  most  efficient 
parti  of  the  Carthaginian  armies  ;36  and  on  this  account  the  Car-  Importanc<)  ?r  sPam  to 
thaginian  government  set  a  high  value  on  its  dominion  in  Spain.  the  Carthttgiuiau»- 
But  this  dominion  furnished  Carthage  with  money,  no  less  than  with  men.  The 
Spanish  mines  had  been  worked  for  some  centuries ;  first  by  the  Phoenicians  of 
Asia,  and  latterly  by  their  Carthaginian  descendants ;  yet  they  still  yielded 
abundantly.  And  some  of  them  have  been  worked  for  two  thousand  years  since 
the  Carthaginians  were  driven  out  of  the  country ;  and  to  this  hour  their  treas- 
ures are  unexhausted.37 

These  mines  existed  for  the  most  part  in  the  mountains  which  divide  tile- 
streams  running  to  the  Guadiana  from  those  which  feed  the  Gua- 
dalquiver.88  This  is  the  chain  so  well  known  by  the  name  of  the  J 
Sierra  Morena ;  but  the  several  arms  which  it  pushes  out  towards  the  sea  east- 
ward and  southward,  were  also  rich  in  precious  metals ;  and  some  mines  were 
worked  in  the  valley  of  the  Guadalquiver  itself,  as  low  down  as  Seville.  The 
streams,  moreover,  which  flowed  from  these  mountains,  brought  down  gold 
mingled  with  their  sand  and  gravel  ;39  and  this  was  probably  collected  long  be- 
fore the  working  of  the  regular  mines  began.  But  in  the  time  of  tLf  second 
Punic  war  the  mines  were  worked  actively;  and  a  hundred  years  eariler  the 
cinnabar,  or  sulphuret  of  quicksilver,  of  the  famous  mines  of  Almaden,  was  well 
known  in  the  markets  of  Greece.40  The  Carthaginians  honored  as  a  hero  or 
demi-god,  the  man  who  first  discovered  the  most  productive  silver  mines ;  and 
one  of  these  was  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  New  Carthage  itself.41  Others 
were  nearer  the  Guadalquiver,  at  Castulo  and  Ilipa ;  or  on  the  feeders  of  the 
Guadiana,  as  at  Sisapo,42  the  ancient  name  of  the  place  near  to  which  the  great 
quicksilver  mines  were  worked,  now  known  as  the  mines  of  Almaden.  One  large 
and  most  productive  silver  mine,  yielding  three  hundred  pounds  daily,  is  said  to 
have  been  opened  by  Hannibal  himself,43  who,  while  he  was  in  Spain,  had  mar- 
ried the  daughter  of  one  of  the  chiefs  of  Castulo,44  and  perhaps  had  acquired 
some  possessions  through  her  in  the  mining  district,  as  Thucydides  had  through 
his  wife  in  Thrace. 

The  immense  resources  which  the  Carthaginians  derived  from  their  Spanish 
dominion,  seemed  now  more  than  ever  secured  to  them,  by  the  de-  scipio>s  first  mewim* 
struction  of  the  Roman  army  under  the  two  Scipios,  and  the  con-  in  Spain- 
sequent  retreat  of  the  Romans  behind  the  Iberus.  But  the  divisions  between 
their  generals,  and  the  arrogance  with  which  their  officers  now  treated  the  Span- 
iards, as  if  it  was  no  longer  worth  while  to  conciliate  them,  had  made  a  fatal 
opening,  exposing  their  power  to  the  most  deadly  blow  which  it  had  yet  sus- 
tained. Scipio,  with  intuitive  sagacity,  observed  this  opening,  and  with  decision 
no  less  admirable  struck  his  blow  to  the  heart  of  his  enemy.  He  formed  his 
plans  at  Tarraco  during  tl:3  winter ;  as  soon  as  the  season  allowed  his  fleet  to  co- 
operate with  him,  he  put  it  and  his  army  in  motion ;  and  while  the  three  Car- 
thaginian generals  were  in  places  equally  remote  from  one  another,  and  from  the 
point  threatened  by  the  enemy,  Scipio  crossed  the  Iberus,  and  led  his  land  and 
sea  forces  to  besiege  New  Carthage.45 

His  early  and  most  intimate  friend,  C.  Lselius,  commanded  the  fleet ;  the  pro- 
Detor,  M.  Silanus,  was  left  behind  the  Iberus  with  3000  foot  and  A.  u.  c.  545>  A  c 
0  horse,  to  protect  the  country  of  the  allies  of  Rome,  while  JJ\nit  ^""cS 
ipio  himself  led  25,000  foot  and  2500  horse  on  his  expedition.  th"lge- 
'olybius  declares  that  the  march  from  the  Iberus  to  New  Carthage  was  per- 
rmed  in  seven  days;  but  as,  according  to  his  owa  reckoning,  the  distance  was 


»  Herodotus,  VII.  165.  41  Polybius,  X.  10,  11.    Strabo,  III.  p.  148. 

87  Strabo,  III.  146-148.  «  Polybius,  X.  38,  7.    Strabo,  111.  p.  142. 

38  Strabo,  ILL  p.  142.  «  Pliny,  XXXIII.  31. 

89  Strabo,  III.  p.  146.  «  Livy,  XXIV.  41. 

40  Strabo,  III.  p.  147.  «  Polybius,  X.  6-0.    Livy,  XXVI.  42. 
38 


594  HISTORY  OF  ROME  [CHAP.  XLVIX 

not  less  than  325  Roman  miles,  the  accuracy  of  one  or  both  of  his  statements 
may  well  be  questioned.46  Three  degrees  of  latitude  divide  Carthagena  from  the 
Ebro ;  and  the  ordinary  windings  and  difficulties  of  a  road  in  such  a  distance 
must  make  it  all  but  an  impossibility  that  an  army  with  its  baggage  should  have 
marched  over  it  in  a  single  week.  However,  the  march  was  undoubtedly  rapid  ; 
and  the  Roman  army  established  itself  under  the  walls  of  New  Carthage,  while 
all  succor  was  far  distant,  and  when  the  actual  garrison  of  a  place  so  important 
did  not  exceed  a  thousand  men.  To  the  protection  of  a  force  so  small  was  com- 
mitted the  capital  of  the  Carthaginian  dominion  in  Spain,  the  base  of  their  mili- 
tary operations,  their  point  of  communication  with  Africa,  their  treasures  and 
magazines,  and  the  hostages  taken  from  the  different  Spanish  tribes  to  secure 
their  doubted  fidelity.41 

The  present  town  of  Carthagena  stands  at  the  head  of  its  famous  harbor,  built 
ration  of  New  Car-  partly  on  some  hills  of  tolerable  height,  and  partly  on  the  low 
ground  beneath  them,  with  a  large  extent  of  marshy  ground  be- 
hind it,  which  is  flooded  after  rains,  and  its  inner  port  surrounded  by  the  build- 
ings of  the  arsenal,  running  deeply  into  the  land  on  its  western  side.  But  in  the 
times  of  the  second  Punic  war,  the  marshy  ground  behind  was  all  a  lagoon,  and 
its  waters  communicated  artificially  with  those  of  the  port  of  the  arsenal ;  so  that 
the  town  was  on  a  peninsula,  and  was  joined  to  the  main  land  only  by  a  narrow 
isthmus,  which  had  itself  been  cut  through  in  one  place,  to  allow  the  lagoon- 
water  to  find  an  outlet.48  Scipio  then  encamped  at  the  head  of  this  isthmus  ;  and 
having  fortified  himself  on  the  rear,  with  the  lagoon  covering  his  flank,  he  left  his 
front  open,  that  nothing  might  obstruct  the  free  advance  of  his  soldiers  to  storm 
the  city.49 

Accordingly,  without  delay,  he  was  preparing  to  lead  on  his  men  to  the  as- 
sault, when  he  was  himself  assailed  by  Mago,  who,  with  his  scanty 
garrison,  made  a  desperate  sally  along  the  isthmus  against  the 
Roman  camp.     After  an  obstinate  struggle,  the  besieged  were  beaten  back  into 
the  town  with  loss;  and  the  Romans,  following  them,  fixed  their  ladders  to  the 
walls,  and  began  to  mount.     But  the  height  of  the  walls  was  so  great,  that  the 
long  ladders  necessary  to  reach  their  summit  broke  in  some  instances  under  the 
weight  of  the  soldiers  who  crowded  on  them  :  and  the  enemy  made  their  defence 
so  good,  that  towards  afternoon  Scipio  found  it  expedient  to  recall  his  men  from 
the  assault.50 

He  had  told  his  men  before  the  assault  began,  that  the  god  Neptune  had  ap- 
peared u  him  in  his  sleep,  and  had  promised  to  give  him  aid  in 
the  hour  of  need,  so  manifest,  that  all  the  army  should  acknowl- 
edge his  interposition.51  For  the  lagoon,  it  seems,  was  so  shallow,  that  even  the 
slight  fall  of  the  tide  in  the  Mediterranean  was  sufficient  to  leave  much  of  it  un- 
covered, as  is  the  case  at  this  day  in  parts  of  the  harbor  of  Venice.  This  would 
take  place  in  the  afternoon,  and  Scipio  ordered  five  hundred  men  to  be  ready 
with  ladders,  to  march  across  the  lagoon  as  soon  as  the  ebb  began.  Then  he 
renewed  his  assault  by  the  isthmus ;  and  whilst  this  in  itself  discouraged  the  ene- 
my, who  had  hoped  that  their  work  for  the  day  was  over,  and  whilst  the  soldiers 
again  swarmed  up  the  ladders,  and  the  missiles  of  the  besieged  were  beginning  to 
fail,  the  five  hundred  men  who  were  in  readiness,  boldly  rushed  across  the  lagoon, 
and,  having  guides  to  show  them  the  hardest  parts  of  it,  reached  the  foot  of  the 
walls  in  safety,  applied  their  ladders  where  there  were  no  defenders,  and  mounted 
without  opposition.58 

No  sooner  had  they  won  the  walls,  than  they  hastened  to  the  main  gate  of  the 

«  Polybius,  X.  9,  7.    III.  39,  5.    XXVI.  42.  M  Polybius,  X.  12, 13.    Livy,  XXVI.  45. 

«  Polybius  X.  8.  "  Polybius,  X.  11.    Livy,  XXVI.  45. 

«  Polybius,  X.  10.    Livy,  XXVI.  42.  M  Polybius,  X.  14.    Livy,  XXVI.  46. 
w  Polybius,  X.  11. 


CIIAP.  XLVIL]  TAKING  OF  NEW  CARTHAGE. 

city,  towards  the  isthmus  ;  and  when  they  had  burst  it  open,  their  The  town  is  laken  ^ 
comrades  from  without  rushed  in  like  a  torrent.  At  the  same  Plunderei- 
moment  the  scaling  parties  on  each  side  of  the  main  gate  overbore  the  defenders, 
and  were  now  overflowing  the  ramparts.  Mago  reached  the  citadel  in  safety  ; 
but  Scipio  in  person  pushed  thither  with  a  thousand  picked  men  ;  and  the  gov- 
ernor, seeing  the  city  lost,  surrendered.  The  other  heights  in  the  town  were 
stormed  with  little  difficulty  ;  and  the  soldiers,  according  to  the  Roman  practice, 
commenced  a  deliberate  massacre  of  every  living  creature  they  could  find,  whether 
man  or  beast,  till,  after  the  citadel  had  surrendered,  a  signal  from  their  general 
called  them  off  from  slaughter,  and  turned  them  loose  upon  the  houses  of  the 
town  to  plunder.  Yet  it  marks  the  Roman  discipline,  that  even  before  night  fell, 
order  was  restored.  Some  of  the  soldiers  marched  back  to  the  camp,  from 
whence  the  light  troops  were  sent  for  to  occupy  one  of  the  principal  heights  of 
the  town  ;  Scipio  himself,  with  a  thousand  men,  went  to  the  citadel  ;  and  the 
tribunes  got  the  soldiers  out  of  the  houses,  and  made  them  bring  all  their  plun- 
der into  one  heap  in  the  market-place,  and  pass  the  night  there  quietly,  waiting 
for  the  regular  division  of  the  spoil,  which  was  to  take  place  on  the  following 
morning.53 

When  the  morning  came,  whilst  the  usual  distribution  of  the  money  arising 
from  the  sale  of  the  plunder  was  made  by  the  tribunes,  Scipio  pro-  Scipio,8  conduct  to  the 
ceeded  to  inspect  his  prisoners.  All  were  brought  before  him  P"8006™- 
together,  to  the  number  of  nearly  10,000.  He  first  caused  them  to  be  divided 
into  three  classes.  One  consisted  of  all  the  citizens  of  New  Carthage,  with  their 
wives  and  families  :  all  these  Scipio  set  at  liberty,  and  dismissed  them  to  their 
homes  unhurt.  The  second  class  contained  the  workmen  of  handicraft  trades, 
who  were  either  slaves,  or,  if  free,  only  sojourners  in  the  city,  enjoying  no  politi- 
cal rights.  These  men  were  told,  that  they  were  now  the  slaves  of  the  Roman 
people,  but  that,  if  they  worked  well  and  zealously  in  their  several  callings,  they 
should  have  their  liberty  at  the  end  of  the  war.  Meantime  they  were  all  to  enter 
their  names  with  the  qurestor  ;  and  a  Roman  citizen  was  set  over  every  thirty  of 
them  as  an  overseer.  These  workmen  were  in  all  about  two  thousand.  The 
third  class  contained  all  the  rest  of  the  prisoners,  domestic  slaves,  seamen,  fisher- 
men, and  the  mixed  populace  of  the  city  ;  and  from  these  Scipio  picked  out  the 
most  ablebodied,  and  employed  them  in  manning  his  fleet:  for  he  found  eighteen 
ships  of  the  enemy  at  New  Carthage  ;  and  these  he  was  able  to  add  to  his  own 
naval  force  immediately,  by  putting  some  of  his  own  seamen  into  them,  and  fill- 
ing up  their  places  with  some  of  the  captives,  taking  care,  however,  that  the 
number  of  these  should  never  exceed  a  third  of  the  whole  crew.  The  seamen 
thus  employed  were  promised  their  liberty  at  the  end  of  the  war,  like  the  work- 
men, if  they  did  their  duty  faithfully.54 

The  Carthaginian  prisoners  and  the  Spanish  hostages  were  still  to  be  attended 
to.  The  former  were  committed  to  the  care  of  Laelius,  to  be  taken  Hig  kind  t™tment  o< 
forthwith  to  Rome  ;  and  there  were  amongst  them  fifteen  mem-  the  si>aniih  h°«ag«»- 
bers  of  the  great  or  ordinary  council  of  Carthage,  and  two  members  of  the  coun- 
cil of  elders.  The  Spanish  hostages  were  more  than  three  hundred  ;  and  amongst 
them  were  many  young  boys.  To  show  kindness  to  these  was  an  obvious  policy  ; 
accordingly  Scipio  made  presents  to  them  all,  and  desired  them  to  write  home 
to  their  friends,  and  assure  them  that  they  were  well  and  honorably  treated,  and 
that  they  would  all  be  sent  back  safely  to  their  several  countries,  if  their  country- 
men were  willing  to  embrace  the  Roman  alliance.  Particular  attention  was  shown 
to  the  wife  of  a  Spanish  chief  of  high  rank,  who  had  been  recently  seized  as  a 

t^ostage  by  Hasdrubal  Gisco,  because  her  husband  had  refused  to  comply  with 
is  demands  for  money.  Her  treatment  had  been  rude  and  insolent,  if  not  worse  ; 
ut  Scipio  assured  her  that  he  would  take  as  delicate  care  of  her  and  of  the  othei 


Polybius,  X.  15.    Livy,  XXVI.  43.  M  Polybius,  X.  16,  17.    Livy,  XXVI.  47. 


596  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLVH 

Spanish  women,  as  ne  would  of  his  own  sisters  or  daughters.  This  honorable 
bearing  of  the  young  conqueror,  for  Scipio  was  not  more  than  twenty-seven 
years  of  age,  produced  a  deep  impression  all  over  Spain.55 

After  this  important  conquest,  Scipio  remained  for  a  time  at  New  Carthage, 
Magazines  taken  in  the  an(l  busied  himself  in  exercising  his  soldiers  and  seamen,  and  in 
setting  his  workmen  to  labor  in  manufacturing  arms.56  He  had 
taken  a  considerable  artillery  in  the  place,  a  large  sum  of  money,  abundant  maga- 
zines of  corn,  and  about  sixty-three  merchant-ships  in  the  harbor,  with  their  car- 
goes ;  so  that,  according  to  Livy,  the  least  valuable  part  of  the  conquest  of  New 
Carthage  was  New  Carthage  itself.57 

Laelius  with  his  prisoners  arrived  at  Rome  after  a  voyage  of  thirty-four  days, 
ixBiius  carries  them  n  an^  Brought  the  welcome  news  of  this  great  restoration  of  the  Ro- 
Rome13  con(lue8t  to  man  affairs  m  Spain.58  Amidst  the  confusions  of  the  chronology 
of  the  Spanish  war,  it  is  not  easy  to  ascertain  the  exact  time  at 
which  Lselius  reached  Rome.  But  it  is  probable  that  he  arrived  there  early  in 
the  year  545,  perhaps  at  that  critical  moment  when  the  disobedience  of  the 
twelve  colonies  excited  such  great  alarm,  and  when  the  destruction  of  the  army 
of  Cn.  Fulvius  at  Herdonea  was  still  fresh  in  men's  memories.  Scipio's  victory 
was  therefore  doubly  welcome  ;  and  his  requests  for  supplies  were  favorably  list- 
ened to  ;  for  his  army,  although  victorious,  was  still  in  want  of  many  things,  the 
old  soldiers  especially,  who  had  been  ill  clothed  and  worse  paid  during  several 
years.  Accordingly  we  find  that  a  sum  of  fourteen  hundred  pounds'  weight  of 
gold  was  brought  out  from  the  treasure  reserved  for  the  most  extraordinary  oc- 
casions, and  expended  in  purchasing  clothing  for  the  army  in  Spain.59 

Scipio  himself  returned  from  New  Carthage  to  Tarraco,  taking  his  Spanish 
The  rest  of  the  year  hostages  with  him.60  It  was  early  in  the  season  ;  but  we  hear  of 
pa81.es  in  inaction.  no  other  military  action  during  the  remainder  of  the  year.  This 
on  Scipio's  part  is  easily  intelligible  :  his  army  was  too  weak  to  hold  the  field 
against  the  combined  forces  of  the  enemy  ;  and  it  was  his  object  to  strengthen 
himself  by  alliances  with  the  natives,  and  to  draw  them  off  from  the  service  of 
Carthage,  if  he  could  not  induce  them  to  enter  that  of  Rome.  He  had  struck 
one  great  blow  with  vigor,  surprising  the  enemy  by  his  rapidity :  but  what  had 
been  won  by  vigor  might  be  lost  by  rashness  ;  and  after  so  great  an  action  as  the 
conquest  of  New  Carthage,  he  could  well  afford  to  lie  quiet  for  the  rest  of  the 
year,  waiting  for  his  supplies  of  clothing  from  Rome,  and  strengthening  his  in- 
terest amongst  the  chiefs  of  Spain.  The  inactivity  of  the  Carthaginian  generals 
would  be  more  surprising,  if  we  did  not  make  allowance  for  the  paralyzing  effect 
of  their  mutual  jealousies.  No  efficient  co-operation  could  be  contrived  between 
them ;  and  Hasdrubal,  Hannibal's  brother,  was  too  weak  to  act  alone,  and,  dis- 
gusted with  the  conduct  of  his  colleagues,  was  probably  anxious  to  husband  his 
own  army  carefully,  looking  forward  now  more  than  ever  to  the  execution  of  his 
long  projected  march  upon  Italy.  Thus  there  was  a  pause  from  all  active  oper- 
ations in  Spain  for  several  months  ;  whilst  in  Italy  Fabius  had  recovered  Taren- 
tum,  and  he  and  Fabius  were  on  the  point  of  being  succeeded  in  the  consulship 
by  Marcellus  and  Crispinus. 

The  loss  of  Tarentum  made  it  more  important  than  ever  that  Hasdrubal 
A.U.C.  516..  A.c.208.  should  join  his  brother  in  Italy  ;  while  the  growing  disposition  of 
iS8  fnfluen^r1^  tne  Spaniards  to  revolt  to  Rome  rendered  the  prospect  of  success 
•*~  in  Spain  less  encouraging.  But  with  no  Carthaginian  accounts  re- 

maining, and  amidst  the  confusions,  omissions,  and  contradictions  of  the  Roman 
historians,  it  is  almost  impossible  to  give  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  events 
of  the  ensuing  year,  546,  in  Spain.  Masinissa,  then  a  very  young  man,  the  son 

»  Polybius,  X.  18.    Livy,  XXVI.  47,  49.  M  Livy,  XXVII.  7. 

*  Polybius,  X.  20.  M  Livy,  XXVII.  10. 

11  XX'VI.  47.    Polybius,  X.  19.  "•  Livy,  XXVII.  17.    Polybius,  X.  84. 


CHAP.  XLVIL]  SECOND  CAMPAIGN.  597 

of  a  Numidian  king,  named  Gala,  was  sent  over  from  Africa  with  a  large  body 
of  Numidian  cavalry  to  reinforce  Hasdrubal,  the  son  of  Hamilcar,  principally,  it 
is  said,  in  order  to  his  march  into  Italy.61  Still  Hasdrubal  made  no  forward 
movement,  but  remained  in  a  very  strong  position  near  a  place  called  variously 
Boecula  or  Bebula,  situated  in  the  upper  valley  of  the  Guadalquiver,  near  the 
mining  district  ;  and  there  he  seemed  rather  disposed  to  await  Scipio's  attack, 
than  to  assume  the  offensive.62  He  saw  that  the  fidelity  of  the  Spaniards  to  Car- 
thage was  deeply  shaken,  not  only  by  the  loss  of  their  hostages,  but  by  the  en- 
couraging treatment  which  the  hostages  themselves  had  received  from  the  Ro- 
mans. This  feeling  had  been  working  ever  since  the  fall  of  New  Carthage  ;  and 
now  its  fruits  were  daily  becoming  more  manifest  ;  insomuch  that,  when  the  time 
at  which  Scipio  was  expected  to  take  the  field  drew  near,  Mandonius  and  Indi- 
bilis,  two  of  the  most  influential  of  the  Spanish  chiefs,  retired  with.  all  their  fol- 
lowers from  Hasdrubal's  camp,  and  established  themselves  in  a  strong  position, 
from  which  they  might  join  the  Romans,  as  soon  as  their  army  should  appear  in 
the  south.63  On  the  other  hand,  Scipio's  Roman  force  was  strengthened,  by  his 
having  laid  up  his  fleet,  and  draughted  the  best  of  his  seamen  into  the  legions, 
to  increase  the  number  of  his  soldiers.  And  although  a  combined  effort  of  the 
three  Carthaginian  generals  might  yet  have  recovered  New  Carthage,  or  at  any 
rate  kept  Scipio  behind  the  Iberus,  nothing  of  this  sort  was  attempted  ;  and 
Hasdrubal  Gisco,  jealous,  it  seems,  both  personally  and  politically  of  Hannibal's 
brother,  left  him  unaided  to  sustain  the  first  assault  of  the  enemy. 

Hasdrubal,  the  son  of  Hamilcar,  therefore,  under  these  circumstances,  was 
doubtless  anxious  to  carry  into  effect  his  expedition  into  Italy.  Ha*irubai  leave. 
Yet,  not  wishing  it  to  be  said  that  he  had  abandoned  his  colleagues,  Spain' 
he  resolved  first  to  try  his  strength  with  Scipio,  to  see  what  Spanish  tribes  would 
actually  join  him,  and  whether,  by  offering  battle  in  a  favorable  position,  he 
could  repulse  the  enemy,  and  thus  break  that  spell  of  Scipio's  fortune  which 
was  working  so  powerfully.  But  in  this  hope  he  was  disappointed.  Scipio  ad- 
vanced from  the  Iberus  to  the  valley  of  the  Bsetis,  or  Guadalquiver,  before  Has- 
drubal saw  any  thing  of  the  armies  of  his  colleagues  hastening  to  his  aid  :  many 
Spanish  tribes  joined  the  Roman  army  at  the  Iberus  ;  Mandonius  and  Indibilis 
hastened  to  it  as  soon  as  it  approached  the  place  where  they  were  posted  ;  and 
Hasdrubal,  unable  to  maintain  his  strong  position,  and,  if  we  believe  Scipio's 
statement,  seeing  it  in  the  act  of  being  carried  by  the  enemy  at  the  close  of  a 
successful  assault,  retreated  accordingly,  not  towards  the  southern  sea,  nor  to- 
wards the  western  ocean,  but  northwards  towards  the  Tagus,64  and  from  thence, 
as  we  have  seen,  towards  the  western  Pyrenees  ;  there  recruiting  his  army  from 
those  tribes  which  had  not  yet  come  under  the  influence  of  Rome,  and  preparing 
for  that  great  expedition  to  Italy,  of  which  we  have  already  related  the  progress 
and  the  event. 

Before  Hasdrubal  finally  retreated,  he  had  lost  many  prisoners.  All  those  who 
were  Spaniards,  were  sent  home  free  without  ransom  by  the  pol-  IncreaM  of  SciPio'.  in- 
itic  conqueror;  and  he  liberally  rewarded  those  Spanish  chiefs  fluence- 
who  had  already  come  over  to  his  side.  They,  on  their  part,  saluted  him  with 
the  title  of  king.  The  first  Hasdrubal,  the  founder  of  New  Carthage,  had  lived 
in  kingly  state  amongst  the  Spaniards  ;  and  they  probably  thought  that  Scipio 
meant  to  do  the  same,  and  would  pass  the  rest  of  his  life  in  their  country.  But 
the  name  of  king,  although  perhaps  not  ungrateful  to  Scipio's  ears,  was  intoler- 
able to  those  of  his  countrymen  ;  nor  would  he  have  been  contented  to  reign  in 
Spain  over  barbarians  :  his  mind  was  already  turned  towards  Africa,  and  antici- 

(J,ed  the  glory  of  conquering  Carthage.  So  he  repressed  the  homage  of  the 
inish  chiefs,  and  desired  them  to  call  him,  not  king,  but  general.  He  then 
i 


Livy,  XXIV.  49.     XXV.  34.  63  Polybius,  X.  35.    Livv,  XXVIT.  17. 

Polybius,  X.  38.     Livy,  XXVII.  18.    Ap-        M  Polybius,  X.  38,  39.    Livy,  XXVII.  17,  18, 
i.  VI.  24.  Appian,*VI.  25-28. 


598  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CnAr.  XLVI1 

took  possession  of  the  strong  position  which  Hasdrubal  had  evacuated  ;  and  there 
he  remained  during  the  rest  of  the  season,  watching,  so  it  is  said,  the  movements 
of  Hasdrubal  Gisco,  and  Mago,  who  were  now  come  upon  the  scene  of  action. 
On  the  approach  of  winter  he  again  returned  to  Tarraco.65 

Such  is  the  account  given  by  Polybius  of  the  events  of  the  war  in  Spain  dur- 
wacniuw  m  the  *<•-  ing  the  summer  of  the  year  545  ;  and  such,  no  doubt,  was  the 
cowuro,  campaign,  statement  given  by  Scipio  himself,  and  obtained  by  Polybius  from 
Scipio's  old  friend  and  companion,  C.  Laelius.  What  Silenus  said  of  these  events 
we  know  not;  and  it  is  possible  that  Hasdrubal's  account  of  them  was  never 
known,  owing  to  his  subsequent  fate,  so  that  Silenus  may  have  had  no  peculiar 
information  about  them,  and  may  have  passed  them  over  slightly.  It  is  evident 
that  Scipio's  pretended  victory  at  Bcecula  was  of  little  importance.  Hasdrubal 
carried  off  all  his  elephants,  all  his  treasure,  and  a  large  proportion  of  his  infantry : 
he  was  not  pursued ;  he  retreated  in  the  direction  which  best  suited  his  future 
movements ;  and  these  movements  he  effected  without  the  slightest  interruption 
from  the  enemy.  Scipio  did  not  follow  him,  says  Polybius,66  because  he  dreaded 
the  arrival  of  the  other  Hasdrubal  and  Mago :  he  remained  in  the  south,  therefore, 
to  keep  them  in  check,  and  to  prevent  them  from  attacking  New  Carthage ;  and 
not  doubting  that  Hasdrubal  would  follow  his  brother's  route,  and  attempt  to 
enter  Gaul  by  the  eastern  Pyrenees,  he  detached  some  troops  from  his  army  to 
secure  the  passes  of  the  mountains,  and  other  defensible  positions  between  the 
Iberus  and  the  frontiers  of  Gaul.67  It  is  probable  that  his  notions  of  the  geogra- 
phy of  the  western  parts  of  Spain  and  Gaul  were  so  vague,  that  he  had  no  con- 
ception of  the  possibility  of  Hasdrubal's  marching  towards  the  Alps  without  com- 
ing near  the  Mediterranean.  The  line  which  he  actually  took  from  the  western 
Pyrenees  to  the  upper  part  of  the  course  of  the  Rhone,  through  the  interior  of 
Gaul,  was  one  of  which  Scipio,  in  all  probability,  did  not  even  suspect  the  existence. 

It  may  be  asked  why  Hasdrubal,  whose  great  object  was  to  reach  Italy,  did 
Reasons  for  Haedru-  not  commence  his  march  at  the  beginning  of  the  year,  without 
waiting  so  long  at  Baecula ;  especially  after  the  desertion  of  Man- 
donius  and  Indibilis  had  taught  him  that  the  Spaniards  were  no  longer  to  be  re- 
lied on.  But  he  had  himself  on  a  former  occasion  won  over  the  Celtiberians  from 
the  army  of  Scipio's  father ;  and  any  reverse  sustained  by  the  Romans  might 
tempt  the  Spanish  chiefs  to  return  to  their  old  alliance.  It  is  possible  also  that 
he  waited  so  long  at  Btecula  for  another  reason,  because  he  wished  to  carry  with 
him  as  large  a  sum  of  money  as  possible ;  and  he  was  daily  drawing  a  supply 
from  the  abundant  silver  mines  in  the  neighborhood.  The  success  of  his  expedi- 
tion depended  on  his  being  able  to  raise  soldiers  amongst  the  Cisalpine  Gauls,  as 
well  as  amongst  the  tribes  of  northwestern  Spain ;  and  for  both  these  purposes 
ready  money  was  most  desirable. 

A  more  inexplicable  point  in  the  story  of  these  transactions  is  the  alleged  dis- 
jeaiousies  of  the  Car-  cord-  between  Hasdrubal  and  the  other  Carthaginian  generals ; 
thaginian  generals.  when  one  of  them,  Mago,  was  his  own  brother,  and  was  not  only 
a  soldier  of  tried  ability,  but  is  expressly  said  to  have  conducted  the  war  in  Spain 
in  accordance  with  Hannibal's  directions,  after  Hasdrubal  had  marched  into  Italy.6* 
Whether  Mago  was  placed  under  Hasdrubal  Gisco's  orders,  and  could  not  act 
independently,  or  whether  jealousy,  or  any  other  cause,  really  made  him  careless 
of  his  brother's  success  and  safety,  we  cannot  pretend  to  determine :  the  interior 
of  a  Carthaginian  camp,  and  still  more  the  real  characters  and  feelings  of  the 
Carthaginian  generals,  are  entirely  unknown  to  us. 

The  one  great  advantage  possessed  by  Scipio,  far  more  important  than  his 
c  of  Sci  io  Pretende^  victory  at  Bsecula,  was  the  remarkable  ascendency  which 
c°ds  ofThe  he  had  obtained  over  the  minds  of  the  Spaniards.  Every  thing 
in  him  was  at  once  attractive  and  imposing ;  his  youth,  and  the 

M  Polybius,  XXXVIII.  40.  Livy,  XXVII.  19.  "  Polybius,  X.  40. 

«  X.  89.  "  Polybius,  IX.  22. 


CHAP.  XLVII]  HASDRUBAL  MARCHES  INTO  ITALY.  599 

mingled  beauty  and  majesty  of  his  aspect ;  his  humanity  and  courtesy  to  the 
Spanish  hostages  and  to  their  friends ;  his  energy  and  ability  at  the  head  of  his 
army.  Above  all,  there  was  manifest  in  him  that  consciousness  of  greatness, 
and  that  spirit,  at  once  ardent,  lofty,  and  profound,  which  naturally  bows  the 
hearts  and  minds  of  ordinary  men,  not  to  obedience  only  and  respect,  but  to  ad- 
miration, and  almost  to  worship.  The  Carthaginian  generals  felt,  it  is  said,  thaf 
no  Spanish  troops  could  be  trusted,  if  brought  within  the  sphere  of  his  influence , 
Mago  must  go  over  to  the  Balerian  islands,  and  raise  soldiers  there,  who  might 
be  strangers  to  the  name  of  Scipio ;  while  Masinissa  should  follow  the  course 
pursued  by  Mutines  in  Sicily,  and  scour  the  whole  country  with  his  Numidian 
cavalry,  relieving  the  allies  of  Carthage,  and  harassing  the  states  which  had  re- 
volted.69 But  Masinissa  himself  was  not  secure  from  Scipio's  ascendency :  his 
nephew  had  been  made  prisoner  at  Bsecula,  and  had  been  sent  back  to  him  with- 
out  ransom  :70  some  conciliatory  messages  were  probably  addrc  ssed  to  him  at 
the  same  time,  and  Scipio  never  lost  sight  of  him,  till  two  years  afterwards  he 
gratified  the  Numidian's  earnest  wish  for  a  personal  interview,  and  then  attached 
him  forever  to  the  interests  of  Rome.71 

Meanwhile  that  memorable  year  was  come,  when  the  fortune  of  Rome  7?  as  ex- 
posed to  its  severest  trial,  and  rose  in  the  issue  signally  triumphant. 

i-r    •     i         i-  i    r>    •     •     >  11  •     -1  ,    i      •      ^  f  .1          A.U.C.547.     Haadru- 

Vainly  did  Scipio  s  guards  keep  vigilant  watch  in  the  passes  or  the  bai  evades  Ke.pio,  and 

'       _,  i      -i  •  ,      /•          .1         /»       .        •  /r    TT        1        1      l»       marches  into  Italy. 

eastern  Pyrenees,  looking  out  for  the  first  signs  of  Hasdrubal  s 
approach,  and  hoping  to  win  the  glory  of  driving  him  back  defeated,  and  of 
marring  his  long-planned  expedition  to  Italy.  They  sat  on  their  mountain  posts, 
looking  earnestly  southwards,  while  he  for  whom  they  waited  was  passing  far 
on  their  rear  northwards,  winning  his  way  through  the  deep  valleys  of  the  chain 
of  Cebenna,  or  the  high  and  bleak  plains  of  the  Arverni,  till  he  should  descend 
upon  the  Rhone,  where  it  was  as  yet  unknown  to  the  Massaliot  traders,  flowing 
far  inland  in  the  heart  of  Gaul.  Hasdrubal  had  accomplished  his  purpose  :  his 
Spanish  soldiers  were  removed  out  of  the  reach  of  Scipio's  ascendency ;  the  accu- 
mulated treasures  of  his  Spanish  mines  had  purchased  the  aid  of  a  numerous 
band  of  Gauls  ;  and  the  Alps  had  seemed  to  smooth  their  rugged  fastnesses  to  give 
him  an  easy  passage.  All  the  strength  which  Rome  could  gather  was  needed 
for  the  coming  struggle ;  and  Scipio,  as  we  have  seen,  sent  a  large  detachment 
from  his  own  army,  both  of  Roman  soldiers  and  of  Spaniards,  to  be  conveyed  by 
sea  from  Tarraco  to  Etruria,  and  to  assist  in  conquering  the  enemy  in  Italy,  whose 
march  he  had  been  unable  to  stop  in  Spain. 

Thus,  with  Hasdrubal's  army  taken  away  from  the  Carthaginian  force  in  Spain, 
and  with  the  Roman  army  weakened  by  its  contributions  to  the  A.  u.  c.  547>  A  a 
defence  of  Italy,  the  Spanish  war  was  carried  on  but  feebly  dur-  SJllrtnffSj'SJ 
ing  the  summer  of  the  year  547.  A  new  general  of  the  name  of  decisiveevents- 
Hanno  had  been  sent  over  to  take  Hasdrubal's  place  ;  and  he  and  Mago  proceeded 
to  raise  soldiers  amongst  the  Celtiberians  in  the  interior,72  while  Hasdrubal  Gisco 
was  holding  Bsetica,  and  while  Scipio  was  still  in  his  winter-quarters  at  Tarraco, 
But  some  Celliberian  deserters  informed  Scipio  of  the  danger ;  and  he  sent  M 
Silenus  with  a  division  of  his  army  to  put  it  down.  A  march  of  extreme  rapidity 
enabled  him  to  surprise  tV.e  enemy ;  the  best  of  Hanno's  new  levies  were  cut  to 
pieces,  the  rest  dispersed.  Hanno  himself  was  made  prisoner ;  but  Mago  carried 
off  his  cavalry  and  his  old  infantry  without  loss,  and  joined  Hasdrubal  Gisco  safely 
in  BtBtica.73  The  formation  of  a  Carthaginian  army  in  the  centre  of  Spain  was 
thus  effectually  prevented  ;  and  Scipio,  encouraged  by  this  success,  ventured  to 
resume  the  offensive,  and  to  advance  in  pursuit  of  Hasdrubal  Gisco  into  the 
south.  Hasdrubal,  instead  of  risking  a  general  action,  broke  up  his  army  into 
small  detachments,  with  which  he  garrisoned  the  more  important  towns.  Scipio 

»  Livy,  XXVII.  20.  "  Livy,  XXVIII.  1. 

M  Livy,  XXVII.  19.  "  Livy,  XXVIII.    Appian,  VI.  31. 

"  Livy  XXVIII.  35. 


fiOO  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XL VII 

shrank  from  the  tedious  and  difficult  service  of  a  series  of  sieges,  in  a  country  at  a 
distance  from  his  resources,  and  where  Mago  and  Masinissa  with  their  cavalry 
would  be  sure  to  obstruct,  if  not  destroy,  all  his  communications.  But  to  avoid 
the  discredit  of  retreating  without  having  done  any  thing,  he  singled  out  one  of 
the  wealthiest  and  strongest  of  the  towns  thus  garrisoned  against  him,  by  name 
Oringis,  and  sent  his  brother,  L.  Scipio,  with  a  large  division  of  his  army  to  attack 
it.  It  was  stormed  after  an  obstinate  resistance ;  and  the  conqueror,  true  to  his 
brother's  policy,  after  carrying  off  his  Carthaginian  prisoners  in  the  garrison, 
restored  the  town  unplundered  to  its  Spanish  inhabitants.74  Thus  much  having 
been  achieved  for  the  honor  of  the  Roman  arms,  Scipio  carried  back  his  whole 
army  behind  the  Iberus,  sent  off  L.  Scipio  to  Rome,  with  Hanno  and  his  other  pris- 
oners of  distinction,  and  himself  went  into  winter-quarters  as  usual  at  Tarraco.115 

But  before  the  end  of  the  season  he  must  have  received  intelligence  of  the 
A.  u.  c.  648.  A.  c.  battle  of  the  Metaurus.  The  troops  which  he  had  sent  to  Italy 
^iou4SZ°«  deCS  were  probably,  in  part  at  least,  sent  back  to  him ;  rxnd  every  mo- 
tive combined  to  make  him  desirous  of  marking  the  next  campaign 
by  some  decisive  action.  Nero,  whom  he  had  succeeded  in  Spain,  had  won 
the  greatest  glory  by  his  victory  over  Hasdrubal :  it  became  Scipio  to  show  that 
he  too  could  serve  his  country  no  less  effectively. 

The  Carthaginian  general,  whether  he  had  been  reinforced  from  Africa,  or 
strength  and  position  whether  he  had  used  extraordinary  vigor  in  his  levies  of  sol- 
•<  the  two  a™**  diers  in  western  Spain,  took  the  field  early  in  the  spring  of  the 
year  548,  with  an  army  greatly  superior  to  that  of  his  enemy.  If  Polybius,  or 
rather  Scipio  may  be  trusted,  he  had  70,000  foot,  4000  horse,  and  thirty-two 
elephants ;  while  the  Roman  army,  with  all  the  aids  which  Scipio  could  gather 
from  the  Spanish  chiefs  in  the  Roman  alliance,  did  not  exceed  45,000  foot,  and 
3000  horse.76  Hasdrubal  took  up  a  position  in  the  midst  of  the  mining  district, 
near  a  town  which  is  variously  called  Elinga  and  Silpia  ;77  but  neither  its  real 
name  nor  its  exact  situation  can  be  determined.  His  camp  lay  on  the  last  hills 
of  the  mountain  country,  with  a  wide  extent  of  open  plain  in  front  of  it.  He 
wished  to  fight,  and  if  possible  on  this  ground,  favorable  at  once  to  his  superior 
numbers,  and  to  his  elephants. 

Scipio,  no  less  anxious  to  bring  on  a  general  battle,  marched  straight  towards 
pe  aratio » for  battle  *^e  enemy-  But  when  he  saw  their  numbers,  he  was  uneasy  lest 
the  faith  of  his  Spanish  allies  should  fail,  as  it  had  towards  his 
father  ;  he  dared  not  lay  much  stress  on  them  ;  yet  without  them  his  numbers 
were  too  weak  for  him  to  risk  a  battle.  His  object  therefore  was  to  use  his 
Spaniards  for  show,  to  impose  upon  the  enemy,  while  he  won  the  battle  with  his 
Roraans.  And  thus,  when  the  day  came  on  which  he  proposed  to  fight,  he 
suddenly  changed  his  dispositions.  For  some  days  previously,  both  armies  had 
been  drawn  up  in  order  of  battle  before  their  camps ;  and  their  cavalry  and  light 
troops  had  skirmished  in  the  interval  between.  All  this  time  the  Roman  troops 
had  formed  the  centre  of  Scipio's  line,  opposite  to  Hasdrubal's  Africans,  while 
ihe  Spanish  auxiliaries  in  both  armies  were  on  the  wings.  But  on  the  day  of  the 
decisive  battle,  the  Spaniards  formed  the  centre  of  Scipio's  army,  while  his  Roman 
and  Italian  soldiers  were  on  the  right  and  left.  The  men  had  eaten  their  break- 
fast before  day  ;  and  the  cavalry  and  light  troops  pushed  forward  close  under  the 
camp  of  the  enemy,  as  if  challenging  him  to  come  out  and  meet  them.  Behind 
this  cloud  of  skirmishes,  the  infantry  were  fast  forming,  and  advancing  to  the 
middle  of  the  plain ;  and  when  the  sun  rose,  it  shone  upon  the  Roman  line  with 
its  order  completed ;  the  Spaniards  in  the  centre,  the  Romans  and  Italians  on 
the  right  and  left ;  the  left  commanded  by  M.  Silanus  and  L.  Marcius,  Scipio  in 
Derson  leading  his  right.78 

M  Livy,  XXVIII.  3.  bius,  has  been  altered  into  Ilipa,  on  the  au- 

*  Livy,  XXVIII.  4.  thority  of  Strabo  ;  in  the  text  ol'Livy  the  namo 

*  Polybius,  XL.  20.     Livy,  XXVIII.  12.          stands  Silpia. 

Elinga  in  the  MS.  and  old  text  of  Poly-        78  Polybius,  XL.  22.      Livy,  XXVIII.  14. 


CHAP.  XLVII]  CAMPAIGN  OF  548.  601 

The  assault  of  the  Roman  cavalry  and  light  troops  called  out  Hasdrubal'a 
array;  the  Carthaginians  poured  forth  from  their  camp  without  Thea 
waiting  to  eat,  just  as  the  Romans  had  done  at  the  Trebia ;  their 
cavalry  and  light  troops  engaged  the  enemy;  while  their  infantry  formed  in  its 
usual  order,  with  the  Spanish  auxiliaries  on  the  wings,  and  the  Africans  in  the 
centre.     In  this  state  the  infantry  on  both  sides  remained  for  a  time  motionless ; 
but  when  the  day  was  advanced,  Scipio  called  off  his  skirmishers,  sent  them  to 
the  rear,  through  the  intervals  of  his  maniples,  and  formed  them  behind  his  in- 
fantry on  both  wings  ;  the  light  infantry  immediately  behind  the  regular  infantry, 
and  the  cavalry  covering  all. 

For  a  few  moments  the  Roman  line  seemed  advancing  evenly  to  meet  the  line 
of  the  enemy.  But  suddenly  the  troops  on  the  right  wing  began  scipiogamaacompieto 
to  wheel  round  to  the  left,  and  those  on  the  left  wing  wheeled  to  victory- 
the  right,  changing  their  lines  into  columns  ;  while  the  cavalry  moved  round  from 
the  rear,  and  took  up  its  position  on  the  outside  of  the  columns  ;  and  both  infan- 
try and  cavalry  now  advanced  with  the  utmost  fury  against  the  enemy.  Thus 
the  centre  of  the  Roman  army  was  held  back  by  the  rapid  advance  of  its  wings  ; 
and  the  Africans  in  Hasdrubal's  centre  were  standing  idle,  doing  nothing,  whilst 
the  battle  was  raging  on  their  right  and  left,  and  y*  t  not  venturing  to  move  from 
their  position  to  support  their  wings,  because  of  the  enemy  in  their  front,  who 
threatened  every  moment  to  attack,  yet  still  advanced  as  slowly  as  possible  to  give 
time  for  the  attacks  on  the  two  wings  to  complete  their  work.  And  this  work 
was  not  long  ;  Roman  and  Italian  veterans  were  opposed  to  newly  raised  Span- 
iards ;  men  well  fed  to  men  exhausted  by  their  long  fast ;  men  perfect  in  all  their 
movements,  and  handled  by  their  general  with  masterly  skill,  to  barbarians  con- 
fused by  evolutions  which  neither  they  nor  their  officers  could  deal  with.  As 
usual,  the  elephants  did  as  much  mischief  to  friends  as  to  foes  ;  and  the  Cartha- 
ginian wings,  broken  and  slaughtered,  began  to  fly.  Then  the  Africans  in  the 
centre  commenced  their  retreat  also ;  slowly  at  first,  as  men  who  had  not  them- 
selves been  beaten ;  but  the  flight  of  their  allies  infected  them ;  and  the  Romans 
pressed  them  so  hardly,  that  they  too  rushed  towards  their  camp  with  more 
haste  than  order.79  The  battle  was  won  ;  and  Scipio  said  that  the  camp  would 
have  been  won  also,  had  not  a  violent  storm  suddenly  burst  on  the  field  of  battle, 
and  the  rain  fallen  in  such  a  deluge,  that  the  Romans  could  not  stand  against  it, 
but  were  obliged  to  seek  the  shelter  of  their  own  camp.  Their  work,  however, 
was  done ;  not  least  probably  by  the  effect  which  the  battle  would  have  on  the 
minds  of  the  Spaniards.  In  the  Carthaginian  army,  their  countrymen  had  been 
exposed  to  defeat  and  slaughter,  while  the  Africans  looked  on  tamely,  and  moved 
neither  hand  nor  foot  to  aid  them ;  on  the  other  hand,  the  Spaniards  in  Scipio's 
army  had  obtained  a  victory,  with  no  loss  to  themselves ;  it  had  been  purchased 
altogether  by  the  blood  of  the  Romans. 

Accordingly,  the  Carthaginian  generals  found  that  the  contest  in  Spain  was 
virtually  ended.    The  Spanish   soldiers  in  their  army  went  over  in 

1  i       j-  ,1  ii         rt  •    i  -II-  Destruction  of  the  Car. 

large  bodies  to  the  enemy ;  the  opanish  towns  opened  their  gates  thagimau  dominion  u 
to  the  Romans,  and  put  the  Carthaginian  garrisons  into  their  hands. 
Hasdrubal  and  Mago,  closely  followed  by  the  enemy,  retreated  by  the  right 
bank  of  the  Baetis  to  the  shores  of  the  ocean,  and  effected  their  escape  by  sea  to 
Gades.  Masinissa  left  them,  and  went  home  to  Africa,  not,  it  is  said,  without 
having  a  secret  interview  with  M.  Silanus,  and  settling  the  conditions  and  man- 
ner of  its  defection.  Scipio  himself  returned  by  slow  marches  to  Tarraco,  inquir- 
ing by  the  way  into  the  merits  or  demerits  of  the  various  native  chiefs,  who  came 
crowding  around  him  to  plead  their  services,  and  to  propitiate  the  favor  of  the 
new  conqueror  of  Spain.  Silanus,  whom  he  had  left  behind  in  the  south,  to  wit- 
ness the  final  dispersion  of  the  army  of  Hasdrubal,  soon  after  rejoined  him  at 

"  Polybius,  XI.  23,  24.    Livy,  XXVIII.  15,  16. 


602  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLVI1 

Tarraco,  and  reported  to  him  that  the  war  was  over,  that  no  enemy  was  to  be 
found  in  the  field,  from  the  Pyrenees  to  the  Pillars  of  Hercules.80  Scipio  there- 
fore sent  off  his  brother  to  Rome,  to  announce  the  completion  of  his  work. 

His  own  mind  was  already  turned  to  another  field  of  action  :  the  expulsion  oi 
the  Carthaginians  from  Spain  seemed  to  him  only  to  be  valued  as 

Scipio  crosses  to  Africa,  •     1   A  l  1        1   •          1.1  •  i  •  AC-  TT 

»nd  negotiates  with  sy-  it  might  enable  him  the  easier  to  carry  the  war  into  Africa.  He 
had  already  won  the  support  of  Masinissa:  but  he  desired  to  se- 
cure a  more  powerful  ally ;  and  accordingly  he  sent  Lselius  over  to  Africa,  to 
sound  the  dispositions  of  the  Mascesylian  king,  Syphax,  the  most  powerful  of  all 
the  African  princes,  and  who,  although  at  present  in  alliance  with  the  Carthagini- 
ans, had  been,  not  many  years  since,  their  enemy.  Syphax  told  Laslius  that  he 
would  negotiate  only  with  the  Roman  general  in  person ;  and  Scipio,  relying  on 
his  own  personal  ascendency,  and  affecting  in  all  things  what  was  extraordinary, 
did  not  hesitate  to  leave  his  province,  and  to  cross  over  from  New  Carthage  to 
Africa,  with  only  two  quinqueremes,  in  order  to  visit  the  Massesylian  king.  No 
less  fortunate  than  Napoleon,  when  returning  from  Egypt  to  France  in  his  soli- 
tary frigate,  Scipio  crossed  the  sea  without  accident,  and  entered  the  king's  port 
in  safety,  with  the  wind  so  brisk  and  fair  as  to  carry  him  into  the  harbor  in  a 
straight  course,  in  a  very  short  time  after  his  ships  had  first  been  seen  from  the 
shore.81  In  the  harbor,  by  the  strangest  of  chances,  were  seven  ships  of  the 
Carthaginians,  which  had  just  brought  Hasdrubal  from  Spain  with  the  very  same 
object  as  Scipio,  to  secure  the  alliance  of  king  Syphax ;  it  having  been  known, 
probably,  that  a  Roman  officer  had  lately  visited  his  court,  with  purposes  which 
could  not  be  doubtful.  Hasdrubal  and  Scipio  met  under  the  roof  of  Syphax ; 
and  by  his  special  request,  they  were  present  at  the  same  entertainment.82  Lae- 
lius,  who  had  accompanied  his  friend  to  Africa,  magnified  the  charms  of  his  ad- 
dress and  conversation,  according  to  his  usual  practice,  and  told  Polybius,  many 
years  afterwards,  that  Hasdrubal  had  expressed  to  Syphax  his  great  admiration 
of  Scipio's  genius,  which,  he  said,  appeared  to  him  more  dangerous  in  peace  than 
ni  war.83  Leelius  further  declared  that  Syphax  was  so  overcome  by  Scipio's  in- 
fluence, as  to  conclude  a  treaty  of  alliance  with  him,84  which  treaty,  however,  we 
may  be  very  sure,  was  not  one  of  those  which  Polybius  found  preserved  in  the 
capitol.  It  is  very  possible  that  Syphax  amused  Scipio  with  fair  promises  ;  but 
in  reality  Hasdrubal  negotiated  more  successfully  than  his  Roman  rival ;  and  the 
beauty  of  his  daughter,  Sophonisba,  was  more  powerful  over  the  mind  of 
Syphax,  than  all  the  fascinations  of  Scipio's  eloquence  and  manners.85  Scipio, 
however,  was  satisfied  with  the  success  of  his  mission,  and  returned  again  to 
New  Carthage. 

It  is  manifest  that,  when  Scipio  and  Silanus  returned  from  the  south  of  Spain 
insurrection  of  the  Span-  to  Tarraco,  after  the  dispersion  of  the  Carthaginian  army,  they  im- 
agined that  their  work  was  done ;  and  they  cannot  have  expected 
to  be  called  out  again  to  active  operations  in  the  same  year.  But,  after  Scipio's 
return  from  his  voyage  to  Africa,  we  find  him  again  taking  the  field  in  the  south  : 
we  find  a  general  revolt  of  the  Spanish  chiefs,  who  had  so  lately  joined  him  ;  and 
what  is  most  startling,  we  find  his  own  Roman  army  breaking  out  into  an  alarm- 
ing mutiny.  Livy's  explanation  is,  simply,  that  the  present  appeared  a  favorable 
opportunity  to  punish  those  Spanish  towns  which  had  made  themselves  most 
obnoxious  to  Rome  in  the  course  of  the  war,  and  on  which  it  would  not  have  been 
expedient  to  take  vengeance  earlier.86  But  surely,  if  any  such  intention  had  been 
entertained  a  few  weeks  sooner,  the  Roman  army  would  never  have  been  march- 
ed back  behind  the  Iberus,  but  would  have  proceeded  at  once  to  attack  the  ob- 
noxious towns,  as  soon  as  Hasdrubal  and  Mago  had  retired  to  Gades,  and  the 

*  Livy,  XXVIII.  16.  •*  Livy,  XXVIII.  18. 

«  Livy,  XXVIII.  17.  *  Livy,  XXIX.  23. 

82  Livy,  XXVIII.  18.  M  Livy,  XXVIII.  19. 

83  XI.  Fragm.  Mai.  Livv,  XXVIII.  18. 


CUAP.  XL VII.]  SIEGE  OF  ILLITURGL  603 

Carthaginian  army  was  broken  up.  Either  the  Spaniards  must  have  given  some 
new  provocation,  which  called  Scipio  again  into  the  field  ;  or  some  new  motive 
must  have  influenced  him,  which  hitherto  he  had  not  felt,  and,  outweighing  all 
other  considerations,  forced  him  to  retrace  his  steps  to  the  south. 

Either  of  these  causes  is  sufficiently  probable.     Mago  had  by  this  time  received 
instructions  from  Hannibal ;  and  acting  under  such  direction,  he  „ 

,          t          rt        •  T-»  •   i  i  Probable  caugeg  of  it. 

was  not  likely  to  abandon  Spam  to  the  Romans  without  another 
struggle.  We  read  of  a  Carthaginian  garrison  in  Castulo,  which  is  said  to  have 
fled  thither  after  the  dispersion  of  Hasdrubal's  army  ;87  but  it  may  also  have  been 
sent  thither  by  Mago  from  Gades,  to  assist  in  organizing  a  new  rising  against,  the 
Romans.  The  mines  were  still  in  his  hands ;  and  he  probably  employed  their 
treasures  liberally.  Nor  were  causes  wanting  to  rouse  the  Spaniards,  without 
any  foreign  instigation.  If  they  had  admired  Scipio,  they  had  since  found  that 
his  virtues  did  not  restrain  the  license  of  his  army ;  the  Roman  soldiers  had 
fleshed  themselves  with  the  plunder  of  Spain,  and  were  likely  to  return  after  a 
moment's  respite,  and  fall  again  upon  their  prey.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Roman 
army,  like  the  Spaniards  afterwards  in  America,  may  have  been  so  eager  to 
prosecute  their  conquest,  and  to  win  more  of  the  wealth  of  Spain,  that  their 
general  found  it  impossible  not  to  gratify  them  ;  or  they  may  have  she  wn  symp- 
toms of  license  and  turbulence,  which  made  it  desirable  to  keep  them  actively 
employed,  that  they  might  not  have  leisure  to  contrive  mischief:  whatever  was 
the  cause,  the  Roman  army  again  marched  into  the  south  of  Spain.  L.  Marcius 
was  ordered  to  attack  Castulo  ;  Scipio  himself  laid  siege  to  Illiturgi. 

Illiturgi  stood  on  the  north,  or  right  bank  of  the  Bsetis,  near  to  the  site  of  the 
present  town  of  Andujar,  and  not  far  therefore  from  Baylen,  and  Sj,ufttion  ftnd  8tate  0< 
from  the  scene  of  the  almost  solitary  triumph  of  the  Spanish  arms  imtur«i* 
in  the  war  with  Napoleon.  Its  people  had  been  allies  of  the  Carthaginians,  and 
had  revolted  to  Rome,  when  the  two  Scipios  first  advanced  into  the  south  of 
Spain  ;88  but  after  their  defeat  and  death,  Illiturgi  had  gone  back  to  the  alliance 
of  Carthage  ;  and  the  Roman  fugitives  from  the  rout  of  the  two  Scipios,  who 
escaped  to  Illiturgi,  were  either  cut  off  by  the  inhabitants,  or  given  up  by  them 
to  the  Carthaginians.  Such  was  the  Roman  account  of  the  matter ;  and  Castulo 
was  charged  with  a  similar  defection  after  the  defeat  of  the  Scipios,  a  defection 
however  not  aggravated,  as  at  Illiturgi,  by  any  particular  acts  of  hostility.89 

Vengeance  was  now  to  be  taken  for  this  alleged  treason.  Without  any  terms 
of  peace  offered  or  solicited  on  either  side,  the  Romans  prepared  Its  capture ftnd de8truo. 
to  attack  Illiturgi,  and  the  Spaniards  with  all  their  national  ob-  tion- 
stinacy  to  defend  it.  They  fought  so  stoutly,  that  the  Romans  were  more  than 
once  repulsed  ;  and  Scipio  was  at  last  obliged  to  offer  to  lead  the  assault  in  per- 
son, and  was  preparing  to  mount  the  first  ladder,  when  a  general  shout  of  his 
soldiers  called  upon  him  to  forbear :  with  an  overwhelming  rush  of  numbers  they 
crowded  up  the  ladders  in  many  places  at  once,  and  drove  the  defenders  by 
main  force  from  the  ramparts.  At  the  same  moment,  Laelius  scaled  the  walls 
on  the  opposite  side  of  the  city ;  and  some  African  deserters,  who  were  now  in 
the  Roman  service,  men  trained  to  all  feats  of  daring  activity,  climbed  up  the 
almost  precipitous  cliff  on  which  the  citadel  was  built,  and  surprised  it  without 
iesistance.90  Then  followed  a  horrible  massacre,  in  which  neither  age  nor  sex 
was  spared  ;  and  when  the  sword  had  done  its  work  upon  the  people,  fire  was 
let  loose  upon  the  buildings  of  the  city,  and  Illiturgi  was  totally  destroyed. 

Scipio  then  marched  to  Castulo  to  support  L.  Marcius,  who  had  been  able,  it 
seems,  to  make  no  impression  with  the  force  under  his  separate 
command.     But  Scipio's  arrival,  fresh  from  the  storming  of  Illi- 
turgi, struck  terror  into  the  besieged ;  and  the  Spaniards  hoped  to  make  their 

*  Livy,  XXVIII.  20.  "  Livy,  XXVIII.  19. 

•  Livy,  XXIII.  49.  M  Livy,  XXVIII.  19,  20. 


604  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CHAP.  XLVI1. 

peace  by  surrendering,  not  their  town  only,  but  a  Carthaginian  garrison,  which 
was  engaged  jointly  with  them  in  its  defence.  The  Romans  treated  Castulo,  says 
Livy,  more  mildly  than  they  had  treated  Illiturgi ;  which  seems  to  imply  that 
even  at  Castulo  blood  was  shed  after  the  town  was  taken,  though  it  did  not 
amount  to  an  indiscriminate  massacre.91 

After  the  second  conquest,  Scipio  left  it  to  L.  Marcius  to  complete  the  work, 
of  A.trvpa:  .eif-devo-  whether  of  vengeance  or  of  ambition,  by  the  subjugation  of  the 
tum  of  us  inhabitants.  QfaQr  iowns  Of  Bcetica,  while  he  himself  returned  to  New  Car- 
thage.92 Marcius  crossed  the  Bsetis,  and  received  the  submission  of  some  of  the 
towns  on  the  left  bank ;  but  .the  inhabitants  of  one  place,  Astapa,  which  had 
rendered  itself  obnoxious,  by  carrying  on  an  active  guerilla  warfare  against  the 
Roman  detached  parties  and  communications,  exhibited  one  of  those  shocking  in- 
stances of  desperation  which  testify  so  painfully  to  the  miserable  lot  of  the  van- 
quished in  ancient  Tarfare.  They  erected  a  great  pile  in  the  middle  of  their  city, 
on  which  they  threw  all  their  ornaments  and  most  valuable  property,  and  then 
bade  their  wives  and  children  ascend  it,  and  sit  down  quietly  on  the  top.  Fifty 
chosen  men  were  left  to  keep  watch  beside  the  pile,  while  the  rest  of  the  citizens 
sallied  out  against  the  Romans,  determined  to  fight  till  they  were  cut  to  pieces. 
They  fell  to  a  man,  selling  their  lives  dearly :  in  the  mean  while  the  fifty  men  left 
by  the  pile  performed  their  dreadful  task ;  they  set  it  on  fire ;  they  butchered 
the  women  and  children  who  were  placed  on  it,  and  then  threw  themselves  into 
the  flames.  The  Roman  soldiers  lost  their  plunder,  and  exclaimed  against  the 
desperate  ferocity  of  the  people  of  Astapa.93 

After  this  tragedy,  the  neighboring  towns  submitted  ;  and  Marcius  returned  to 
offer  to  surrender  ca-  his  general  at  New  Carthage.  But  he  was  not  allowed  to  rest: 
for  a  secret  deputation  came  to  Scipio  from  Gades,  offering  to  sur- 
render the  city  to  him,  along  with  the  Carthaginian  fleet  and  garrison  employed 
in  maintaining  it,  and  Mago  their  general,  Hannibal's  brother.  Again  therefore 
Marcius  took  the  field  with  a  light  division  of  the  army  ;  and  Laelius  accompanied 
him  by  sea  with  a  small  squadron,  to  ascertain  whether  the  offer  could  really  be 
executed.94 

It  was  now  late  in  the  summer  ;  and  the  season,  combined  with  the  fatigue  and 
Seiko's  iiiness:  mutiny  excitement  which  he  had  undergone,  brought  on  a  serious  illness 
in  &e  Roman  army.  Up0n  Scipio,  which  rumor  magnified,  spreading  the  tidings  over 
Spain  that  the  great  Roman  general  could  not  live.  At  once,  it  is  said,  the 
fidelity  of  the  Spanish  chiefs  was  shaken  :  Mandonius  and  Indibilus,  who  had  re- 
garded Scipio  with  such  extreme  veneration,  cared  nothing  for  the  Roman  people, 
and  prepared  to  assert  their  country's  independence,  by  driving  out  the  Roman 
army.95  But  a  worse  mischief  was  threatening ;  a  division  of  eight  thousand  Ro- 
man or  Italian  soldiers,  who  were  quartered  in  a  stationary  camp  on  the  Sucro,  at 
once  as  a  reserve  for  the  army  engaged  in  the  field,  and  as  a  covering  force  to 
keep  the  more  northern  parts  of  Spain  quiet,  broke  out  into  open  mutiny  ;  and 
having  driven  their  tribunes  from  the  camp,  they  conferred  the  command  on  two 
private  soldiers,  the  one  C.  Atrius,  of  the  allied  people  of  the  Umbrians,  and  the 
other  C.  Albius,  of  the  Latin  colony  of  Gales.  It  is  probable  that  this  division 
of  Scipio's  army  consisted  almost  entirely  of  Latins  and  Italian  allies ;  and  the 
generals  chosen  accordingly  represented  both  of  these,  and  assumed  the  full  state 
of  Roman  generals,  causing  the  lictors  to  go  before  them,  and  to  bear  the  rods 
and  axes,  which  were  the  symbol  of  the  consul's  imperium,  his  absolute  power  of 
life  and  death.96 

The  alleged  grievance  of  the  mutinous  soldiers  was,  that  their  pay  was  greatly 
IUM™.;  scipio'.  re.  in  arrears.  This  indeed  was  likely  to  be  the  case,  the  treasury  ot 
t»very.  Rome  being  ill  able  to  meet  the  numerous  demands  for  the  public 

"  Livy,  XXVIII.  20.  M  Livy,  XXVIII.  23. 

n  Livy,  XXVIII.  21.  »  Livy,  XXVIII.  24. 

•  Livy,  XXVIII.  22,  23.     Appian,  VI.  33.  "  Livy,  XXVIII.  25. 


CHAT.  XLVII]  SCIPIO'S  POLITIC  CONDUCT.  605 

service  ;  and  as  the  Spanish  army  had  avowedly  been  left  to  its  own  resources 
as  to  money,  it  is  probable  that  the  soldiers  were  allowed  to  plunder  the  more 
freely,  in  order  to  reconcile  them  to  their  not  being  paid  in  the  regular  manner. 
Scipio  himself  was  charged  with  injuring  the  discipline  of  his  army  by  his  indul- 
gence :  here,  as  in  other  things,  it  was  in  his  character  to  rely  on  his  own  per- 
sonal ascendency ;  and  he  thought  that  he  might  dispense  with  the  constant 
strictness  necessary  to  ordinary  men,  as  he  was  sure  that  his  soldiers  would  never 
be  disobedient  to  him.  But  however  lax  his  discipline  was,  troops  at  a  distance 
from  the  seat  of  war,  and  quartered  amongst  a  friendly  or  submissive  people, 
must  be  somewhat  restrained  in  their  license  of  plunder  ;  and  accordingly,  even 
before  Scipio's  illness,  the  soldiers  on  the  Sucro  complained  that  they  were 
neither  paid  regularly  as  in  peace,  nor  allowed  to  provide  for  themselves  as  in 
war.  And  when  they  heard  that  Scipio  was  at  the  point  of  death,  and  that  the 
Spaniards  in  the  north  were  revolting  from  Rome,  they  hoped  to  draw  their  own 
profit  out  of  these  troubled  waters,  and,  following  the  example  of  the  Campanians 
at  Rhegium,  to  secure  a  city  for  themselves,  and  to  live  in  luxury  upon  the  plun- 
der and  the  tributes  of  the  surrout:  Jing  people.97  It  is  said  that  Mago  from  Gades 
sent  them  money,  to  prevail  on  them  to  enter  into  the  service  of  Carthage,  and 
that  they  took  the  money,  but  did  no  more  than  appoint  their  own  generals,  take 
oath  of  fidelity  to  one  another,  and  remain  in  a  state  of  open  revolt  from  Rome.96 
They  probably  thought  that  they  might  establish  themselves  in  Spain  without 
serving  any  government  at  all ;  and  that  their  own  swords  were  more  to  be  relied 
on  than  Mago's  promises.  While  this  was  the  state  of  affairs  on  the  Sucro, 
tidings  came,  not  of  Scipio's  death,  but  of  his  convalescence ;  and  presently  seven 
military  tribunes  arrived  in  the  camp,  sent  by  Scipio  to  prevent  the  soldiers  from 
breaking  out  into  any  worse  outrage.  The  tribunes  affected  to  rejoice  that  mat- 
ters had  not  been  carried  to  any  greater  extremity ;  they  acknowledged  the 
former  services  of  the  troops,  and  said  that  Scipio  was  not  a  man  to  forget  or 
leave  them  unrewarded  ;  meanwhile  the  general  would  endeavor  to  raise  money 
from  the  subject  tribes  of  Spain,  to  make  good  their  arrears  of  pay.  Accordingly 
soon  afterwards  a  proclamation  appeared,  inviting  the  soldiers  to  come  to  New 
Carthage  to  receive  it.9U 

Scipio's  recovery  was  felt  from  one  end  of  Spain  to  the  other ;  the  revolted 
Spaniards  gave  up  their  hostile  purposes,  and  returned  quietly  to  The  mutineers  come  to 
their  homes ;  and  the  soldiers  on  the  Sucro,  moved  at  once  by  the  Nexv  Cartbftge- 
fear  of  resisting  one  whom  the  gods  seemed  to  favor  in  all  things,  and  by  the 
hope  of  receiving,  not  only  pardon  for  their  fault,  but  the  very  pay  which  they 
demanded,  resolved  to  march  in  a  body  to  New  Carthage.  As  they  drew  nea/ 
to  that  city,  the  seven  tribunes,  who  had  visited  their  camp  on  the  Sucro,  came 
to  meet  them,  gave  them  fair  words,  and  mentioned,  as  if  incidentally,  that  M. 
Silanus,  with  the  troops  at  New  Carthage,  was  to  march  the  next  morning  to  put 
down  the  revolt  of  Mandonius  and  Indibilis.  Delighted  to  find  that  Scipio  would 
thus  be  left  without  any  force  at  his  disposal,  they  entered  New  Carthage  in  high 
spirits  :  there  they  saw  the  troops  all  busy  in  preparations  for  their  departure  ; 
and  they  were  told  that  the  general  was  rejoiced  at  their  seasonable  arrival,  to 
supply  the  place  of  the  soldiers  who  were  going  to  leave  him.  In  perfect  confi- 
dence they  dispersed  to  their  quarters  for  the  night.100 

Thus  the  prey  had  run  blindly  into  the  snare.     The  seven  tribunes,  who  met 
the  soldiers  on  their  march,  had  each  been  furnished  with  the  names 
of  five  of  the  principal  ringleaders,  whom  they  were  to  secure  in 
the  course  of  the  evening  without  disturbance.     Accordingly  they  invited  them 
to  supper  in  their  quarters,  seized  them  all,  and  kept  them  in  close  custody  till 
the  next  morning.     But  all  else  was  quiet :  the  baggage  of  the  army  which  was 

97  Livy,  XXVIII.  24.  "  Livy,  XXVIII.  25. 

88  Appian,  VI.  34.  10°  Livy,  XXVIII.  26. 


(JOG  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [CUAP.  XLVJ1 

to  take  the  field  against  the  Spaniards  began  to  move  before  daybreak ;  about 
dawn  the  columns  of  the  troops  formed  in  the  streets,  and  marched  out  of  the 
town.  But  they  halted  at  the  gates ;  and  parties  were  sent  round  to  every  other 
gate  to  secure  them  all,  and  to  take  care  that  no  one  should  leave  the  city.  In 
the  mean  time  the  troops  from  the  Sucro  were  summoned  to  the  forum  to  meet 
their  general ;  and  they  crowded  impatiently  to  the  place,  without  their  arms,  as 
was  the  custom  of  the  Greek  soldiers  on  similar  occasions.  No  sooner  were  they 
all  assembled,  than  the  columns  from  the  gates  marched  into  the  town,  and  oc- 
cupied all  the  streets  leading  to  the  market-place.  Then  Scipio  presented  him- 
self on  his  tribunal,  and  sat  a  while  in  silence.  But  as  soon  as  he  heard  that  the 
prisoners,  who  had  been  secured  on  the  preceding  evening,  were  brought  up,  the 
crier,  with  his  loud  clear  voice,  commanded  silence,  and  Scipio  arose  to  speak.101 
The  scene  had  been  prepared  with  consummate  art ;  and  its  effect  was  over- 
whelming. The  mutinous  soldiers  saw  themselves  completely  in 

3Tie  mutiny  is  quelled       ,.  ,,  ,  v    ,  i     •        i  iii  •  .«        i  • 

ay  the  punishment  of  their  general  s  power ;  they  listened  in  breathless  anxiety  to  his 
address,  and  with  joy  beyond  all  hope  heard  his  concluding  sen- 
tence, that  he  freely  pardoned  the  multitude,  and  that  justice  would  be  satisfied 
with  the  punishment  of  those  who  had  misled  them.  The  instant  he  ceased 
speaking,  the  troops  posted  in  the  adjoining  streets  clashed  their  swords  on  their 
shields,  as  if  they  were  going  to  attack  the  mutineers  ;  and  the  crier's  voice  was 
again  heard  calling  the  names  of  the  thirty-five  ringleaders,  one  after  another,  to 
receive  the  punishment  to  which  they  had  been  condemned.  They  were  brought 
forth,  already  stripped  and  bound ;  each  was  fastened  to  his  stake ;  and  all  un- 
derwent their  sentence,  being  first  scourged,  and  then  beheaded.  When  all  was 
finished  the  bodies  were  dragged  away,  to  be  thrown  out  of  the  city ;  the  place 
of  execution  was  cleansed  from  the  blood ;  and  the  soldiers  from  the  Sucro  heard 
the  general  and  the  other  officers  swear  to  grant  them  a  free  pardon  with  an  en- 
tire amnesty  for  the  past.  They  were  then  summoned  by  the  crier,  one  by  one, 
to  appear  before  the  general  to  take  the  usual  military  oath  of  obedience,  after 
which  each  man  received  his  full  arrears  of  pay.102  Never  was  mutiny  quelled 
with  more  consummate  ability ;  and  Scipio's  ascendency  over  his  soldiers  after 
this  memorable  scene  was  doubtless  more  complete  than  ever. 

The  punishment  of  the  mutineers,  however,  we  are  told,  rendered  the  revolted 
The  revolted  Spaniard.  Spaniards  desperate.  Thinking  that  they  had  already  done  enough 
areiubdued.  tQ  (jraw  (lown  Scipio's  vengeance,  they  resolved  to  try  the  chances 

of  war,  and  again  took  the  field,  and  began  to  attack  the  allies  of  the  Romans  on 
the  north  of  the  Iberus.  Scipio  lost  not  a  moment  in  marching  in  pursuit  of 
them  :  he  was  not  sorry  to  employ  his  soldiers  against  the  enemy,  as  the  surest 
means  of  effacing  the  recollection  of  their  recent  disorders ;  and  he  spoke  of  the 
Spaniards  with  bitter  contempt,  as  barbarians  equally  powerless  and  laithless,  on 
whom  he  was  resolved  to  take  signal  vengeance.  In  ten  days  he  marched  from 
New  Carthage  to  the  Iberus  ;  and  on  the  fourth  day  after  crossing  the  river  he 
came  in  sight  of  the  enemy.  He  engaged  and  totally  defeated  them,  not,  how- 
ever, without  a  loss  of  more  than  four  thousand  men  killed  and  wounded ;  and 
immediately  after  the  battle  the  chiefs  threw  themselves  on  his  mercy.  He  re- 
quired nothing  more  than  the  immediate  payment  of  a  sum  of  money,  which  was 
to  make  good  the  money  lately  advanced  or  borrowed  to  pay  the  soldiers  after  the 
mutiny  ;  and  then,  leaving  Silanus  at  Tarraco,  he  returned  to  New  Carthage.101 

Even  yet  he  would  not  allow  himself  to  rest.     Leaving  the  mass  of  his  army 
scipio's  mum  lew  with  at  New  Carthage,  he  joined  L.  Marcius,  his  lieutenant,  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Grades,  for  the  sole  purpose,  it  is  said,  of  gratify- 
ing Masinissa's  earnest  desire  of  a  personal  interview.     Masinissa  had  returned 
from  Africa  to  Gades,  and  was  professedly  consulting  with  Mago  how  one  more 

101  Livy,  XXVIII.  26.  103  Polybius,    XI.    31-33.      Livy,    XXVIII. 

102  Polybius,  XL  30.   Livy,  XXVIII.  29.   Ap-    31-34.     ' 
plan,  VI.  36. 


CHAP.  XLVII.]  MAGO  EVACUATES  SPAIN.  (507 

attempt  might  be  made  to  restore  the  Carthaginian  dominion  in  Spain.  But  his 
mind  was  already  made  up  to  join  the  Romans ;  and  he  took  the  opportunity  of 
a  pretended  plundering  excursion  with  his  Numidian  cavalry  to  arrange  and  effed 
a  meeting  with  Scipio.  He  too,  it  is  said,  like  all  other  men,  was  overawed  av 
once,  and  delighted  by  Scipio's  personal  appearance,  manner,  and  conversation ; 
he  promised  the  most  zealous  aid  to  the  Romans,  and  urged  Scipio  to  cross  over 
as  soon  as  possible  into  Africa,  where  he  might  be  able  to  serve  him  most  effect- 
ually.104 Scipio's  keen  discernment  of  character  taught  him  the  value  of  Masi- 
nissa's  friendship  ;  and  his  journey  from  New  Carthage  to  Gades,  in  order  to 
secure  it,  was  abundantly  rewarded  afterwards  ;  for  had  Masinissa  fought  in  Han- 
nibal's army,  Scipio,  in  all  probability,  would  never  have  won  the  day  at  Zama. 

Mago  heard  of  the  termination  of  the  mutiny  in  the  Roman  army,  and  of  the 
defeat  of  the  revolted  Spaniards  in  the  north;  and  he  found  that  Mago evilcliatei Spain, 
the  Roman  army  was  again  returned  to  New  Carthage,  and  that  tai&lSEiCSS 
all  hopes  of  making  head  against  Rome  in  Spain  were,  for  the  ltaly- 
present,  at  an  end.  Hannibal  summoned  him  to  Italy;  and  the  Carthaginian 
government,  acting,  as  it  seems,  cordially  upon  Hannibal's  views,  ordered  him  to 
obey  his  brother's  call.  It  was  not  the  least  bold  enterprise  of  this  great  war,  to 
plan  the  invasion  of  Italy  from  Gades,  at  a  time  when  the  whole  of  Spain,  from 
the  Pillars  of  Hercules  to  the  Pyrenees,  was  possessed  by  the  enemy.  But 
Scipio,  to  strengthen  his  land  forces,  had  laid  up  the  greater  part  of  his  fleet ; 
and  the  exertions  of  the  Carthaginian  government,  or  his  own,  had  provided  Mago 
with  a  naval  force,  small  probably  in  point  of  numbers,  but  consisting  of  excellent 
ships  manned  by  skilful  seamen,  and  capable,  if  ably  used,  of  rendering  essentia] 
service.  He  was  supplied  with  money  from  Carthage ;  and  he  levied  iarge  con- 
tributions, it  is  said,  on  the  people  of  Gades,  and  even  emptied  their  treasury, 
and  stripped  their  temples.105  He  then  put  to  sea,  so  late  in  the  season,  that 
Scipio  was  gone  back  to  Tarraco,  and  was  preparing  to  return  to  Rome ;  and  the 
Roman  army  being  gone  into  its  winter-quarters  behind  the  Iberus,  New  Carthage 
was  left  to  the  protection  of  its  own  garrison.  This  encouraged  Mago  to  attempt 
to  surprise  the  place  ;  but  in  this  he  failed :  he  then  crossed  over  to  the  Island 
of  Pityusa  (Iviza),  which  was  held  by  the  Carthaginians ;  and  having  there  re- 
ceived supplies  of  provisions  and  of  men,  he  proceeded  to  attack  the  two  Balerian 
islands,  now  called  Majorca  and  Minorca.  He  was  repulsed  from  the  larger 
island,  but  made  himself  master  of  the  smaller :  there  he  landed  his  men,  and 
drew  up  Ir3  ships,  and  purposed  to  pass  the  winter,  the  season  securing  him 
from  any  attack  by  sea,  perhaps  even  hiding  his  movements  altogether  from  the 
knowledge  of  the  Romans ;  while  he  lay  in  readiness  to  catch  the  first  return  of 
spring,  and  to  run  over  to  Italy,  and  establish  himself  on  the  coast  of  Liguria,  in 
the  midst  of  a  warlike  population,  furnishing  the  materials  of  a  future  army.106 

Spain  was  thus  abandoned  by  the  Carthaginians ;  and  Gades,  left  to  itself, 
went  over  to  the  Roman  alliance,  and  concluded  a  treaty  with  L.  Treaty  Wi«i  cader. 
Marcius,  which  for  two  centuries  formed  the  basis  of  its  relations  scipiorkum.toRom,,. 
with  Rome.107  He  had  probably  been  left  in  command  at  New  Carthage,  when 
Scipio  returned  to  Tarraco.  Scipio  himself  was  known  to  be  desirous  of  leaving 
Spain,  and  offering  himself  as  a  candidate  for  the  consulship ;  and  accordingly 
L.  Lentulus  and  L.  Manlius  Acidius  were  appointed  proconsuls  to  succeed  him 
and  M.  Silanus  in  the  command  of  the  Roman  army  and  province.  Scipio  mean- 
while, accompanied  by  C.  Lselius,  returned  to  Rome ;  he  could  not  have  a  tri- 
umph, because  he  had  been  neither  consul  nor  praetor;  but  he  entered  the  city 
with  some  display,  with  an  immense  treasure  of  silver,  in  money  and  in  ingots, 
which  he  deposited  in  the  treasury ;  and  his  name  was  so  popular,  that  he  was 

*»  Livy,  XXVIII.  35.  «"  Livy,  XXVIII.  87.    Aprian,  VI.  37.    See 

*  Livy,  XXVIII.  36.  Cicero  pro  Cornelio,  c.  XVII. 

*»  Livy,  XXVIII.  37. 


608  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [SUPPLEMENT. 

elected  consul  immediately,  with  an  almost  unanimous  feeling  in  his  favor.  His 
colleague  was  P.  Licinius  Crassus,  who  at  that  time  held  the  dignity  of  Pontifex 
Maximus.108 

Thus  the  war,  being  altogether  extinguished  in  Spain,  was  reduced  as  it  were 
rrospecu  of  the  war  in  to  Italy  only ;  and  there  it  smoldered  rather  than  blazed;  for 
Hannibal  with  his  single  army  could  do  no  more  than  maintain  his 
ground  in  Bruttium.  Was  it  possible  that  Mago  might  kindle  a  fierce  flame  in 
Liguria  ?  might  blow  up  the  half-extinguished  ashes  in  Etruria,  and  reviving  the 
fire  in  the  south,  spread  the  conflagration  around  the  walls  of  Rome  ?  This  was 
not  beyond  possibility :  but  Scipio,  impatient  of  defensive  warfare,  and  himself 
the  conqueror  of  a  vast  country,  was  eager  to  stop  the  torrent  at  its  source,  rather 
than  raise  barriers  against  it,  when  it  was  sweeping  down  the  valley :  he  was 
bent  on  combating  Hannibal,  not  in  Italy,  but  in  Africa. 


SUPPLEMENT, 


[WITH  the  preceding  chapter  the  work  is  unfortunately  terminated.  From  a  note  in 
the  margin,  that  chapter  appears  to  have  been  finished  on  the  5th  of  May;  on  the  12th 
of  June  the  author  breathed  his  last.  Two  more  chapters  at  least  would  have  been 
requisite  to  bring  the  history  down  to  the  end  of  the  Second  Punic  War;  for  the  heading 
of  the  forty-eighth  chapter  shows  what  it  was  intended  to  contain : — Last  years  of  the 
war  in  Italy— Consulship  of  P.  Scipio — Scipio  in  Sicily— Siege  of  Locri— Scipio  in 
Africa — His  victories  over  Hasdrubal  Gisco  and  Syphax — The  Carthaginians  recall  Han- 
nibal and  Mago  from  Italy — A.  u.  c.  548  to  A.  u.  c.  551. 

Every  reader  of  the  foregoing  narrative  of  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  eventful 
periods  in  ancient  history,  must  regret  that  the  author  was  not  allowed  to  carry  it  on  to 
the  close  of  the  war.  As  the  best  substitute  for  that  which  we  should  have  had,  the 
following  account  of  the  last  years  of  the  war,  written  by  Dr.  Arnold  in  the  year  1823, 
for  the  life  of  Hannibal  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Metropolitan,  is  here  inserted.] 


The  defeat  and  destruction  of  Hasdrubal's  army  reduced  Hannibal  to  the  neces 
Adventures  and  death  sity  of  acting  entirely  on  the  defensive.  It  had  been  for  some  time 
evident,  that  his  single  army  could  not  overthrow  the  supremacy 
of  Rome  in  Italy.  Still,  while  the  fate  of  the  war  was  balanced  in  Spain  and 
Sicily,  and  while  he  was  looking  forward  to  the  arrival  of  his  brother  to  co-oper- 
ate with  him,  he  might  be  justified  in  making  himself  as  troublesome  as  possible 
to  the  enemy,  even  though  by  so  doing  he  might  sometimes  incur  the  danger  of 
some  loss.  But  now  his  policy  was  altered  :  to  maintain  his  ground  in  Italy,  till 
another  effort  could  be  made  by  his  government  to  support  him,  was  become  his 
most  important  duty.  He  was  obliged  to  abandon  several  towns  which  had  re- 
volted to  him  from  the  Romans ;  and  he  forced  the  inhabitants  of  others  to  desert 
their  homes,  and  to  retire  with  him  into  the  remotest  part  of  Bruttium.  The 
superiority  of  his  personal  character  was  so  great,  that  the  Romans  never  dared 
to  attack  him ;  and  thus  he  might  repose  for  a  while,  watching  the  first  favor- 
able opportunity  of  issuing  from  his  retreat,  and  attempting  once  more  to  accom- 
plish the  design  with  which  he  had  originally  invaded  Italy.  The  death  of  Has- 
drubal had  not  extinguished  all  his  hopes.  Mago,  after  the  total  wreck  of  the 

"•  Livy,  XXVIII.  38. 


UUPPLEMENT.]  HANNIBAL  EVACUATES  ITALY.  609 

Carthaginian  interest  in  Spain,  was  ordered,  as  we  have  seen,  to  attempt  a  diver- 
sion in  Italy,  and  transporting  a  small  force  with  him  by  sea,  landed  in  Liguria,  an£ 
surprised  the  town  of  Genoa.1  The  name  of  his  family  urged  the  Gauls  and  Li- 
gurians  to  flock  to  his  standard ;  and  his  growing  strength  excited  much  alarm 
among  the  Romans,  and  obliged  them  to  keep  a  large  army  in  the  north  of  Itaiy 
to  watch  his  movements.  The  details  of  his  adventures  are  unknown  ;  nor  are 
we  informed  what  cause  prevented  him  from  attempting  to  penetrate  into  Tus- 
cany. We  only  find  that  he  became  so  formidable  an  enemy  as  to  maintain  an 
obstinate  contest  against  an  army  of  four  Roman  legions,  a  few  weeks  before  the 
final  evacuation  of  Italy  by  Hannibal ;  nor  were  the  Romans  certain  of  victory, 
till  Mago  was  mortally  wounded,  and  obliged  to  leave  the  field.  From  the  scene 
of  this  battle,  which  is  said  to  have  been  in  the  country  of  the  Insubrian  Gauls, 
he  retreated  with  as  much  expedition  as  his  wound  would  allow,  to  the  coast  of 
Liguria ;  and  there  he  found  orders  from  Carthage  that  he  should  immediately 
return  to  Africa,  to  oppose  the  alarming  progress  of  P.  Scipio.  He  accordingly 
embarked  with  his  troops,  and  commenced  his  voyage  homewards :  but  his  exer- 
tions and  anxiety  of  mind  had  proved  too  great  for  his  strength ;  and  he  had 
scarcely  passed  the  coast  of  Sardinia,  when  he  expired.  So  unwearied  was  the 
zeal,  and  so  great  the  ability,  with  which  the  sons  of  Hamilcar  maintained  the 
cause  of  their  country,  almost  solely  by  their  personal  efforts,  against  the  over- 
bearing resources  and  energy  of  the  Roman  people. 

When  the  Carthaginian  government  sent  for  Mago  from  Italy,  they  also  re- 
called Hannibal.  The  account  of  his  operations  during  the  three  Harmibai  evacuate*  u- 
or  four  years  that  preceded  his  return  to  Africa  is  peculiarly  un-  alyi 
satisfactory.  The  Roman  writers  have  transmitted  some  reports  of  victories  ob- 
tained over  him  in  Italy,  too  audacious  in  falsehood  for  even  themselves  to  have 
believed.  But,  in  truth,  the  terror  with  which  he  continued  to  inspire  his  ene- 
mies, after  his  career  of  success  was  closed,  is  even  more  wonderful  than  his  first 
brilliant  triumphs.  For  four  years  after  the  death  of  Hasdrubal,  he  remained  in 
undisputed  possession  of  Bruttium,  when  the  Romans  had  reconquered  all  the 
rest  of  Italy.  Here  he  maintained  his  army,  without  receiving  any  supplies  from 
home,  and  with  no  other  naval  force  at  his  disposal,  than  such  vessels  as  he  could 
build  from  the  Bruttium  forests,  and  man  with  the  sailors  of  the  country.  Here 
too  he  seems  to  have  looked  forward  to  the  renown  which  awaited  him  in  after- 
times  ;  and  as  if  foreseeing  the  interest  with  which  posterity  would  follow  his 
progress  in  his  unequalled  enterprise,  he  recorded  many  minute  particulars  of  his 
campaigns  on  monumental  columns,  erected  at  Lacinium,2  a  town  situated  in  that 
corner  of  Italy,  which  was  so  long  like  a  new  country  acquired  by  conquest,  for 
himself  and  his  soldiers.  At  length,  when  it  was  plain  that  no  new  diversion 
could  be  effected  in  his  favor,  and  when  the  dangerous  situation  of  his  country 
called  for  his  presence,  as  the  last  hope  of  Carthage,  he  embarked  his  troops 
without  the  slightest  interruption  from  the  Romans ;  and  moved  only  by  the  dis- 
asters of  others,  while  his  own  army  was  unbroken  and  unbeaten,  he  abandoned 
Italy  fifteen  years  after  he  had  first  entered  it,  having  ravaged  it  with  fire  and 
sword  from  one  extremity  to  the  other,  and  having  never  seen  his  numerous  vic- 
tories checkered  by  a  single  defeat. 

Scipio,  meanwhile,  after  his  important  services  in  Spain,  had  returned  to  Rome, 
and  been  elected  consul,  hoping:  to  carry  into  execution  the  design 

,.    TI        ,        ,f  '.         r      &       .         ,     JCf         .          TT  .,      ,    .       ,       b        A.  U.  C.  550.     A.  C. 

which  he  had  for  some  time  conceived,  of  forcing  Hannibal  to  leave  so4._  Scipio  c«mM  UM 
Italy,  by  attacking  the  Carthaginians  in  Africa.  But  according  to 
the  invariable  policy  of  Rome,  he  was  desirous  of  securing  the  aid  of  some  ally 
in  the  country  which  he  was  going  to  make  the  seat  of  war.  For  this  end,  as  we 
have  seen,  he  had  already  opened  a  communication  with  Syphax,  the  most  con- 
siderable of  the  Numidian  princes,  and,  according  to  Livy,  had  actually  concluded 
a  treaty  with  him.  But  Syphax  was  won  over  to  the  interests  of  Carthage  by 

1  Livy,  XXVIII.  46.     XXX.  18.  a  Polybius,  III.  33,  56. 

39 


Gl 0  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [SUPPLEMENT 

the  charms  of  Sophonisba,  the  daughter  of  Hasdrubal  Gisco ;  and  a  short  time 
before  Scipio  crossed  over  into  Africa,  he  sent  to  inform  him  of  his  new  connec- 
tion, and  to  dissuade  him  from  his  intended  expedition,  as  he  should  now  be 
obliged  to  join  the  Carthaginians  in  opposing  him.  Scipio,  however,  was  not  yet 
without  the  prospect  of  finding  allies  in  Africa.  Masinissa  had  deserted  the  Car- 
thaginian cause  after  its  disasters  in  Spain,  and  had  privately  pledged  himself  to 
support  the  Romans  on  the  first  opportunity.  Since  that  time  he  had  been  de- 
prived of  his  paternal  dominions  by  the  united  efforts  of  Syphax  and  the  Cartha- 
ginians ;  but  though  his  power  was  thus  reduced,  his  zeal  in  the  cause  of  Rome 
was  likely  to  be  the  more  heightened ;  and  as  his  personal  character  was  high 
among  his  countrymen,  many  of  them  might  be  expected  to  join  him,  when  they 
saw  him  supported  by  a  Roman  army.  Accordingly,  he  united  himself3  to  Scipio 
so  soon  as  he  had  landed  in  Africa ;  and  his  activity,  and  perfect  familiarity  with 
the  country  and  its  inhabitants,  made  him  a  very  valuable  auxiliary.  The  land- 
ing had  been  effected  within  a  few  miles  of  Carthage  itself ;  and  after  some  plun- 
der, amongst  which  eight  thousand  prisoners  to  be  sdd  for  slaves  are  particularly 
specified,  had  been  collected  from  the  adjoining  country,  the  army  formed  the 
siege  of  Utica,  whilst  a  considerable  fleet  co-operated  with  it  on  the  side  of  the 
sea.  But  the  approach  of  Hasdrubal  Gisco  and  Syphax,  at  the  head  of  two  im- 
mense armies  of  Carthaginians  and  Numidians,  induced  Scipio  to  raise  the  siege, 
and  to  remove  his  troops  to  a  strong  position  near  the  sea,  where  he  proposed 
to  remain,  as  winter  was  fast  approaching,  and  secure  of  subsistence,  through 
the  co-operation  of  his  fleet,  to  wait  for  some  favorable  opportunity  of  striking  a 
vigorous  blow. 

His  first  hope  was4  to  win  over  Syphax  again  to  the  Roman  cause ;  and  with 

this  view  his  emissaries  were  continually  goin^  and  returning  he- 
He  de.troys  the    Car-    ,  i        -r»  i     -XT         •  T  &      rn?     •  ,,  • 

thapiniiin  and  Numid-  twccn  theKoman  and  JNumidian  camps.  Iheir  temptations  to 
Syphax  were  ineffectual :  but  their  report  of  the  manner  in  which 
the  Carthaginian  and  Numidian  armies  were  quartered,  suggested  to  Scipio  the 
possibility  of  insuring  success  by  other  means  than  negotiation.  They  related, 
that  the  Carthaginians  were  lodged  in  huts  constructed  of  stakes  or  hurdles,  and 
covered  with  leaves,  and  that  the  Numidian  quarters  were  composed  of  similar 
materials,  of  reeds,  thatch,  and  dried  leaves.  Upon  this  intelligence  Scipio  con- 
ceived the  plan  of  setting  fire  to  both  the  camps  of  the  enemy.  In  order  to  gain 
a  more  perfect  knowledge  of  their  situation,  and  the  approaches  to  them,  he  pre- 
tended to  listen  to  the  terms  of  peace  which  Syphax  had  before  proposed  to  him 
in  vain.  Under  pretence  of  negotiation,  he  was  for  some  months  in  constant  cor- 
respondence with  the  Numidian  king  ;  and  disguising  some  of  his  most  intelligent 
soldiers  in  the  dress  of  slaves,  he  procured  them  an  easy  entrance  into  the  ene- 
my's camp,  as  forming  part  of  the  suite  of  the  officers  employed  in  the  negotia- 
tion. At  last,  when  the  season  for  military  operations  was  returning,  and  his 
seemingly  sincere  desire  of  peace  had  thrown  the  enemy  into  a  state  of  perfect 
security,  he  suddenly  broke  off  all  communication  with  them,  declaring  that,  how- 
ever disposed  he  himself  was  to  agree  to  the  proposed  terms,  the  other  members 
of  the  military  council  were  fixed  on  rejecting  them.  This  sudden  rupture  disap- 
pointed Syphax ;  but  neither  he  nor  the  Carthaginian  general  had  any  suspicion 
of  Scipio's  real  designs ;  when  suddenly  the  Roman  army  marched  out  by  night 
in  two  divisions,  the  one  commanded  by  Scipio,  and  the  other  by  Lselius,  his 
second  in  command,  and  advanced  against  the  camps  of  the  enemy,  which  were 
not  more  than  six  miles  from  their  own.  Laslius,  assisted  by  Masinissa,  first 
silently  approached  the  encampment  of  the  Numidians,  and  set  fire  to  the  first 
tents  that  he  met  with.  The  flames  spread  so  rapidly,  that  the  Numidians  were 
soon  precluded  from  approaching  the  quarter  where  they  had  first  broken  out, 
and  thus,  having  no  suspicion  that  they  had  been  kindled  by  the  enemy,  crowded 

•  Livy,  XXIX.  29.  «  Polybius,  XIV.  1,  &c. 


SUPPLEMENT.]  SCIPIO'S  VICTORIES  IN  AFRICA. 

together  in  the  utmost  disorder  to  effect  their  escape  out  of  the  camp.  Numbers 
were  trampled  to  death  in  the  confusion  at  the  several  outlets;  numbers  were 
overtaken  by  the  flames  and  burnt  to  death ;  and  the  rest,  on  reaching  the  open 
country,  found  themselves  intercepted  by  Masinissa,  who  had  posted  his  troops  in 
the  quarter  to  which  he  knew  that  the  fugitives  were  most  likely  to  direct  their 
flight.  In  this  manner  the  whole  Numidian  army,  amounting  to  sixty  thousand 
men,  was  completely  destroyed  or  dispersed,  with  the  exception  of  Syphax  him- 
self and  a  few  horsemen. 

Meanwhile  the  Carthaginians,  when  they  first  saw  the  camp  of  their  allies  on 
fire,  not  doubting  that  it  was  occasioned  by  accident,  began  partly  to  run  with 
assistance  to  the  Numidians,  and  the  rest  rushed  hastily  out  of  their  tents,  with- 
out their  arms,  and  stood  on  the  outside  of  the  camp,  contemplating  the  progress 
of  this  fearful  conflagration  with  dismay.  In  this  helpless  state  they  found  them- 
selves attacked  by  the  enemy,  under  the  command  of  Scipio  in  person :  some 
were  instantly  cut  down ;  and  the  rest,  driven  back  into  their  camp,  saw  it  set 
on  fire  by  their  pursuers.  They  then  understood  the  whole  extent  of  the  calamity 
which  had  befallen  their  allies  and  themselves ;  but  resistance  and  flight  were 
alike  impracticable  ;  the  fire  spread  with  fury  to  every  quarter  ;  and  every  avenue 
was  choked  up  by  a  struggling  crowd  of  men  and  horses,  all  striving  with  the 
same  distracted  efforts  to  effect  their  escape.  In  this  attempt,  Hasdrubal  and  a 
few  followers  alone  succeeded;  thirty  thousand  men,  who  had  composed  the 
Carthaginian  army,  perished.  The  annals  of  war  contain  no  bloodier  tragedy. 

Hasdrubal,  hopeless  of  delaying  the  progress  of  the  enemy,  continued  his  flight 
to  Carthage  ;  while  Syphax  had  retreated  into  the  opposite  direc-  He  gam8  another  vie. 
tion  towards  his  own  dominions,  and  was  endeavoring  to  rally  the  tory- 
wrecks  of  his  army.  After  much  debate  in  the  Carthaginian  supreme  council,  it 
was  resolved  that  the  fortune  of  war  should  be  tried  once  more.  Syphax  was 
prevailed  upon  to  join  his  troops  to  theirs,  instead  of  confining  himself  to  the  de- 
fence of  Numidia ;  and  the  recent  arrival  of  four  thousand  Spaniards,  who  had 
been  enlisted  by  Carthaginian  agents  in  Spain,  encouraged  the  two  confederates 
to  hope  for  a  successful  issue.  Scipio  was  so  engrossed  with  the  siege  of  Utica, 
which  he  had  pushed  with  additional  vigor  after  his  late  victory,  that  he 
allowed  the  enemy  to  unite  their  forces,  and  appear  again  in  the  field  with  no 
fewer  than  thirty  thousand  men.  But  when  he  heard  of  their  junction,  he  lost 
no  time  in  advancing  to  meet  them  ;  and  engaging  them  a  second  time,  in  little 
more  than  a  month  after  the  destruction  of  their  former  armies,  he  again  totally 
defeated  them,  and  obliged  their  two  generals  to  fly  once  more,  Syphax  to  Nu- 
midia, and  Hasdrubal  to  Carthage. 

The  victors  now  divided  their  forces :  Lselius  and  Masinissa  were  dispatched 
in  pursuit  of  Syphax ;  and  in  a  short  time  Masinissa  recovered  his 
father's  kingdom ;  and  Syphax,  having  risked  a  third  battle,  was  fo2.u'i£Veat2'nndA;-n£ 
not  only  defeated  as  before,  but  was  himself  made  prisoner,  and 
his  capital  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  Scipio  meantime 
overran  the  country  towards  Carthage,  receiving  or  forcing  the  submission  of  the 
surrounding  towns,  and  enriching  bis  soldiers  with  an  immense  accumulation  of 
plunder.  The  chief  part  of  this,  in  order  to  lighten  his  army,  he  sent  back  to  his 
winter-quarters  before  Utica ;  and  then  he  advanced  as  far  as  Tunis,  and  finding 
that  important  place  abandoned  by  its  garrison,  posted  himself  there,  hoping  by 
his  presence  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the  capital,  to  terrify  the  Cartha- 
ginians into  complete  submission.  But  they  had  not  yet  abandoned  more  reso- 
lute counsels  ;  and  instead  of  suing  for  peace,  they  determined  to  send  messen- 
gers to  Italy,  to  recall  Hannibal  and  Mago,  and,  in  the  mean  time,  to  make  an 
Attempt  to  raise  the  blockade  of  Utica,  by  destroying  the  Roman  fleet.  The  at- 
tempt was  made,  and  was  partly  successful ;  but  this  slight  advantage  was  so  far 
overbalanced  by  the  defeat  and  capture  of  Syphax,  intelligence  of  which  reached 
Carthage  about  the  same  time,  that  the  further  prosecution  of  the  Avar  appeared 


612  HISTORY  OF  ROME. 

desperate,  and  a  deputation  from  the  council  of  elders  was  sent  to  Scipio  to  solicit 
terms  of  peace.  It  is  said  that  these  deputies  forgot  their  own  and.  their  coun- 
try's dignity  in  the  humbleness  of  their  entreaties  :  they  moved  Scipio,  however, 
to  dictate  su^-h  conditions  as  he  might  well  deem  a  sufficient  recompense  of  his 
victories ;  conditions  which,  by  obliging  the  Carthaginians  to  evacuate  Italy  and 
Gaul, — to  cede  Spain  and  all  the  islands  between  Italy  and  Africa, — to  give  up 
all  their  ships  of  war,  except  twenty, — and  to  pay  an  immense  contribution  of 
corn  and  money, — sufficiently  declared  the  complete  triumph  of  the  Roman 
arms.  Hard  as  they  were,  the  Carthaginians  judged  them  sufficiently  favorable 
to  be  accepted  without  difficulty.  A  truce  was  concluded  with  Scipio  ;  and  am- 
bassadors were  sent  to  Rome  to  procure  the  ratification  of  the  senate  and  people. 
With  regard  to  the  transactions  that  followed,  we  are  more  than  ever  obliged 
interruption  of  the  ne-  to  regret  the  want  of  a  Carthaginian  historian.  Wherever  the 
goiiatiou.  family  of  Scipio  is  concerned  the  impartiality  of  Polybius  becomes 

doubtful ;  and  besides,  we  have  only  fragments  of  this  part  of  his  narrative,  so 
that  we  cannot  exactly  fix  the  dates  of  the  several  events,  a  point  which  here  be- 
comes of  considerable  importance.  According  to  our  only  existing  authorities, 
the  Carthaginians,  emboldened  by  the  arrival  of  Hannibal,  or,  according  to  Livy, 
by  the  mere  expectation  of  his  arrival,  wantonly  broke  the  truce  subsisting  be- 
tween them  and  Scipio,  by  detaining  some  Roman  transports  which  had  been 
driven  by  a  storm  into  the  bay  of  Carthage  ;  and  then  denied  satisfaction  to  the 
officers  whom  Scipio  sent  to  complain  of  this  outrage  ;  and  lastly,  in  defiance  of 
the  law  of  nations,  endeavored  to  seize  the  officers  themselves  on  their  way  back 
to  the  Roman  camp  at  Utica.  By  such  conduct  the  resentment  of  Scipio  is  de- 
scribed to  have  been  very  naturally  provoked  ;  and  the  war  was  renewed  with 
greater  animosity  than  ever.  This,  no  doubt,  was  Scipio's  own  report  of  these 
transactions,  which  Polybius,  the  intimate  friend  of  his  adopted  grandson,  and 
deriving  his  information,  in  part  at  least,  from  Laelius,  in  all  probability  sincerely 
believed.  But  it  is  probable  that  a  Carthaginian  narrative  of  the  war  in  Africa 
would  so  represent  the  matter,  that  posterity  would  esteem  the  behavior  of  the 
Carthaginians,  in  breaking  off  the  truce  when  it  suited  their  purposes,  as  neither 
more  nor  less  dishonorable  than  the  conduct  of  Scipio  himself,  when  he  set  fire 
to  the  camps  of  Syphax  and  Hasdrubal ;  and  that,  although  the  success  was  dif- 
ferent, yet  the  treachery  in  both  cases,  whatever  it  may  have  been,  was  pretty 
nearly  equal. 

Hannibal,  we  are  told,  landed  at  Leptis,5  at  what  season  of  the  year  we  know 
not ;  and  after  refreshing  his  troops  for  some  time  at  Adrumetum, 
he  took  the  field,  and  advanced  to  the  neighborhood  of  Zama,  a 
town  situated,  as  Polybius  describes  it,  about  five  days'  journey  from  Carthage, 
towards  the  west.  It  seems  that  Scipio  was  busied  in  overrunning  the  country, 
and  in  subduing  the  several  towns,  when  he  was  interrupted  in  these  operations 
by  the  approach  of  the  Carthaginian  army.  He  is  said  to  have  detected  some 
spies  sent  by  Hannibal  to  observe  his  position ;  and  by  causing  them  to  be  led 
carefully  round  his  camp,  and  then  sent  back  in  safety  to  Hannibal,  he  so  excited 
the  admiration  of  his  antagonist,  as  to  make  him  solicit  a  personal  interview,  with 
the  hope  of  effecting  a  termination  of  hostilities.  The  report  of  this  conference, 
and  of  the  speeches  of  the  two  generals,  savors  greatly  of  the  style  of  Roman 
family  memoirs,  the  most  unscrupulous  in  falsehood  of  any  pretended  records  of 
facts  that  the  world  has  yet  seen.  However,  the  meeting  ended  in  nothing ; 
and  the  next  day  the  two  armies  were  led  out  into  the  field  for  the  last  decisive 
struggle.  The  numbers  on  each  side  we  have  no  knowledge  of ;  but  probably 
neither  was  in  this  respect  much  superior.  Masinissa,  however,  with  four  thou- 
sand Numidian  cavalry,  besides  six  thousand  infantry,  had  joined  Scipio  a  few 
days  before  the  battle  ;  while  Hannibal,  who  had  so  often  been  indebted  to  the 

•  Livy,  XXX.  25,  &c.    Polybius,  XV.  1,  &c. 


SUPPLEMENT.]  BATTLE  OF  ZAMA  ($13 

services  of  Numidians,  had  now,  on  this  great  occasion,  only  two  thousand  horse 
of  that  nation  to  oppose  to  the  numbers,  and  fortune,  and  activity  of  Masinissa. 
The  account  of  the  disposition  of  both  armies,  and  of  the  events  of  the  action, 
was  probably  drawn  up  by  Polybius  from  the  information  given  to  him  by  Lae- 
lius,  and  perhaps  from  the  family  records  of  the  house  of  Scipio.  And  here  we 
may  admit  its  authority  to  be  excellent.  It  states  that  the  Roman  legions  were 
drawn  up  in  their  usual  order,  except  that  the  maniples  of  every  alternate  line  did 
not  cover  the  intervals  in  the  line  before  them,  but  were  placed  one  behind  an- 
other, thus  leaving  avenues  in  several  places  through  the  whole  depth  of  the  army 
from  front  to  rear.  These  avenues  were  loosely  filled  by  the  light-armed  troops, 
who  had  received  orders  to  meet  the  charge  of  the  elephants,  and  to  draw  them 
down  the  passages  left  between  the  maniples,  till  they  should  be  enticed  entirely 
beyond  the  rear  of  the  whole  army.  The  cavalry,  as  usual,  was  stationed  on  the 
wings  ;  Masinissa,  with  his  Numidians,  on  the  right,  and  Laelius,  with  the  Italians, 
on  the  left.  On  the  other  side,  Hannibal  stationed  his  elephants,  to  the  number 
of  eighty,  in  the  front  of  his  whole  line.  Next  to  these  were  placed  the  foreign 
troops  in  the  service  of  Carthage,  twelve  thousand  strong,  consisting  of  Liguri- 
ans,  Gauls,  inhabitants  of  the  ^Balearian  islands,  and  Moors.  The  second  line 
was  composed  of  those  Africans  who  were  the  immediate  subjects  of  Carthage, 
and  of  the  Carthaginians  themselves  ;  while  Hannibal  himself,  with  his  veteran 
soldiers,  who  had  returned  with  him  from  Italy,  formed  a  third  line,  which  was 
kept  in  reserve,  at  a  little  distance  behind  the  other  two.  The  Numidian  cavalry 
were  on  the  left,  opposed  to  their  own  countrymen  under  Masinissa ;  and  the 
Carthaginian  horse  on  the  right,  opposed  to  Laelius  and  the  Italians.  After  some 
skirmishing  of  the  Numidians  in  the  two  armies,  Hannibal's  elephants  advanced 
to  the  charge ;  but  being  startled  by  the  sound  of  the  Roman  trumpets,  and  an- 
noyed by  the  light-armed  troops  of  the  enemy,  some  broke  off  to  the  right  and 
left,  and  fell  in  amongst  the  cavalry  of  their  own  army  on  both  the  wings ;  so 
that  Laelius  and  Masinissa,  availing  themselves  of  this  disorder,  drove  the  Cartha- 
ginian horse  speedily  from  the  field.  Others  advanced  against  the  enemy's  line, 
and  did  much  mischief;  till  at  length,  being  frightened,  and  becoming  ungov- 
ernable, they  were  enticed  by  the  light-armed  troops  of  the  Romans  to  follow 
them  down  the  avenues  which  Scipio  had  purposely  left  open,  and  were  thus 
drawn  out  of  the  action  altogether.  Meantime  the  infantry  on  both  sides  met : 
and  after  a  fierce  contest,  the  foreign  troops  in  Hannibal's  army,  not  being  prop- 
erly supported  by  the  soldiers  of  the  second  line,  were  forced  to  give  ground  ; 
and  in  resentment  for  this  desertion,  they  fell  upon  the  Africans  and  Cartha- 
ginians, and  cut  them  down  as  enemies ;  so  that  these  troops,  at  once  assaulted 
by  their  fellow-soldiers,  and  by  the  pursuing  enemy,  were  also,  after  a  brave  re- 
sistance, defeated  and  dispersed.  Hannibal,  with  his  reserve,  kept  off  the  fugi- 
tives, by  presenting  spears  to  them,  and  obliging  them  to  escape  in  a  different 
direction ;  and  he  then  prepared  to  meet  the  enemy,  trusting  that  they  would  be 
ill  able  to  resist  the  shock  of  a  fresh  body  of  veterans,  after  having  already  been 
engaged  in  a  long  and  obstinate  struggle.  Scipio,  after  having  extricated  his 
troops  from  the  heaps  of  dead  which  lay  between  him  and  Hannibal,  commenced 
a  second,  and  a  far  more  serious  contest.  The  soldiers  on  both  sides  were  per- 
fect in  courage  and  in  discipline  ;  and  as  the  battle  went  on,  they  fell  in  the  ranks 
where  they  fought,  and  their  places  were  supplied  by  their  comrades  with  un- 
abated zeal.  At  last  Laelius  and  Masinissa  returned  from  the  pursuit  of  the 
enemy's  beaten  cavalry,  and  fell,  in  a  critical  moment,  upon  the  rear  of  Hannibal's 
army.6  Then  his  veterans,  surrounded  and  overpowered,  still  maintained  their 

8  The  battle  of  Marengo  forms,    in  many  tance  from  the  scene  of  the  first  engagement, 

points,  an  exact  parallel  with  that  of  Zama.  The  struggle,  which  was  obstinately  maintained, 

The  Austrians  having  routed    the  advanced  was  decided,  as  at  Zama,  by  a  timely  charge  of 

divisions  of  the  French  army,  commenced  an  cavalry  on  the  flank  of  the  enemy's  infantry; 

entirely  new  action  with  the  reserve,  which  but  the  victorious  cavalry  in  the  two  battles  did 

Bonaparte,  like  Hannibal,  had  kept  at  a  dis-  not  belong  to  the  armies  whose  situations  cor- 


614  HISTORY  OF  ROME  [SUPPLEMENT 

high  reputation  ;  and  most  of  them  were  cut  down  where  they  stood,  resisting  to 
the  last.  Flight,  indeed,  was  not  easy ;  for  the  country  was  a  plain,  and  the 
Roman  and  Numidian  horse  were  active  in  pursuit ;  yet  Hannibal,  when  he  saw 
the  battle  totally  lost,  with  a  nobler  fortitude  than  his  brother  had  shown  at  the 
Metaurus,  escaped  from  the  field  to  Adrumetum.  He  knew  that  his  country 
would  now  need  his  assistance  more  than  ever  ;  and  as  he  had  been  in  so  great  a 
degree  the  promoter  of  the  war,  it  ill  became  him  to  shrink  from  bearing  his  full 
share  of  the  weight  of  its  disastrous  issue. 

On  the  plains  of  Zama  twenty  thousand  of  the  Carthaginian  army  were  slain 
and  an  equal  number  taken  prisoners ;  but  the  consequences  of  the 

Results  of  the  battle.        i          i      /•  11, i  *  .1    v   .  T  •  T 

battle  far  exceeded  the  greatness  of  the  immediate  victory.  It  wa? 
not  the  mere  destruction  of  an  army,  but  the  final  conquest  of  the  only  power 
that  seemed  able  to  combat  Rome  on  equal  terms.  In  the  state  of  the  ancient 
world,  with  so  few  nations  really  great  and  powerful,  and  so  little  of  a  common 
feeling  pervading  them,  there  was  neither  the  disposition  nor  the  materials  for 
forming  a  general  confederacy  against  the  power  of  Rome ;  and  the  single  effort* 
of  Macedonia,  of  Syria,  and  of  Carthage  herself,  after  the  fatal  event  of  the  sec* 
ond  Punic  war,  were  of  no  other  use  than  to  provoke  their  own  ruin.  The  defeal 
of  Hannibal  insured  the  empire  of  the  ancient  civilized  world. 

The  only  hope  of  the  Carthaginians  now  rested  on  the  forbearance  of  Scipio  • 
Terms  of  the  pewe  and  they  again  sent  deputies  to  him,  with  a  full  confession  of  the 
Canted  to  canhage.  injustice  of  their  conduct  in  the  first  origin  of  the  war,  and  still 
more  in  their  recent  violation  of  the  truce,  and  with  a  renewal  of  their  supplica- 
tions for  peace.  The  conqueror,  telling  them  that  he  was  moved  solely  by  consid- 
erations of  the  dignity  of  Rome,  and  the  uncertainty  of  all  human  greatness,  and 
in  no  degree  by  any  pity  for  misfortunes  which  were  so  well  deserved,  presented 
the  terms  on  which  alone  they  could  hope  for  mercy.  "  They  were  to  make 
amends  for  the  injuries  done  to  the  Romans  during  the  truce ;  to  restore  all  pris- 
oners and  deserters ;  to  give  up  all  their  ships  of  war,  except  ten,  and  all  theii 
elephants ;  to  engage  in  no  war  at  all  out  of  Africa,  nor  in  Africa  without  the  con- 
sent of  the  Romans ;  to  restore  to  Masinissa  all  that  had  belonged  to  him  or  any 
of  his  ancestors ;  to  feed  the  Roman  army  for  three  months,  and  pay  it  till  it 
should  be  recalled  home ;  to  pay  a  contribution  of  ten  thousand  Euboic  talents, 
at  the  rate  of  two  hundred  talents  a  year,  for  fifty  years ;  and  to  give  a  hundred 
hostages,  between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and  thirty,  to  be  selected  at  the  pleasure 
of  the  Roman  general."  At  this  price  the  Carthaginians  were  allowed  to  hold 
their  former  dominion  in  Africa,  and  to  enjoy  their  independence,  till  it  should 
seem  convenient  to  the  Romans  to  complete  their  destruction.  Yet  Hannibal 
strongly  urged  that  the  terms  should  be  accepted,  and,  it  is  said,  rudely  inter- 
rupted7 a  member  of  the  supreme  council  at  Carthage,  who  was  speaking  against 
them.  He  probably  felt,  as  his  father  had  done  under  circumstances  nearly  sim- 
ilar, that  for  the  present  resistance  was  vain ;  but  that  by  purchasing  peace  at 
any  price,  and  by  a  wise  management  of  their  internal  resources,  his  countrymen 
might  again  find  an  opportunity  to  recover  their  losses.  Peace  was  accordingly 
signed ;  the  Roman  army  returned  to  Italy ;  and  Hannibal,  at  the  age  of  forty- 
five,  having  seen  the  schemes  of  his  whole  life  utterly  ruined,  was  now  beginning, 
with  equal  patience  and  resolution,  to  lay  the  foundation  for  them  again. 

From  our  scanty  notices  of  the  succeeding  years  of  his  life,  we  learn  that  his 
wue  domestic  policy  of  conduct,  as  B.  citizen,  displayed  great  wisdom  and  great  integrity. 
"Tuuncarthagefraud  He  is  said  to  have  reduced  the  exorbitant8  power  of  an  order  of 
goe.  to  AMiochu..'  perpetual  judges,  whose  authority  was  very  extensive,  and  had  been 
greatly  abused.  He  turned  his  attention  also  to  the  employment  of  the  public 

respond  with  one  another ;  for  at  Zama  the  re-  thieu  Dumas,  Campagnt  do  1300,  and  Victmret 

serve  was  defeated  by  the  charge  of  Lielius  ;  et,  Conquetes  des  Fran<;aii.  tome  >aii. 

while  it  was  victorious  at  Mare'ngo,  owing  to  7  Polybius,  XV.  19. 

the  attack  made  by  Kellerman.     See  C4en.  Mat-  8  Livy,  XXXIII.  45,  46,  &c. 


ftCPPLEMENT.]  CONCLUSION.  615 

revenue,  much  of  •tvhich  he  found  to  be  embezzled  by  persons  in  office,  while  the 
people  were  heavily  taxed  to  raise  the  yearly  contributions  due  to  the  Romans 
by  the  last  treaty.  When  a  man  of  such  high  character  raised  his  voice  against 
BO  gross  an  abuse,  there  was  yet  vigor  enough  in  the  popular  part  of  the  Cartha- 
ginian constitution  to  give  him  effectual  support ;  and  it  appears  that  th"  <5vil  was 
removed,  and  the  public  revenue  henceforward  applied  to  public  services.  Han- 
nibal, however,  had  thus  created  many  powerful  enemies ;  a.nd  ere  long  they 
found  an  opportunity  of  gratifying  their  hatred.  The  war  between  Rome  and 
Macedonia  had  lately  been  concluded ;  and  the  success  of  the  Romans,  and  their 
commanding  interference  in  the  affairs  of  Greece,  awakened  the  fears  and  jealousy 
of  Antiochus,  king  of  Syria,  whose  kingdom  was  the  greatest  possessed  by  any 
of  the  successors  of  Alexander.  He  seemed  disposed  to  take  up  the  contest 
which  Philip,  king  of  Macedonia,  had  been  compelled  to  resign  ;  and  the  Romans 
were  either  informed,  or  fancied,  that  Hannibal  was  using  all  his  influence  at 
Carthage  to  persuade  his  countrymen  to  join  him.  Accordingly  a  commission 
was  sent  to  the  Carthaginian  government,  requiring  them  to  punish  Hannibal  as 
a  disturber  of  the  peace  between  the  two  nations.  Hannibal,  knowing  that  he 
should  be  unable  to  resist  the  efforts  of  his  domestic  enemies,  when  thus  sup- 
ported by  the  influence  of  Rome,  seems  at  last  to  have  surrendered  his  long- 
cherished  hopes  of  restoring  his  country  to  her  ancient  greatness.  He  found 
means  to  escape  from  Carthage,  and  procured  a  vessel  to  transport  him  to  Tyre, 
where  he  was  received  with  all  the  honors  due  to  a  man  who  had  shed  such 
glory  on  the  Phoenician  name,  and  from  whence  he  easily  reached  the  court  oi 
Antiochus,  at  Antioch.  Finding  that  the  king  was  already  set  out  on  his  way 
towards  Greece,  he  followed  and  overtook  him  at  Ephesus ;  and  being  cordially 
received,  he  contributed  powerfully  to  fix  him  in  his  determination  to  declare 
war  on  the  Romans,  and  was  retained  near  his  person,  as  one  of  his  most  valuable 
counsellors. 

The  ability  of  Hannibal  was  displayed  again  on  this  new  occasion,  by  the  plans 
which  he  recommended  for  the  prosecution  of  the  war.  He  first  War  of  An«ocinn. 
and  most  strongly  urged  that  he  should  be  sent9  with  an  army  into  "*Tb0f  Su'  ilu 
Italy ;  there,  he  said,  the  Romans  were  most  vulnerable  ;  and  an  death- 
attack  made  upon  their  own  country  might  distract  their  counsels,  and  at  least 
lessen  their  means  of  carrying  on  hostilities  in  Greece  or  Asia.  When  this  meas- 
ure was  abandoned,  owing,  as  it  is  said,  to  the  king's  jealousy  of  the  glory  which 
Hannibal  would  gain  by  its  success,  his  next  proposal  was10  that  the  alliance  of 
Philip,  king  of  Macedon,  should  be  purchased  at  any  price.  Macedon  was  a 
power  strong  enough  to  take  a  substantial  part  in  the  war,  and  would  be  too  im- 
portant to  escape,  as  the  little  second  or  third-rate  states  might  do,  by  forsaking 
its  ally  as  soon  as  he  should  experience  any  reverses.  This  counsel  was  also 
neglected  ;  and  Philip  united  himself  with  the  Romans  against  Antiochus  ;  so 
that  Hannibal,  employed  only  in  a  subordinate  naval  command,  a  duty  for  which 
his  experience  had  in  no  way  fitted  him,  could  render  the  king  no  essential  service  ; 
and  in  a  short  time,  when  the  Romans  had  brought  the  war  to  a  triumphant  end, 
he  was  obliged  to  seek  another  asylum,  as  Antiochus  had  agreed,  by  one  of  the 
articles11  of  the  treaty,  to  surrender  him  up  to  the  Roman  government.  His  last 
refuge  was  the  court  of  Prusias,  king  of  Bithynia.  With  that  prince  he  remained 
about  five  years;  and  it  is  mentioned  by  Cornelius  Nepos,  that  he  gained  a  vic- 
tory, while  commanding  his  fleet,  over  his  old  enemy  Eumenes,  king  of  Per- 
gamus.  All  his  own  prospects  had  long  since  been  utterly  ruined  ;  and  the  con- 
dition of  such  a  man,  reduced  to  the  state  of  a  dependent  exile,  under  the  pro- 
tection of  so  humble  a  sovereign  as  Prusias,  might  have  satisfied  the  most  violent 
hatred  of  the  Romans.  But  it  seems  they  could  not  be  free  from  uneasiness 
while  Hannibal  lived  ;  and  when  a  Roman  embassy  was  sent  to  the  court  of  Pru- 

1  Livy,  XXXW.  60.  Livy,  XXXVI.  T  »  Polybius,  XXI.  U. 


016  HISTORY  OF  ROME.  [SUPPLKMEN* 

sias,  that  king,  whether  spontaneously,  or  at  the  solicitation  of  the  ambassadors, 
promised  to  pui  their  great  enemy  into  their  hands.  His  treachery,  however,  was 
suspected  by  Hannibal ;  and  when  he  found  the  avenues  to  his  house  secured  by 
the  king's  guards,  he  is  said  to  have  destroyed  himself  by  a  poison  which  he  had 
long  carried  about  him  for  such  an  emergency.  Some  particulars  are  added  by 
Livy  and  Plutarch,  which,  not  being  credibly  attested,  nor  likely  to  have  become 
publicly  known,  it  is  needless  to  insert  here.  It  is  sufficient  to  say,  that  Hanni- 
bal died  by  his  own  hand,  to  avoid  falling  into  the  power  of  the  Romans,  at 
Nicomedia,  in  Bithynia ;  and,  as  nearly  as  we  can  ascertain,  in  the  sixty-fourth 
year  of  his  age. 

If  the  characters  of  men  be  estimated  according  to  the  steadiness  with  which 
HI. diameter  ^e7  have  followed  the  true  principle  of  action,  we  cannot  assign 

a  high  place  to  Hannibal.  But  if  patriotism  were  indeed  the  great- 
est of  virtues,  and  a  resolute  devotion  to  the  interests  of  his  country  were  all  the 
duty  that  a  public  man  can  be  expected  to  fulfil,  he  would  then  deserve  tlir»  most 
lavish  praise.  Nothing  can  be  more  unjust  than  the  ridicule  with  which  Juvenal 
has  treated  his  motives,  as  if  he  had  been  actuated  merely  by  a  romantic  de- 
sire of  glory.  On  the  contrary,  his  whole  conduct  displays  the  loftiest  genius, 
and  the  boldest  spirit  of  enterprise,  happily  subdued  and  directed  by  a  cool  judg- 
ment to  the  furtherance  of  the  honor  and  interests  of  his  country  ;  and  his  sacri- 
fice of  selfish  pride  and  passion,  when  after  the  battle  of  Zama  he  urged  the 
acceptance  of  peace,  and  lived  to  support  the  disgrace  of  Carthage,  with  the  pa- 
tient hope  of  one  day  repairing  it,  affords  a  strong  contrast  to  the  cowardly  despah 
with  which  some  of  the  best  of  the  Romans  deprived  their  country  of  their 
service  by  suicide.  Of  the  extent  of  his  abilities,  the  history  of  his  life  is  the 
best  evidence :  as  a  general,  his  conduct  remains  uncharged  with  a  single  error  ; 
for  the  idle  censure  which  Livy  presumes  to  pass  on  him  for  not  marching  to 
Rome  after  the  battle  of  Cannae,  is  founded  on  such  mere  ignorance,  that  it  does 
not  deserve  any  serious  notice.  His  knowledge  of  human  nature,  and  his  ascendency 
over  men's  minds,  are  shown  by  the  uninterrupted  authority  which  he  exercised 
alike  in  his  prosperity  and  adversity  over  an  army  composed  of  so  many  various  and 
discordant  materials,  and  which  had  no  other  bond  than  the  personal  character 
of  the  leader.  As  a  statesman,  he  was  at  once  manly,  disinterested,  and  sensible ; 
a  real  reformer  of  abuses  in  his  domestic  policy,  and  in  his  measures,  with  respect 
to  foreign  enemies,  keeping  the  just  limit  between  weakness  and  blind  obstinacy. 
He  stands  reproached,  however,  with  covetousness  by  the  Carthaginians,  and 
with  cruelty  by  the  Romans.  The  first  charge  is  sustained  by  no  facts  that  have 
been  transmitted  to  us  ;  and  it  is  a  curious  circumstance,  that  the  very  same  vice 
was  long  imputed  by  party  violence  to  the  great  duke  of  Marlborough,  and  that 
the  imputation  has  been  lately  proved  by  his  biographer  to  have  been  utterly 
calumnious.  Of  cruelty  indeed,  according  to  modern  principles,  he  cannot  be 
acquitted  ;  and  his  putting  to  death  all  the  Romans  whom  he  found  on  his  march 
through  Italy,  after  the  battle  of  the  lake  Thrasymenus,  was  a  savage  excess 
of  hostility.  Yet  many  instances  of  courtesy,  are  recorded  of  him,  even  by  his 
enemies,  in  his  treatment  of  the  bodies  of  the  generals  who  fell  in  action  against 
him  ;  and  certainly,  if  compared  with  the  ordinary  proceedings  of  Roman  com- 
manders, his  actions  deserve  no  peculiar  brand  of  barbarity.  Still  it  is  little  to 
his  honor,  that  he  was  not  more  careless  of  human  suffering  than  Marcellus  or 
Scipio ;  nor  can  the  urgency  of  his  circumstances,  or  the  evil  influence  of  his 
friends,  to  both  which  Polybius  attributes  much  of  the  cruelty  ascribed  to  him, 
be  justly  admitted  as  a  defence.  It  is  the  prevailing  crime  of  -men  in  high  sta- 
tion to  be  forgetful  of  individual  misery,  so  long  as  it  Torwards  their  grand 
objects;  and  it  is  most  important,  that  our  admiration  of  great  ^public  talents 
and  brilliant  successes  should  not  lead  us  to  tolerate  an  indifference  to  human 
suffering. 


CONSULS  AtfD  MILITARY  TRIBUNES. 

FROM  THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  COMMONWEALTH  TO  THE  TAKIHO 
0?  ROME  BY  THE  GAULS. 


618 


HISTORY  OF  ROME. 


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EXPLANATION  OF  THE  FIRST  TABLES. 


THE  preceding  tables  exhibit  a  view  of  the  lists  of  consuls  and  military  tribunes  from 
the  beginning  of  the  commonwealth  to  the  Gaulish  invasion,  according  to  four  distinct 
authorities :  the  remains  of  the  Fasti  Capitolini,  Livy,  Diodorus  Siculus,  and  Dionysiua 
of  Halicarnassus.  And  I  have  endeavored  to  arrange  each  list  according  to  the  chronol- 
ogy adopted  by  its  own  particular  author;  so  that  as  this  chronology  varies,  the  same 
year  will  be  found  marked  by  the  names  of  different  sets  of  consuls,  according  as  we 
prefer  one  of  these  four  authorities  to  the  other. 

I.  The  principal  fragments  of  the  Fasti  Capitolini  were  discr.vered  in  the  year  1546, 
in  the  course  of  some  excavations  which  were  then  being  male  on  the  ground  of  the 
ancient  Forum.     They  have  been  preserved  in  the  museum  of  the  Capitol,  and  their 
contents  have  been  long  known  to  the  world,  as  they  have  been  often  published.     My 
extracts  have  been  taken  from  the  edition  of  Sigonius;  and  I  have  been  careful  to  give 
them  in  their  genuine  state,  without  noticing  the  additions  by  which  Sigonius  attempted 
to  supply  from  conjecture  the  lost  or  effaced  words  of  the  original  marble. 

It  happened,  however,  that  about  two  hundred  and  seventy  years  after  the  discovery 
of  these  fragments,  two  other  fragments  of  the  same  marble  were  brought  to  light  in 
the  course  of  a  new  excavation  in  the  Forum,  on  the  very  spot  where  the  former  re- 
mains had  been  found.  This  was  in  the  years  1817  and  1818;  and  Signor  Borghesi,  an 
eminent  Italian  antiquary,  published  a  foe-simile  of  these  new  portions  of  the  Fasti,  and 
illustrated  them  in  two  able  memoirs  published  at  Milan  in  the  year  1818.  The  new 
pieces  joined  on  exactly  with  those  discovered  before ;  so  that  in  several  instances  a 
word,  of  which  only  one  syllable  had  been  preserved  in  the  former  fragments,  was  now 
completed  by  the  d'iscovery  of  the  remaining  syllable,  after  an  interval  of  nearly  three 
centuries.  I  have,  therefore,  copied  their  contents  from  Borghesi's  edition,  and  incorpo- 
rated them  with  the  older  fragments  published  long  ago  by  Sigonius. 

These  Fasti  do  not  notice  the  Greek  Olympiads;  but  they  preserve  in  several  places 
notices  of  the  years  from  the  foundation  of  Rome.  Thus  the  consulship  of  Sex.  Quinc- 
tilius  and  P.  Cunatus  is  placed  in  the  year  300,  and  the  triumph  of  the  consuls  who  im- 
mediately succeeded  the  decemvirate,  M.  Horatius  and  L.  Valerius,  is  assigned  to  the 
month  of  August,  304.  It  appears,  then,  that  these  Fasti  only  allow  two  years  to  the 
decemvirate,  and  not  three ;  and,  moreover,  that  they  place  its  commencement  in  the 
year  302,  agreeing  in  that  respect  with  the  chronology  of  Livy. 

II.  Livy  also  makes  no  mention  of  the  Greek  chronology ;  but  he  too,  from  time  to 
time,  notices  the  years  from  the  building  of  Rome.     Thus  he  places  the  first  institution 
of  the  military  tribuneship  in  310  (IV.  7),  and  the  beginning  of  the  decemvirate  in  302 
(III.  33).     Taking  these  two  dates  for  my  starting  points,  I  have  calculated  from  them 
the  dates  of  the  years  before  and  after  them,  according  to  Livy's  list  of  consuls.     This 
brings  the  date  of  the  expulsion  of  the  Tarquins  to  the  year  247;  but  then  it  seems 
probable  that  Livy  has  omitted  the  consuls  of  the  fourth  year  of  the  commonwealth  by 
accident;  and  it  seems  as  if  he  had  omitted  those  of  one  or  two  years  more  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  great  Volscian  war  of  Coriolanus.     With  the  addition  of  these  three 
years,  the  first  year  of  the  commonwealth  would  become  the  year  244,  which  would 
agree  with  Livy's  own  calculation  of  the  reigns  of  the  several  kings;  but  as  my  object 
in  these  tables  was  rather  to  give  the  actual  chronology  of  the  several  authorities  than 
to  endeavor  to  correct  it,  I  have  reckoned  no  greater  number  of  consulships  in  the  table 
of  the  Fasti  according  to  Livy,  than  Livy  himself  allows  for. 

III.  Dionysius  regularly  gives  the  Olympiads  along  with  the  Roman  consulships,  so 
that  the  synchronistic  part  of  his  chronology  can  be  ascertained  with  certainty.     With 
him,  the  first  year  of  the  commonwealth  is  the  first  year  of  the  sixty-eighth  Olympiad 
(I.  74) ;  and  the  Gaulish  invasion  falls  in  the  first  year  of  the  ninety-eighth  Olympiad; 
BO  that  there  were  just  one  hundred  and  twenty  years  between  them.    Again, 'the  first 


628  HISTORY  OF  ROME. 

year  of  the  commonwealth  is  the  two  hundred  and  forty-fifth  from  the  foundation  of 
Rome  (I.  75) ;  so  that  the  Gaulish  invasion  falls,  according  to  Dionysius,  in  the  year  of 
Rome  365,  and  the  intermediate  years  can,  therefore,  be  determined  without  difficulty 
But  as  the  remaining  part  of  Dionysius'  history  ends  at  the  year  of  Rome  312,  we  can 
not  compare  his  lists  of  the  consuls  and  military  tribunes,  from  313  to  365,  with  thost 
of  the  Fasti  Capitolini,  of  Livy,  and  of  Diodorus. 

IV.  Diodorus  gives  the  Olympiads  also,  but  his  synchronistic  system  does  not  agreo 
with  that  of  Dionysius.  We  have  not  his  list  of  the  early  consulships,  because  his  tenth 
book  which  contained  them  is  lost :  but  the  seventy-fifth  Olympiad  fall?,  according  to 
him,  in  the  consulship  of  Sp.  Cassius  and  Proclus  Virginius,  whereas  that  s^e  consul, 
ship  is  by  Dionysius  placed  five  years  earlier,  in  the  last  year  of  the  seventy-third  Olym- 
piad. Accordingly,  if  the  list  of  consuls  in  the  two  writers  had  continued  to  agree  with 
one  another,  the  invasion  of  the  Gauls  would  have  fallen,  by  Diodorus'  reckoning,  in 
the  second  year  of  the  ninety-ninth  Olympiad.  And  yet  he  does  place  it  in  the  second 
year  of  the  ninety-eighth  Olympiad.  This  is  the  date  assigned  to  it  by  Polybius  (I.  6), 
and  it  was  probably  so  generally  agreed  upon,  that  Diodorus  thought  himself  obliged  to 
conform  his  reckoning  to  it.  He  had  already  introduced  into  his  list  several  variations 
from  the  Fasti  followed  by  Dionysius.  For  instance,  he  had  omitted  the  consulship  of 
C.  Julius  and  Q.  Fabius,  which  Dionysius  places  in  Olymp.  74-4 ;  and  he  had  then  in- 
serted two  consulships  unknown  to  Dionysius,  to  Livy,  and  to  the  Fasti  Capitolini,  in 
Olymp.  82-2,  and  82-3.  Thus  the  first  year  of  the  decemvirate,  which  according  to  Dio- 
nysius was  Olymp.  82-3,  is  with  Diodorus  Olymp.  84-1.  The  difference  is  then  reduced 
by  one  year,  because  Diodorus  assigns  only  two  years  to  the  decemvirate  instead  of 
three ;  and  thus  the  famous  consulship  of  L.  Valerius  and  M.  Horatius  is  placed  by  him 
five  years  later  than  by  Dionysius,  in  Olymp.  84-3  instead  of  Olymp.  83-2.  But  after 
this  he  inserts  another  consulship  in  Olymp.  90-1,  so  that  the  difference  is  again  raised 
to  six  years,  and  the  Gaulish  invasion  ought  consequently  to  have  been  placed  in  Olymp. 
99-3.  To  prevent  this,  and  to  bring  it  to  Olymp.  98-2,  he  strikes  out  the  consulships 
and  military  tribuneships  of  five  years  from  Olymp.  91-2  to  Olymp.  92-2  inclusive,  so  that 
the  tribunes  whom  he  places  in  Olymp.  91-2  are  L.  Sergius,  M.  Papirius,  and  M.  Servilius, 
whom  he  ought,  according  to  his  own  system,  to  have  placed  in  Olymp.  92-3.  The  ob- 
iect  desired  is  thus  accomplished,  and  the  Gaulish  invasion  is  in  this  manner  thrown  back 
to  Olymp.  98-2.  But  so  resolved  was  Diodorus  to  follow  his  own  system  in  his  general 
chronology,  although  he  had  felt  himself  in  a  manner  forced  to  depart  from  it  in  giving 
the  date  of  the  Gaulish  invasion,  that,  in  order  to  return  to  it,  he  fills  up  the  five  years 
following  Olymp.  98-2  with  the  very  same  consulships  and  tribuneships  which  he  had 
already  given  for  it  and  the  four  years  preceding  it;  so  that  the  military  tribunes  of 
Olymp.  99-4  are,  in  fact,  the  tribunes  of  the  year  next  after  the  Gaulish  invasion,  and 
those  of  Olymp.  99-3  are  evidently,  although  the  names  are  grievously  corrupted,  the 
very  same  with  the  tribunes  whom  he  had  before  placed  in  Olymp.  98-2,  and  under  whose 
tribuneship  he  had  given  his  account  of  the  Gaulish  war. 

Thus  much  will  suffice  in  illustration  of  the  table.  It  may  be  observed,  however,  as 
a  proof  of  the  confusion  of  the  early  chronology  of  Rome,  that  the  only  instance  in  which 
the  Roman  annals  of  this  period  attempted  any  synchronism  with  the  events  of  foreign 
history,  tends  but  to  perplex  the  subject  still  more.  The  annals  of  the  year  of  Rome 
323,  according  to  Livy's  reckoning,  that  is,  the  year  of  the  consulship  of  T.  Quintius  and 
C.  Julius,  had  recorded  that  in  that  year  the  Carthaginians  first  crossed  over  with  an  army 
into  Sicily,  having  been  invited  to  take  part  in  the  domestic  wars  of  the  Sicilian  states. 
Now  this  year,  according  to  Dionysius,  was  Olymp.  87-4,  and  according  to  Diodorus  it 
would  be  Olymp.  89-1.  But  the  Carthaginians  crossed  over  into  Sicily,  for  the  first  time 
since  the  reign  of  Gelon,  in  Olymp.  92-3,  according  to  Diodorus,  XIII.  43,  and  this  is  con- 
firmed  by  Xenophon,  Hellenic.  I.  1,  ad  finem,  so  that  the  true  date  of  this  event  is  nine- 
teen years  later  than  the  date  assigned  to  it  in  the  Roman  annals,  if  we  follow  the  reck- 
oning of  Dionysius,  and  fourteen  years  later  if  we  follow  that  of  Diodorus.  Niebuhr 
supposes  that  the  Roman  annalists  confused  the  Carthaginian  invasion  with  the  first  ap- 
pearance of  an  Athenian  fleet  in  Sicily,  namely,  with  the  expedition  of  Laches,  in  the  fifth 
year  of  the  Peloponnesian  war  (Thucydides,  III.  86),  that  is,  in  Olymp.  88-2.  But  this 
is  one  of  the  very  few  conjectures  of  Niebuhr  which  appear  to  me  quite  improbable.  The 
expedition  of  Laches  consisted  only  of  twenty  ships,  and  its  operations  were  so  insignifi- 
cant that  it  cannot  be  conceived  to  have  attracted  the  attention  of  the  Romans.  But  the 
Carthaginian  expedition  which  Hannibal  led  against  Selinus  consisted,  according  to  the 
lowest  computation,  of  one  hundred  thousand  men  and  sixty  ships  of  war ;  and  his  great 
success  in  the  destruction  of  so  powerful  a  city  as  Selinus  was  likely  to  have  spread  ter- 
ror through  all  the  neighboring  countries.  Yet  how  is  it  possible  to  make  the  ninety- 


EXPLANATION  OF  THE  FIRST  TABLES.  629 

second  Olympiad  synchronize  with  the  consulship  of  T.  Quinctius  and  C.  lulius,  that  is. 
with  the  year  323  or  324  of  Rome  ? 

Note. — I  have  said  that  Livy  places  the  beginning  of  the  decemvirate  in  the  year  302. 
His  words  are,  "Anno  trecentesirao  altero  quam  condita  Roma  erat."  III.  33.  But  Sigo- 
nius  understands  this  to  mean  the  year  301,  although  he  finds  it  difficult  to  make  out 
nine  years  in  Livy's  narrative  between  the  first  decemvirate  and  the  institution  of  the 
military  tribuneship,  which  Livy  places  beyond  all  dispute  in  the  year  310.  As  to  the 
grammatical  question,  although  I  am  aware  that  the  point  has  been  contested,  yet  it 
seems  to  me  certain  that  "Anno  trecentesimo  altero"  must  signify  the  year  302,  and  not 
301.  For  "alter"  must  immediately  precede  "tertius,"  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  -that 
"Anno  trecentesimo  tertio"  would  signify  the  year  303.  The  confusion  seems  to  have 
arisen  from  such  expressions  as  "  alter  ab  undecimo,"  which,  although  Servius  interprets 
even  this  to  mean  the  "  thirteenth,"  may  yet,  I  suppose,  be  fairly  understood  to  be  the 
twelfth,  because  here  the  inclusive  system  of  reckoning  is  followed,  and  the  eleventh 
year  itself  is  counted  as  the  first,  the  tweTth  as  the  second  from  the  eleventh,  the 
thirteenth  as  the  third,  and  so  on.  Thus  the  thirteenth  of  March  is,  according  to  the 
Roman  reckoning,  the  third  day  before  the  Ides,  or  fifteenth,  because  the  fifteenth  itself 
is  reckoned  as  the  first.  But  in  abstract  numeral  expressions,  such  as  "  trecentesimo 
altero,"  it  is  different,  for  here  the  inclusive  system  is  not  followed,  and  "  alter"  is  there- 
lore  the  "second"  in  our  sense  of  the  word,  and  "trecentesimo  primo"  would  be  the 
date  of  the  year  preceding  it,  The  usage  of  the  Greek  word  Stvrepos  is  exactly  analo- 
gous to  this.  Aturffjqj  CTCI  ficra  rrjv  nd\jf}v  would  be  the  year  next  after  the  battle,  which  we 
should  more  naturally  call  the  "first  year"  after  it.  But  'OAu/in-iaf  tevrtpa  irp3y  ra?j  fKartv 
is  not  the  one  hundred  and  first,  but  the  one  hundred  and  second  Olympiad.  If  Sigo- 
nius'  interpretation  could  be  shown  to  be  right,  it  would  only  embarrass  his  system  still 
more;  for  if  "trecentesimo  altero"  means  what  we  should  call  "the  three  hundred  and 
first,"  then  "trecentesimo  decimo"  in  Livy,  IV.  7,  must  be  what  we  should  call  the 
"  three  hundred  and  ninth,"  it  being  certain  that  in  all  reckoning*  "  alter"  is  immediately 
followed  by  "  tertius." 


HISTORY  OF  ROME. 


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T.  Quintius  Cincinnatus 
Q.  Servilius  Fidenas  V. 
L.  Julius  Julus 
L.  Aquillius  Corvu3 
L.  Lucretius  Tricipitinus 
Ser.  Sulpicius  Rufus 

Tribb.  Milit.—  VL  5. 
L.  Papirius 
C.  Cornelius 
C.  Sergius 
L.  -<Emilius  II. 
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L.  Valerius  Publicola  III. 

TViftA.  JHUit.—VL  6. 
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Ser.  Cornelius  Maluginensia 
Q.  Servilius  Fidenas  VI. 
L.  Quintius  Cincinnatus 
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P.  Cornelius 

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L.  Papirius  Cursor  II. 
C.  Sergius  11. 

Tribb.  Milit.—VL  18. 
Ser.  Cornelius  Maluginen&ls 
III. 
P.  Valerius  Potitus  II. 
M.  Furius  Camillus 
Ser.  Sulpicius  Rui'us  II. 
C.  Papirius  Crassus 
T.  Quintius  Cincinnatus  II. 

7>«Afr.  Milit.—  VI.  ai. 
L.Valerius  IV. 
A.  Manlius  Ilf. 
Ser.  Sulpicius  IIL 
L.  Lucretius 
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in  hoc  honore  Censorin.  appel.  e. 

BELLUM  PUNICUM  PRIM 
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M.  Fulvius  Q.F.M.N.  Flaccus. 
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bus.  An.  CDXXCIX.  K.  Nov. 

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T.  Otacilius  C.F.M'N.  Crassus. 

Cn.  Cornelius  L.F.Cn.N.  Scipio  Asina. 
C.  Duilius  M.F.M.N. 
C.  Duilius  M.F.M.N.  Cos.  Primus  Navalem 
De  Sicul.  et  classe  Poenica  egit  An.  CDXCIII. 
K.  Interkalar. 

L.  Cornelius  L.F.Cn.N.  Scipio 
C.  Aquilius  M.F.C.N.  Florus 
L.  Cornelius  L.F.Cu.N.  Scipio  Cos.  De  Poeneis  et 
Sardin.  Corsica  An.  CDXCIV.  V.  Id.  Mart. 

A.  Atilius  A.F.C.N.  Calatinus 
C.  Sulpicius  Q.F.Q.N.  Paterculus 
C.  Aquilius  M.F.C.N.  Florus  Pro  Cos.  De  Poeneis 
An.  CDXCV.  IIII.  Non.  Octob. 
C.  Sulpicius  Q.F.Q.N.  Paterculus  Cos.  De  Poeneis 
et  Sardeis  An.  CDXC  III  ... 
Cens.  C.  Duilius  M.F.M  cipi  .... 

C.  Atilius  M.F.M.N.  Regulus 
Cn  
Q.  Ogulnius  L.F.A.N.  Callus 

M.DLC£torius  M.F.M.N.  Plan-  Latinar"  Fen  Causa' 
cianus  Mag.  eq. 
A.  Atilius  A.F.C.N.  Calatinus  Pr.  ex  Sicilia  De 
Poenis.  An  XIIU.  K.  F  .  .  . 
C.  Atilius  M.F.M.N.  Regulus  Cos.  De  Poenis  Nava- 
lem egit  VIII  

L.  Manlius  A.F.P.N.  Vulso  Longus. 
Q.  Caedicius  Q.F.Q.N.  In  Mag.  mort.  e.  in  ejus 
locum  factus  est 
M.  Atilius  M.F.L.N.  Regulus. 
L.  Manlius  A.F.P.N.  Vulso  Long.  Cos.  De  Pcenis 
Navalem  egit  VII  .  .  .  An.  .  . 

Ser.  Fulvius  M.F.M.N.  Paetin.  Nobilior 
M.  Aimilius  M.F.L.N.  Paullus. 

Cn.  Cornelius  L.F.  Cn.  N.  Scipio  Asina 
A.  Atilius  A.F.C.N.  Calatinus. 
Ser.  Fulvius  M.F.M.N.  Paetinus  Nobilior  Pro  Cos. 
De  Cossurensibus  et  Pceneis  Navalem  egit  XIII. 
K.  Febr.  A.  CDXCIX. 
M.  Aimilius  M.F.L.N.  Paullus  Pro  Cos.  De  Cos- 
surensibus et  Poenis  Navalem  egit  XII.  K.  Febr. 
An.  CDXCIX. 

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C.  Sempronius  Ti.  F.  Ti.  N.  Blaesus 
Cens.  D.  Junius  D.F.D.N.  Pera.  Abd. 
L.  Postumius  L.F.L.N.  Megoll.  Idem  q 
In  mag.  m.  est. 
Cn.  Cornelius  L.F.  Cn.  N.  Scipio  Asina 
Pcenis  X.  K.  April.  An.  D. 
C.  Sempronius  Ti.  F.  Ti.  N.  Blaesus  Co 
K.  April.  An.  D. 

C.  Aurelius  L.F.C.N.  Cotta. 
P.  Servilius  Q.F.Cn.N.  Geminus 
Cens.  M'  Valerius  M.F.M.N.  Maxim.  IV 
P.  Sempronius  P.F.P.N.  Sophus  L.F.  5 
C.  Aurelius  L.F.C.N.  Cotta  Cos.  De  Pcei 
leis.  Idibua  April.  An.  DI. 

L.  Csecilius  L.F.C.N.  Metellus 
C.  Furius  C.F.C.N.  Pacilus 

C.  Atilius  M.F.M.N.  Regulus  II. 
L.  Manlius  A.F.P.N.  Vulso  II. 
L.  Caacilius  L.F.CJf.  Metellus  Pro  Cos. 
VII.  Idus  Septemb.  A.  DII  . 

P.  Claudius  Ap.  F.C.N.  Pulcher  . 
L.  Junius  C.F.L.N.  Pullus. 
M.  Claudius  C.F.  Glicia.  qui  scriba  fuert 
coact.  abdic. 
Sine  Mag.  eq.  In  ejus  locum  factus  es 
A.  Atilius  A.F.C.N.'  Calatinus 
Diet.  P  .  p 
L.  Caicilius  L.F.C.N.  Metellus  *ei  * 
Mag.  eq. 

C.  Aurelius  L.F.C.N.  Cotta  II. 
P.  Servilius  Q.F.Cn.N.  Geminus  II. 

L.  Cascilius  L.F.C.N.  Metellus  II. 
N.  Fabius  M.F.M.N.  Buteo. 
Cens.  A.  Atilius.  A.F.C.N.  Calatinus 
A.  Manlius  T.F.T.N.  Torquat.  Attic.  L 
XXXVIII. 

M'  Otacilius  C.F.M.N.  Crassus  11. 
M.  Fabius  M.F.M.N.  Licinus. 
Ti.  Coruncanius  Ti.  F.  Ti. 

MNFK\i?aF.M.N.  OomiLHabend. 
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C.  Atilius  A.F.A.N.  Bulbus  . 

A.  Manlius  T.F.T.N.  'I'orquat.  Attic. 
C.  Sempronius  Ti.  F.  Ti.  N.  Blaesus  II. 

C.  Fundariius  C.F.Q.N  Fundulus 
C.  Sulpicius  C.F.  Ser.  N.  Gallus 

C.  Lutatius  C.t'.C.N.  Catulus 
A.  Poatumius  A.F.L.N.  Albinus. 

A.  Manlius  T.F.T.N.  To  .  .  .  Attic,  ii. 
Q.  Lutatius  .  .  .  C.N.  Ce  .  .  . 

C.  Lutatius  C.F.C.N.  Catulus  Pro  Cos.  De  Poenis 
ex  Sicil  ...  e  ...  egit.  IIII.  Non.  Oct.  A.  DXII. 
Q.  Valerius  Q.F.P.N.  Falto  Pro  Pr.  ex  Sicilia  Na- 
valem  egit  Prid.  Non.  Ocfob.  An.  DXII. 
Q.  Lutatius  C.F.C.N.  Cerco  Cos.  De  Falisceis  K. 
Mart.  An.  DXII. 
A.  Manlius  T.F.T.N.  Torquatus  Atticus.  Cos.  II. 
De  Falisceis  IV.  Non.  M  .  .  .  Ann.  DXII. 

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EXPLANATION  OF  THE  SECOND  TABLES. 


1  HAVE  continued  the  tables  of  military  tribunes  and  consuls  from  the  point  of  time 
at  which  they  ended  in  the  preceding  ones,  to  the  end  of  the  first  Punic  war.  I  have 
given,  as  before,  the  lists  of  consuls  from  Livy  and  Diodorus  so  far  as  their  remaining 
works  contain  them ;  and  I  have  now  given  the  fragments  of  the  Fasti  Capitolini  which 
relate  to  the  period  contained  in  the  tables  without  any  omission,  and  at  the  same  time 
without  adding  to  the  words  or  even  letters  which  exist  on  the  fragments  of  the  marble 
hitherto  discovered. 

The  Fasti  of  Diodorus  end  with  the  year  452,  and  those  of  Livy  with  the  year  459 ; 
and  the  Fasti  Capitolini  are  wanting  for  several  years  here  and  the  e  both  before  and 
after  that  period.  I  have,  therefore,  given  two  other  sets  of  Fasti,  one  of  which  goes  by 
the  name  of  the  Sicilian  Fasti,  because  Onufrio  Panvini  found  the  MS.  containing  it  in 
Sicily.  Casaubon  copied  the  MS,  and  gave  his  copy  to  Scaliger,  who  published  it  in  his 
edition  of  Eusebius,  pp.  227-299,  under  the  title  of  Mro/ii?  xpdwav. 

The  other  Fasti  were  first  made  known  by  John  Cuspiniani,  who  published  extracts 
from  them  in  his  commentary  on  Cassiodorus  in  the  sixteenth  century.  They  have  been 
since  published  entirely  by  Noris  towards  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  they 
may  be  found,  with  his  dissertation  on  them,  in  the  eleventh  volume  of  Grasvius'  Collec- 
tion of  Roman  Antiquities.  The  MS.  containing  them  is  in  the  imperial  library  at  Vienna, 
and,  according  to  Noris,  they  were  compiled  about  the  year  354  of  the  Christian  era. 

These  last  Fasti  are  no  doubt  older  and  more  correct  than  the  Sicilian,  which  are  full 
of  errors;  but  both  are  useless  for  the  period  of  the  military  tribuneships,  because,  rep- 
resenting all  the  years  of  the  commonwealth  as  marked  by  consulships,  they  never  give 
to  any  year  the  names  of  more  than  two  magistrates.  But  the  author  of  the  Sicilian 
Fasti  seems  to  have  copied  his  lists  from  some  writer  who,  like  Cassiodorus,  gave  only 
the  consulships,  and  purposely  omitted  the  years  of  military  tribuneships;  and  not  being 
aware  of  this,  and  supposing  that  the  lists  of  consuls  were  continuous  in  point  of  time, 
he  has  marked  the  years  immediately  preceding  the  first  plebeian  consulship  with  the 
names  of  the  consuls  who  preceded  the  Gaulish  invasion;  insomuch  that,  placing  that 
invasion  in  the  third  year  of  the  99th  Olympiad,  he  notwithstanding  makes  it  foil  in  the 
consulship  of  M.  Genucius  and  C.  Curtius,  who  were  consuls  only  five  years  after  the 
expulsion  of  the  decemvirs.  Both  the  Sicilian  Fasti  and  those  of  Noris  give  merely  the 
cognomen,  or  last  name,  of  each  consul :  it  seems  as  if  they  had  looked  hastily  up  some 
Fasti  where  all  the  names  were  given  at  length,  and  had,  to  save  trouble,  merely  copied 
down  the  name  which  came  last.  Sometimes  the  recurrence  of  the  same  names  near  to 
each  other  has  misled  them  ;  as,  for  instance,  in  the  third  Samnite  war,  the  Sicilian  Fasti 
give  three  consulships  of  Q.  Fabius  and  P.  Decius  instead  of  two,  and  two  of  Ap.  Clau- 
dius and  Volumnius  instead  of  one.  The  corruptions  of  the  Roman  names  are  as  bad 
as  those  in  the  Fasti  of  Diodorus:  Calatinus  is  corrupted  into  "Catacion,"  Dentatua 
into  "Benacus,"  Casdicius  into  "Decius,"  Caudex  into  "  Thaugatus,"  Canina,  a  rather  un- 
common cognomen  of  one  branch  of  the  Claudian  house,  becomes  "  Cambius"  in  the  Si- 
cilian Fasti,  and  "  Cinna"  in  those  of  Noris ;  and  many  others  recur  which  it  is  in  general 
easy  to  correct  from  the  corresponding  years  in  the  Fasti  Capitolini,  or  from  any  correct 
list  of  the  consuls.  Some  corruptions,  however,  cannot  easily  be  restored,  nor  is  it  al- 
ways easy  to  ascertain  how  much  must  be  ascribed  to  mere  errors  of  the  copyist,  and 
where  the  authors  really  meant  to  give  different  consuls  from  those  named  in  the  other 
Fasti. 

With  regard  to  Livy's  Chronology,  the  fixed  point  from  which  we  must  set  out  is  the 
year  of  Rome  400,  which,  according  to  his  express  statement,  VII.  18,  was  the  thirty- 
fifth  year  after  the  expulsion  of  the  Gauls,  and  was  marked  by  the  consulship  of  C.  Sul- 
picius  Peticus  and  M.  Valerius  Publicola.  Reckoning  the  years  from  this  point,  accord- 
ing to  Livy'a  own  statement  of  events,  the  consulship  of  Q.  Fabius  Gurges  and  D.  Junius 


EXPLANATION  OF  THE  SECOND  TABLES.  (547 

Brutus,  the  last  mentioned  in  his  tenth  book,  would  fall  in  the  year  459.  But  Sigoniua 
places  it  one  year  later,  and  makes  the  year  422  to  have  been  wholly  taken  up  by  inter- 
regna, and  so  to  have  been  marked  by  no  consuls'  names.  This  he  does,  in  order  to  rec- 
oncile Livy  with  himself,  because  his  reckonings  elsewhere  require,  as  he  thinks,  the 
insertion  of  a  year  more  than  he  has  actually  accounted  for.  That  is  to  say,  Livy,  in  the 
beginning  of  the  31st  book,  says  that  the  sixty-three  years  which  passed  between  the 
beginning  of  the  first  Punic  war  and  the  end  of  the  second,  had  furnished  him  with  mat- 
ter for  as  many  books  as  the  four  hundred  and  seventy-eight  years  which  had  elapsed 
from  the  foundation  of  Rome  to  the  consulship  of  Ap.  Claudius,  when  the  first  Punic 
war  began.  Such  are  the  numbers  in  almost  all  the  MSS.  But  as  the  number  four 
hundred  and  seventy-eight  would  agree  with  no  system  of  chronology,  it  has  been  long 
since  corrected  in  the  printed  editions  to  "  four  hundred  and  eighty-eight."  Sigonius, 
however,  argued  that  the  true  reading  was  four  hundred  and  eighty-six,  the  Roman  nu- 
merals CDLXXVIII.  having,  as  he  thinks,  been  corrupted  from  CDLXXXVI.  the  third 
X  having  been  altered  to  V,  arid  the  V  separated  into  II.  He  therefore  places  the  be- 
ginning of  the  first  Punic  war  in  486,  having,  as  I  have  above  mentioned,  inserted  a 
whole  year  of  interregna,  not  noticed  by  Livy,  which  he  makes  out  to  be  the  year  422. 
Now,  without  this  additional  year,  the  first  Punic  war  does  actually,  as  I  think,  accord- 
ing to  Livy,  begin  in  487;  for  Sigonius  omits  two  consulships  between  the  retreat  of 
Pyrrhus  and  the  consulship  of  Ap.  Claudius  and  M.  Fulvius,  namely,  those  of  Q.  Ogul- 
nius  and  C.  Fabius  in  485,  and  of  Q.  Fabius  Gurges  and  L.  Mamilius  in  489.  The  first 
of  these  is  mentioned  expressly  by  Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.  XXXIII.  §  44,  as  well  as  by  Zo- 
naras,  VIII.  7,  and  by  the  Sicilian  Fasti  and  those  of  Noris,  and  is  admitted  by  Sigonius 
himself  in  his  commentary  on  the  Fasti  Capitolini.  The  consulship  of  Q.  Fabius  and  L. 
Mamilius  is  mentioned  by  the  Sicilian  Fasti  and  by  those  of  Noris,  and  is  required  by 
the  dates  of  the  Fasti  Capitolini,  which  place  the  consulship  of  D.  Junius  Pera  and  N. 
Fabius  in  487,  and  that  of  Ap.  Claudius  and  M,  Fulvius  in  489,  manifestly  making  an 
interval  of  a  year  between  them,  although  the  names  of  the  intermediate  consuls  are  lost. 
Zonaras  speaks  of  Fabius  as  being  sent  against  the  Volsinians,  and  expressly  says  that 
he  was  consul  in  that  year  with  "  ^Emilius,"  according  to  the  present  text  of  Zonaras  in 
the  edition  of  Du  Gauge,  Venice,  1729.  But  in  the  second  chapter  of  the  same  eighth 
book  of  Zonaras,  L.  ^Emilius,  the  colleague  of  Q.  Marcius  Philippus  in  473,  is  in  one 
MS.  called  M<m'Atov,  which  shows  how  readily  the  names  AfyfAios  and  Ma/*/Aioj  may  be 
confounded  with  each  other.  And  further,  Sigoniua  acknowledges  this  consulship  of  Q. 
Fabius  and  L.  Mamilius  in  his  commentary  on  the  Fasti  Capitolini.  Thus,  according  to 
Livy,  there  would  be,  in  fact,  the  events  of  486  years  related  in  his  fifteen  first  books, 
and  the  sixteenth  book  began  with  the  year  487 — that  is,  with  the  consulship  of  Ap.  Clau« 
dius  and  M.  Fulvius;  and  the  fifteen  next  books  did  contain  also  the  events  of  sixty 
three  years — from  the  year  487  to  the  year  550,  the  consulship  of  Cn.  Cornelius  and  P. 
/Elius*  Paetus,  before  the  expiration  of  which  the  war  with  Carthage  was  concluded — as 
the  first  Punic  war  had  begun  about  the  middle  of  487.  And  thus  the  correctness  of 
Sigonius'  alteration  of  Livy's  date  from  CDLXXVIII.  to  CDLXXXVI.  is  indeed  estab- 
lished, although,  as  I  think,  his  way  of  justifying  it  is  erroneous,  and  so  also  is  his  inter- 
pretation of  it;  for  Livy  does  not  say  that  App.  Claudius  was  consul  in  486,  but  that  his 
own  fifteen  first  books,  which  stopped  at  the  beginning  of  App.  Claudius'  consulship, 
had  contained  the  events  of  486  years.  And,  therefore,  according  to  Livy,  the  first  year 
of  the  war  with  Pyrrlms  would  tall  in  471,  the  first  year  of  the  first  Punic  war  in  487, 
and  the  end  of  the'second  Punic  war  in  550. 

Meantime  I  follow  the  common  chronology  of  the  years  of  Rome,  because  it  is  hope- 
less now  to  endeavor  to  supersede  it  by  any  other  system,  and  it  would  be  a  mere  per- 
plexity to  my  readers  if  they  were  to  find  every  action  recorded  in  this  history  fixed  to 
a  different  year  from  that  with  which  they  had  been  accustomed  to  connect  it.  Nor 
does  there  seem  any  adequate  object  to  be  gained  by  the  attempt.  The  era  of  the  foun- 
dation of  Rome  is  itself  a  point  impossible  to  fix  accurately;  nor  can  we  determine  the 
chronology  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  of  Rome  either  in  itself  or  as  compared  with 
the  chronology  of  Greece.  Our  existing  authorities  are  too  uncertain  and  too  conflict- 
ing to  allow  of  this;  and,  as  I  have  said  already  in  another  place,  the  uncertainty  of  the 
history  and  chronology  act  mutually  on  each  other,  and  a  sure  standing-place  is  not  to 
be  found.  The  five  years  of  anarchy  during  the  discussions  on  the  Licinian  laws  are, 
indeed,  utterly  improbable,  and  we  may  safely  assume  that  they  could  not  have  happen- 
ed exr.ctly  as  they  are  represented.  But  Cn.  Flavius,  in  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century, 
recorded  on  his  Temple  of  Concord1  that  it  was  dedicated  204  years  after  the  dedication 

Pliny,  Hist.  Natur.  XXXIII.  §  19.    Ed.  Sillig. 


648  HISTORY  OF  ROME. 

of  the  Capitol ;  and  this  agrees  exactly  with  the  Fasti  Capitolini,  which  place  the  scdile- 
ship  of  Flavius  and  the  censorship  of  Fabius  and  Decius  in  the  year  of  Rome  449.  It 
is,  indeed,  probable  that  the  Gaulish  invasion  should  be  placed  later  than  its  common 
date ;  and  the  five  years  of  the  anarchy  may  well  be  inserted  in  the  early  part  of  the  com- 
monwealth, a  period  for  which  we  have  neither  a  history  nor  a  chronology  that  will  bear 
any  inquiry.  Yet  Polybius  followed  the  common  date  of  the  Gaulish  invasion,  and  hia 
chronology  of  the  subsequent  Gaulish  wars  is  all  based  on  the  assumption  that  Rome 
was  taken  in  the  98th  Olympiad,  and  not  later.  Polybius  doubtless  may  have  been  mis- 
led, and  Cn.  Fulvius  may  have  had  no  sufficient  authority  for  fixing  the  interval  between 
the  dedication  of  his  temple  of  Concord  and  that  of  the  Capitol ;  but  if  they  were  both 
mistaken,  where  are  we  to  find  surer  guides?  and  if  the  records  on  which  they  relied 
were  uncertain,  as  indeed  they  very  possibly  were,  what  evidence  or  what  probability 
can  we  find  now,  so  as  to  be  enabled  to  arrive  at  a  more  certain  conclusion  ? 

I  follow,  then,  the  common  chronology  of  Rome;  not,  indeed,  as  thinking  with  th& 
authors  of  "  L'Art  de  verifier  les  Dates,"  that  it  is  possible  to  fix  the  very  year,  and  even 
the  day  of  the  month,  on  which  the  several  consuls  of  the  fifth  century  entered  upon 
their  office,  but  because  it  is  a  convenient  standard  of  reference;  and  if  not  correct, 
which  in  all  probability  it  is  not,  yet  is  quite  as  much  so  as  any  other  system  which 
could  be  set  up  in  its  room.  And  this  has  determined  me  not  to  adopt  Niebuhr's  dates 
even  on  his  authority,  because  I  cannot  persuade  myself  that  the  certainty  of  his  amend- 
ed chronology  is  so  clear  as  to  compensate  for  the  manifest  inconvenience  of  departing 
from  a  system  which  is  fixed  in  the  memories  of  all  the  readers  of  Roman  history 
throughout  Europe. 


CORRECTION  OF  NOTE  15.— PAGE  37. 

I  might  have  spared  the  first  part  of  this  note  had  I  known,  when  I  wrote  it,  lhat  the 
reading,  "  Turrianum  a  Fregellis  accitum,"  is  undoubtedly  corrupt.  The  Bamberg  MS 
reads  "  vulcaniveis  accitum ;"  one  of  those  at  Paris  (called  by  Harduin  and  Brotier  "  Re- 
gius  II."  and  numbered  at  present  in  the  Catalogue  of  the  Library,  6797)  reads  "  at  vul 
gamulis  accitum :"  both  show  that  the  common  text,  like  so  many  others  in  Pliny,  ia 
merely  a  false  restoration  of  a  passage  which  in  the  oldest  and  best  MSS.  is  unintelligi 
ble,  but  which  clearly  contained  a  meaning  very  different  from  that  exhibited  in  the  latel 
MSS.  Sillig,  in  his  Dictionary  of  ancient  Artists,  has  conjectured  that  the  true  reading 
was  "  et  Volsiniis  accitum ;"  but  in  his  edition  of  Pliny  he  approves  rather  of  Jahn's  con- 
jecture, "  Vulcanium  a  Veiis  accitum,"  as  agreeing  more  nearly  with  the  traces  preserved 
in  the  Bamberg  MS.  At  any  rate,  Pliny  is  relieved  from  an  apparent  contradiction,  and 
Turrianus  or  Turianus  should  no  longer  be  quoted  as  an  artist  on  Pliny's  authority.  I 
Qnd  that  Mr.  Millingen  had  already  anticipated  me  in  correcting  "  Fregenk''  instead  of 
M  Fregellis,"  he  not  knowing,  I  suppose,  any  more  than  I  did,  that  we  were  but  fighting 
with  a  shadow. 


ADDENDA. 


THE  following  notes  are  extracted  from  manuscripts  of  the  Author's,  some  of  them 
written  while  he  was  collecting  materials  for  the  latter  portion  of  this  history,  but  the 
chief  part  in  1833,  when  he  was  thinking  of  converting  the  series  of  Biographies  in  the 
Encyclopaedia  Metropolitana  into  a  continuous  history  of  Rome,  which  was  to  open 
with  the  first  Punic  war,  the  period  where  Niebuhr's  great  work  had  just  been  broken 
off  by  his  death.  As  they  contain  information,  and  express  opinions  on  several  inter- 
esting questions  connected  with  Roman  history,  it  has  been  thought  expedient  to  in- 
sert them. 

NOTE  A,  to  p.  455,  1.  54. 

If  we  endeavor  to  picture  to  ourselves  what  the  Roman  people  were  at  the 
beginning  of  the  sixth  century  of  their  history ;  to  represent  to  ourselves  the  size 
and  aspect  of  their  city  and  its  neighborhood ;  their  language,  their  manners, 
their  social  and  domestic  habits,  their  wealth,  private  and  public,  their  principles 
of  religion  and  of  law ;  their  character  and  condition,  in  short,  as  men  and  as 
citizens ;  where  are  the  eyes  so  piercing  as  to  discern  the  almost  vanishing  forms 
of  these  objects  amidst  the  dimness  of  antiquity  ?  or  how  can  we  supply,  and 
arrange  into  an  intelligible  whole,  the  disjointed  and  seemingly  unmeaning  images, 
which  our  fragments  of  information  offer,  as  perplexing  and  incongruous  as  the 
chaos  of  a  dream  ? 

The  city  of  Rome,  properly  so  called,  was  still  contained  at  the  beginning  of 
the  sixth  century,  and  for  some  centuries  afterwards,  within  the  walls  ascribed 
to  Servius  Tullius.  Its  circumference  was  about  seven  miles  ;  but  this  enclosure 
was  far  from  being  all  built  over.  Sacred  groves,  the  remains  of  the  forest 
which  in  the  earliest  times  had  covered  all  the  higher  grounds,  were  still  very 
numerous  ;  gardens,  orchards,  perhaps  copse-wood,  such  as  still  grows  on  the 
sides  of  the  Monte  Testaccio,  also  occupied  a  considerable  space.1  As  in  so  many 
other  towns  in  their  original  state,  the  walls  did  not  come  down  close  to  the 
river,2  but  ran  parallel  to  it  at  some  distance,  passing  from  the  Capitol  to  the 
Aventine  by  what  is  called  the  Janus  Quadrifons,  and  the  western  extremity  of 
the  Circus  Maximus.  But,  as  was  natural,  one  of  the  earliest  suburbs  sprang  up 
in  this  quarter ;  and  the  space  between  the  walls  and  the  Tiber,  without  the 
Porta  Flumentana,  was  already  covered  with  houses  in  the  time  of  the  second 
Punic  war.3  Buildings  had  probably  grown  up  beyond  the  Tiber  also,  connect- 
ing the  fortress  on  the  Janiculus  with  the  city :  on  the  eastern  side  of  Rome, 
from  the  Esquiline  to  the  end  of  the  Quirinal,  the  space  before  the  walls  seems 
to  have  been  open. 

The  streets  were  narrow  and  winding,4  and  the  houses  lofty ;  the  different 
floors5  being  occupied  by  different  families,  according  to  the  practice  still  so  com- 
mon in  Scotland  and  on  the  continent.  There  was  as  yet  little  of  ornamental 

1  Bunson's  Beschreibung  der  Stadt  Rom,  *  Niebuhr,  Abriss  der  Gescliiclite  de  Stadt 
Vol.  I.  p.  678.  [in  Bunsen's  Eome,  p.  112]. 


a  Bunsen,  p.  628,  &c.    Niebuhr,  Eom.  Hist.        4  Tacitus,  Annal.  XV.  43. 
Vol.  III.  p.  360,  note  525.  6  This  is  said  expressly  by  Dionysius,  X.  32, 

of  the  houses  on  the  Aventine. 


650  ADDENDA. 

architecture,  such  as  was  introduced  at  a  later  period  from  Greece ;  and  of  the 
style  of  the  older  temples  we  have  no  means  of  judging.  Those  great  works 
which  peculiarly  characterize  Rome,  her  aqueducts  and  her  roads,  were  as  yet 
in  their  infancy.  Of  the  former,  only  two  were  in  existence,  the  Appia  and  the 
Anio  Vetus  ;  but  these  were  not  carried  upon  a  long  line  of  magnificent  arches, 
like  the  aqueducts  of  a  later  age  ;  their  course  was  almost  wholly  underground  ;6 
for  it  was  not  yet  beyond  possibility  that  the  Romans  might  see  an  invading 
enemy  in  the  neighborhood  of  their  city,  and  it  was  of  the  utmost  importance  to 
conceal  the  line  by  which  they  obtained  their  supplies  of  water.  Of  the  roads 
there  existed  the  Appian,  which  in  the  year  459  had  been  paved  with  basalt,7  as 
far  as  Bovillae,  that  is,  to  the  foot  of  the  Alban  hills,  ten  miles  from  Rome ;  and 
according  to  Niebuhr,  there  must  also  have  existed  the  Latin,  the  Salarian,  the 
Nomentan,  and  the  oldest  Tiburtine.  Whether  these  were  as  yet  paved,  we 
have,  I  believe,  no  information. 

If  we  look  to  the  neighborhood  of  Rome,  we  shall  find  that  many  of  the  old 
towns  with  which  Latium  was  so  thickly  set  in  early  times,  had  already  been 
utterly  destroyed.  Nothing  more  surprises  those  who  fancy  the  Campagna  of 
Rome  to  be  like  Champagne,  or  like  the  great  chalk  plains  of  Hampshire  and 
Wiltshire,  than  the  sight  of  its  actual  scenery.  The  swellings  of  the  ground  con- 
tinually end  in  little  precipitous  cliffs ;  and  the  numerous  streams  flow  between 
deep  rocky  banks,  offering  exactly  such  situations  as  the  old  Italians  loved  to 
choose  for  the  citadels  of  their  towns.  Accordingly,  Pliny  reckons  up  the  names 
of  fifty-three8  people  of  Latium,  who  had  all  perished  without  leaving  a  trace  of 
their  existence  behind.  Many  of  these  indeed  were  destroyed  at  a  period  not 
only  beyond  historical  memory,  but  even  beyond  the  reach  of  those  traditions 
which  once  passed  for  history ;  some,  however,  occur  in  the  early  annals  of  the 
commonwealth,  and  are  afterwards  lost  to  us  altogether,  as  Crustimeria,  Corioli, 
Longula,  Polusca,  &c.,  while  others,  as  Gabii  and  Fidenee,  though  not  actually 
destroyed,  fell  into  such  a  state  of  decay  that  they  became  a  proverb  to  express 
the  extremity  of  loneliness  and  desolateness.9  No  doubt  the  law  of  conquest  had 
been  applied  to  these  states  in  its  full  extent ;  and  their  lands,  having  been  taken 
in  war,  had  mostly  been  occupied  by  the  patricians,  and  thus  became,  in  fact, 
though  not  in  law,  the  property  of  individual  Romans.  Thus,  at  a  very  early 
period,  we  find  that  the  fortunes  of  the  nobility  consisted  chiefly  in  land10  con- 
quered from  an  enem}?- ;  the  old  Ager  Romanus,  or  original  territory  of  Rome, 
extending  only  about  five  miles11  from  the  city  towards  Alba,  and  still  less  in 
other  directions.  Accordingly,  Strabo  says  expressly  that  Antemnse  and  Fidenae, 
the  latter  five  miles  from  Rome,  the  former  less  than  three,  were  in  his  time  the 
property  of  private  persons.  By  property,  xrytfsis,  he  meant  possessi ones,  land 
which  had  been  originally  won  from  an  enemy,  and  never  divided  out  as  a  colony  ; 
which  was  the  possession  of  individuals,  sold,  let,  and  bequeathed,  like  actual 
property,  so  long  as  the  state  did  not  cho'ose  to  exercise  its  right  of  resuming  it. 

Polybius  has  remarked,12  that  the  old  Latin  language  differed  so  much  from 

6  Frontinus,  de  Aquseductibus,  7,  18.    The  of  its  course  was  forty-three  miles,  all  of  which, 

Aqua  Appia  had  its  source  near  the  road  to  except  221  paces,  was  underground.     Fronti- 

Prameste,  between  the  seventh  and  eighth  mile-  nus,  c.  6. 

stones  from  Koine  ;  and  the  whole  length  of  its  7  Livy  X.  47.    Silice  perstrata  est.    Silex  is 

course  to  the  point  at  which  the  distribution  lava  basaltina,  of  a  blackish  gray  color,  made 

of  the  water  took  place,  near  the  Porta  Tri-  up  of  a  crystallized  mass  of  augite,  leucite,  ze- 

gemina  (at  the  foot  of  the  Aventine,  looking  olite,  &c.    See  Bunsen's  Kome,  p.  50,  note, 

towards  the  Palatine),  was  11  miles  and  190  8  III.  5. 

puces.    It  was  carried  underground  the  whole  9  Gabiis  desertior  atque  Fidenis  Vicvis.    See 

of  the  distance,  except  for  sixty  paces  close  to  also  Cicero,  pro  Plancio. 

the  Porta  Capena  (in  the  low  ground,  just  un-  10  Livy,  IV.  48.     Nee  enhn  ferme  quicquam 

der  the  southern  end  of  the  Cselian).    The  Anio  agri,  ut  in  urbe  alieno  solo  posita,  non  armia 

Vetus  was  contracted,  for  in  the  year  482  (481  partum  erat. 

according  to  Frontinus),  and  completed  a  few  "  Strabo,  V.  p.  159.     Compare  Livy,  I.  28, 

years  afterwards.     Its  source  was  twenty  miles  and  II.  39. 

from  Rome,  above  Tibur;  and  the  whole  length  °  III.  22. 


ADDENDA.  051 

that  spoken  in  his  time,  that  even  those  of  the  Romans  who  understood  it  best 
met  with  expressions  in  it  which  they  found  great  difficulty  in  interpreting.  This 
refers  to  the  language  spoken  at  the  beginning  of  the  commonwealth  ;  and  the 
famous  hymn  of  the  Fratres  Arvales,  which  has  been  preserved  to  our  own  times, 
enables  us  to  confirm  the  truth  of  the  statement.  But  in  the  Punic  wars  the 
Latin  language  was  substantially  the  same  as  in  the  age  of  Cicero  and  Virgil : 
the  inscription  on  the  Duillian  column,  and  that  on  the  tomb  of  L.  Scipio,  who 
was  consul  in  495,  are  both  perfectly  intelligible  to  us,  and  only  differ  in  the 
forms  of  the  words  from  the  writings  of  the  Augustan  age. 

The  free  male  population  of  Italy  of  an  age  to  bear  arms,  exclusive  of  Bruttium, 
of  the  Greek  cities  of  Magna  Graecia,  and  of  the  whole  country  north  of  the  Rubicon 
and  the  Macra,  is  said  by  Polybius  to  have  amounted  to  770,000  men,  in  the  year 
529.  It  is  not  clear  however  whether  there  is  not  some  confusion13  in  the  reck- 
oning, and  whether  the  sum  total  ought  not  to  be  reduced  by  nearly  50,000. 
Even  adopting  the  lower  number,  we  get  a  free  population  of  1,440,000  persons 
in  the  vigor  of  life ;  and  if  we  add  half  as  many  for  those  of  both  sexes  who 
were  under  seventeen  or  above  sixty,  it  makes  the  whole  free  population  of  Italy, 
with  the  important  omissions  already  noticed,  to  amount  to  2,120,000  souls.  The 
slave  population  it  is  impossible  to  calculate.  In  Campania  the  slaves  must  have 
been  numerous  :  in  Etruria  those  who  were  not  reckoned  amongst  the  citizens, 
that  subject  population  who,  though  not  strictly  slaves,  are  often  carelessly 
called  so,  must  have  greatly  outnumbered  those  properly  called  Etruscans.  But 
in  Latium,  in  Samnium,  amongst  the  Sabines,  and  in  Rome  itself,  the  slaves 
were  as  yet  perhaps  a  minority  of  the  whole  population.  Still,  if  we  reckon  the 
whole  population,  free  and  slave  together,  at  five  millions,  and  consider  the  num- 
ber and  populousness  of  the  Greek  cities,  of  which  no  account  is  given,  the  sum 
for  the  whole  peninsula  south  of  the  Macra  and  the  Rubicon  will  appear  suffi- 
ciently great.  No  doubt  it  had  once  been  far  greater  ;  but  the  long  and  bloody 
wars  which  led  to  the  Roman  conquest  of  Italy,  must  have  diminished  it  enor- 
mously, to  say  nothing  of  the  wasting  invasions  of  the  Gauls. 

Extensive  tracts  of  land  had  been  seized  by  the  Romans,  and  were  mostly  held 
in  occupation  by  a  small  number  of  proprietors ;  nor  must  we  conceive  of  these 
large  estates,  as  of  the  large  farms  of  modern  times,  which  are  supposed  to  be  so 
favorable  to  agriculture.  On  the  contrary,  they  were  cultivated  carelessly  and 
partially :  and  ground,  which  the  necessities  of  the  small  proprietor  had  forced 
into  productiveness,  was  allowed  to  return  to  its  natural  barrenness.  Besides, 
the  extent  of  the  woodlands  must  have  been  much  greater  than  at  present ;  and  if 
some  spots  were  then  well  peopled,  which  the  malaria  has  now  rendered  uninhabit- 
able, yet,  on  the  other  hand,  there  were  places,  as  particularly  in  the  valley  of  tht 
Arno,  which  have  only  been  reclaimed  in  later  times  from  the  state  of  imprac- 
ticable marshes ;  and  the  number  of  individuals  supported  by  trade,  or  by  any 
other  means  than  agriculture,  was  beyond  all  comparison  smaller  than  in  modern 
Italy. 

I  know  of  only  one  fact  which  seems  to  indicate  the  existence  of  a  commer- 
cial spirit  among  the  Romans  at  the  period  with  which  we  are  now  engaged. 
This  is  the  law  of  Q.  Claudius,14  one  of  the  tribunes,  passed  a  short  time  before 
the  second  Punic  war,  which  made  it  unlawful  for  any  senator,  or  father  of  a 
senator,  to  possess  a  ship  of  the  burden  of  more  than  three  hundred  amphorae. 

13  Polybius  reckons  the  four  Roman  legions  citizens  of  foreign  states,  who  were  mun'cipes 

employed  in  the  field,  and  the  reserve  which  of  Rome,  it  would  on  this  occasion  eompriso 

covered  the  city,  as  exclusive  of  the  census  of  the  Campanians;  and  we  thus  get  a  number 

the  Romans  and  Campanians  ;  that  is,  the  com-  very  closely  agreeing  with  the  sum  of  the  Ro- 

glete  census,  including  the  legions  stationed  in  mans  and  Campanians  as  given  by  1'olybins, 

icily  and  Tarentum,  would  have  given  a  sum  273,000,  if  we  suppose  that  lie  ought  to  have 

total  of  324,900.     But  the  census  for  the  year  included  the  soldiers  actually  employed  in  this 

532,   gives  only  270,213  citizens.     Now  if,  as  amount,  instead  of  reckoning  them  separately 

Niebuhr  supposes,  the  census  included  all  those  H  Livy,  XXI.  63. 


652  ADDENDA. 

The  avowed  object  of  this  law  was  to  exclude  the  nobility  from  engaging  in 
maritime  commerce  ;  the  professed  reason  for  the  exclusion  was,  that  trade  was 
degrading  to  the  dignity  of  a  senator :  but  the  circumstance  that  it  was  resisted 
strenuously  by  the  whole  senate,  and  carried  in  despite  of  their  opposition,  proves 
that  they  felt  the  restriction  much  more  as  an  injury  than  an  honor,  and  makes 
it  probable  that  the  real  object  of  the  friends  of  the  law  was  to  monopolize  the 
profits  of  trade  to  the  middling  classes,  and  to  exclude  the  competition  of  the 
nobility,  whose  superior  wealth  would  have  given  them  great  advantages  in  every 
market.  But  the  commercial  spirit  of  the  Romans  had  no  time  to  develop  itself ; 
the  invasion  of  Hannibal  was  fatal  to  the  security,  and  much  more  to  the  acqui- 
sition of  capital ;  and  after  the  struggle  was  over,  society  had  undergone  a  change 
which  fixed  the  attention  of  the  people  on  other  objects.  Trade  therefore  con- 
tributed but  little  to  the  greatness  of  Rome :  indeed  it  is  ridiculous  to  speak  of 
the  trade  of  a  country,  where  some  of  the  simplest  callings15  were  as  yet  unknown, 
and  where  silver  money  had  been  coined16  for  the  first  time  only  five  years  before 
the  first  Punic  war. 

Were  the  manners  of  Rome,  then,  as  pure  as  those  writers  would  imagine, 
who  consider  an  agricultural  people  to  be  placed  in  so  much  healthier  a  moral 
condition  than  a  commercial  or  manufacturing  one  ?  Undoubtedly  the  Roman 
character  before  the  second  Punic  war  was  full  of  nobleness ;  but  it  is  idle  to 
connect  its  excellence  with  the  preference  given  to  agriculture,  rather  than  to 
trade.  The  Roman  people  were  as  yet  in  the  youth  of  their  existence ;  and 
their  minds  enjoyed  a  youthful  freshness.  They  had  not  lost  the  feelings  of  ad- 
miration and  veneration ;  feelings  which  knowledge  and  experience,  inasmuch  as 
their  field  is  an  evil  world,  surely  lessen  ;  feelings  whose  destruction  is  the  worst 
degradation  of  human  nature.  Respect  for  the  gods,  respect  for  the  laws,  re- 
spect for  the  aged,  respect  for  the  judgment  of  the  good  and  the  wise,  power- 
fully influenced  a  Roman's  mind  ;  and,  opposed  to  these,  self-confidence  and 
self-indulgence  could  as  yet  do  nothing.  What  there  was  of  crime  was  not  the 
mere  wickedness  of  individual  gratification  :  of  whatever  offences  a  Roman  was 
guilty,  his  idol  was  not  that  vilest  of  all,  his  own  single  pleasure  or  pride.  He 
was  cruel  and  treacherous  to  foreigners  ;  for  such  conduct  might  save  the  ma- 
jesty of  Rome  from  humiliation  :  if  a  patrician,  he  might  be  oppressive  and  in- 
solent to  the  commons,  or  the  mob  of  the  forum,  turba  forensis  ;  but  he  was 
striving  against  the  confusion  of  sacred  things  with  vile,  against  dishonoring  the 
images  of  his  ancestors,  whose  spirits  watched  over  the  welfare  of  their  race,  and 
required  of  their  descendants  in  every  generation  to  transmit  its  honor  and  dig- 
nity to  their  children  unimpaired.  So  in  Rome,  as  in  more  corrupted  states,  there 
was  violence  and  injustice,  and  towards  foreigners  cruelty  and  falsehood  ;  but 
there  was,  withal,  a  surrender  of  self  to  some  more  general  interest ;  and  where 
the  commands  of  that  interest  were  in  accordance  with  truth  and  justice,  there 
was  exhibited  virtue  in  some  of  its  most  heroic  forms,  resolute  control  of  appe- 
tite, obedience  even  to  death,  unshaken  fortitude,  and  entire  self-devotion  in  the 
cause  of  duty. 

In  such  a  state  of  things  the  domestic  relations  are  purely  and  faithfully  dis- 
charged ;  for  on  these  points  law  and  public  opinion  always  speak  the  language 
of  nature  and  of  truth  ;  it  is  only  individual  wickedness  that  leads  to  the  viola- 
tion of  these  plain  duties.  Accordingly  we  find  that  the  marriage  tie  was  sel- 
dom broken,  either  by  adultery  or  by  divorce  ;17  and  the  obedience  of  children 

15  Barbers  were  unknown  at  Rome,  accord-  "  It  is  a  well-known  story  that  Sp.  Carviiiub 

iner  to  Varro  (Pliny,  VII.  59),  till  the  year  554;  was  the  first  Roman  who  divorced  his  wife  ; 

bakers,  or  rather  bread-makers,  till  the  year  and  that  this  took  place  after  the  end  of  the 

580.  (Pliny,  XVIII.  11.)  But  the  oldest  food  first  Punic  war  (See  Aul.  Gellius,  IV.  8.  Valor, 

of  the  Romans  was  puls,  a  sort  of  paste  made  Maximus,  II.  1,  §4).  Niebuhr  (Rom.  Hist.  Vol. 

of  spclt(far) ;  like  the  polenta  of  maize,  so  com-  III.  p.  414)  and  Hugo  (Qeschichte  des  Rom. 

inonly  eaten  in  Italy  now.  Rechts,  p.  114)  consider  this  as  a  inist.-ikc  ;  and 

18  Pliny,  XXXIII.  3.  possibly  it  is  not  to  be  taken  to  the  h  •  '••]•.    But 


ADDENDA.  653 

to  their  parents  was  secured  at  once  by  the  general  feeling  and  by  law.  The 
laws  indeed  relating  to  the  patria  potestas  confer  on  the  parent  an  exclusive  au- 
thority, and  even  profane  one  of  the  most  sacred  of  human  relations  by  placing  it  on 
the  footing  of  that  of  master  and  slave.  Yet  so  strong  is  parental  affection,  that 
there  is  little  danger  of  a  father's  tyrannizing  over  his  children ;  and  this  natural 
love  makes  the  great  distinction  between  domestic  government  and  political ; 
neglect  and  disobedience  on  the  part  of  the  child  being  the  evil  most  to  be  dreaded 
in  the  one,  as  oppression  on  the  part  of  the  rulers  is  in  the  other. 

But  although  in  the  early  times  of  Rome,  the  marriage  tie  was  most  rarelj 
broken,  yet  we  are  not  to  imagine  that  the  standard  of  morals  approached  nearly 
to  the  purity  re/^iired  by  Christianity.  As  if  compromising  with  passions  which 
it  could  not  wholly  extirpate,  public  opinion  almost  tolerated  some  kinds  of  sen- 
sual indulgence,  in  order  more  effectually  to  put  down  others.  The  plays  of 
Plautus,  although  the  stories  are  of  Greek  origin,  could  not  have  been  relished 
by  a  Roman  audience,  had  not  the  state  of  morals  which  they  describe  resem- 
bled actual  life  at  Rome,  no  less  than  that  at  Athens.  So  universal  is  the  ten- 
dency of  our  nature  to  impurity,  that  we  could  readily  believe,  even  without 
express  testimony,18  that  the  conversation  of  the  Romans  at  their  entertainments, 
even  in  the  most  ancient  times,  was  unfit  for  a  modest  woman  to  hear.  Nor  can 
we  wonder  that  the  young  Romans  acted  in  the  entertainments  known  by  the 
name  of  Fabulae  Atellanse,19  without  any  degradation,  although  these20  in  the 
coarseness  of  their  ribaldry  went  far  beyond  the  regular  drama.  It  seems  as 
if  the  ancient  commonwealths  acted  on  the  famous  principle  of  Aristotle,  and 
deemed  it  wise  to  give  the  passions  their  full  range  on  particular  occasions,  that 
their  violence  might  so  be  exhausted,  and  the  general  course  of  life  preserved 
safe  from  their  dominion.  Thus,  while  the  purity  of  the  Athenian  tragedy  has 
been  guarded  with  such  scrupulous  care,  the  comedy  of  the  same  people  in- 
dulged in  the  grossest  indecencies ;  and  thus,  as  the  slaves  had  their  season  of 
liberty  at  the  Saturnalia,  so  the  Floralia,  the  Liberalia,  and  other  religious  festi- 
vals, gave  free  license  to  the  lowest  and  most  slavish  passions  of  our  nature ;  and 
abominations  were  then  practised  and  publicly  sanctioned,  which  would  be  utterly 
inconsistent  with  the  severity  of  the  Roman  discipline  in  other  respects,  did  we 
not  believe  that  they  were  looked  upon  as  a  sort  of  safety-valve,  whereby  it  was 
possible  to  regulate  the  escape  of  feelings  too  powerful  to  be  repressed  altogether 


NOTE  B,  to  page  460,  1.  39. 


The  expression  in  Varro  is  remarkable,  "  T.  Manlio  Consule  bello  Carthagini- 
ensi  primo  confecto"  (Ling.  Lat.  IV.  p.  39,  Ed.  Varior.  1619),  and  again  in  Livy, 

if,  as  the  story  seems  to  imply,  Carvilius  di-  therefore,  in  later  times,  when  divorces  were 
vorced  his  wife  in  order  to  marry  another  (and  frequent,  it  fell  into  disuse,  as  did,  in  fact,  the 
this  is  the  notion  of  the  word  "  Divortimn,"  Oonventio  in  Mamim,  altogether ;  and  a  loss  for- 
given in  Scholium  on  Cicero  de  Oratore,  I.  40,  mal  marriage  came  into  general  use,  founded 
Divortium  est,  quoties  dissoluto  matrimonio  merely  on  the  consent  of  the  parties,  which 
alter  eorum  alteras  nuptias  sequitur),  then  it  could  be  dissolved  more  readily. 
may  have  been  one  of  the  earliest  instances  of  1S  See  Fragm.  Varro,  Satyr.  Menipp.  in 
such  a  divorce,  if  not  absolutely  the  very  earli-  Agathpn. 

est.    For  the  Romans  in  early  times,  no  less  J9  Livy,  VII.  2.    Festus  in  Personata  Fabula. 

than  the  Germans  in  the  days  of  Tacitus,  ab-  20  Augustine,  Civit.  Dei,  II.  8.     "Hsec  sunt 

barred  second  marriages  (Valor.  Maxim.  II.  1,  scenicorum  tolerabilifr  ludorum,  comoediae  sei- 

\  8).     Again,  marriages  celebrated  with  the  re-  licet  et  tragoediaj,  hoc  est,  tabulae,  poetarum 

ligious  ceremonies  known  by  the  name  of  Con-  agendse  in  spectaculis,  multa  rerum  turpitu- 

farreatio  were  held  to  be  indissoluble,  except  dine,  sed  nulla  saltern,  sicut  alia  multa,  verbo- 

oy  the  performance  of  certain  other  ceremonies,  rum  obseoenitate  coinpositae."    That  the  "  alia 

which  were  purposely  made  horrid  and  revolt-  multa"  include  the  Atellanse  Fabulse  is  clear 

ing,  in  order  to  deter  any  one  from  having  re-  from  the  distinction  between  them  and  regular 

course  to  them.    This  shows  the  old  feeling  comedy,  and  from  Livy's  words,  "Juveutoa, 

with  regard  to  divorce;  for  marriage  by  Con-  histrionibus  fabellarum  actu  relicto,  ipt,u  inter 

farreatio  was  doubtless  considered  originally  se  more  antiquo  ridicula  intexta  versions  jucti- 

as  the  only  true  and  solemn  marriage.     And  tare  cccpit." 


654  ADDENDA. 

I.  19,  "T.  Manlio  Consule,  post  Punicum  primum  perfectum  bellum."  This 
cannot  allude  to  the  first  treaty  concluded  by  Catulus  six  years  before,  but  must 
relate  to  the  apparently  entire  termination  of  all  disputes  by  the  solemn  con- 
firmation of  it  in  518-19.  And  thus,  according  to  the  expression  of  Paterculus, 
"  Certae  pacis  argumentum  Janus  geminus  clausus  dedit."  The  gate  of  Janua 
was  the  Porta  Janualis,  one  of  the  gates  of  the  original  Rome  on  the  Palatine. 
Afterwards,  by  the  addition  of  the  Sabine  settlement  on  the  Quirinal  and  Capi- 
tol, it  became  a  passage  gate,  rather  than  an  entrance  gate,  being  now  in  the 
middle  of  the  city,  just  like  Temple  Bar.  It  stood  near  the  present  arch  of  Sep- 
timius  Severus,  on  the  edge  of  the  Forum,  and  close  upon  the  Via  Sacra.  Livy 
places  it  in  the  Argiletum ;  that  is,  in  the  low  ground  between?  the  Capitol  and 
the  Tiber,  near  the  site  of  the  existing  arch  of  Janus  Quadrifons ;  but  this  is 
probably  a  confusion,  as  we  read  of  a  temple  of  Janus  in  this  quarter,  but  one 
which  had  been  built  by  C.  Duillius  in  the  first  Punic  *ar.  (Tacitus,  Annal.  II. 
49.)  The  notion  of  opening  the  gates  of  Janus  in  war  was,  that  this  god,  who 
under  his  name  of  Quirinus  was  worshipped  Jby  the  old  Italians,  as  the  god  of 
battles,  might  go  out  to  war  in  defence  of  his  people.  And  his  statue  was  set 
up  at  the  Porta  Janualis,  rather  than  at  any  other  place,  because  tradition  re- 
corded, that  in  the  battle  between  the  Romans  and  Sabines,  in  the  reign  of  Rom- 
ulus, he  had  wrought  a  signal  deliverance  for  Rome  on  that  very  spot.  See 
Macrobius,  Saturnal.  I.  9.  I  am  aware  that  Niebuhr  (Vol.  I.  p.  202,  2d  edit.) 
gives  a  different  explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  custom,  and  supposes  that  the 
Porta  Janualis,  connecting  the  Roman  and  Sabine  towns  with  each  other,  was 
closed  in  peace,  to  show  that  they  were  distinct  and  independent  states,  but 
opened  in  war  to  imply  that  then  they  were  allies,  and  rendered  one  another 
mutual  aid.  This  seems  to  me  rather  forced ;  whereas  the  statement  given 
above  from  Macrobius  is  simple  and  probable.  Besides,  Virgil,  a  high  author- 
ity in  such  matters,  declares  that  the  custom  of  opening  the  gates  of  Janus  in 
time  of  war  was  not  of  Roman  origin,  but  borrowed  from  the  general  practice  of 
the  Latins.  (^En.  VII.  601.)  It  could  not,  therefore,  have  referred  to  any  local 
peculiarities  in  the  situation  of  Rome. 


NOTE  C,  to  p.  461,  1.  19. 

Nothing  is  known  of  the  language  or  customs  of  the  Illyrians,  by  which  we 
can  confidently  ascertain  their  race.  A  legend  recorded  by  Appian  (Illyrica, 
c.  I.),  which  makes  Keltus,  Illyrius,  and  Gala  to  have  been  three  brothers,  the 
sons  of  the  Cyclops  Polyphemus,  is  grounded  probably  on  the  known  intermix- 
ture of  Keltic  tribes,  the  Boii,  the  Scordisci,  and  the  Taurisci,  amongst  the  Illyr- 
ians at  a  later  period  ;  and  the  Japodes,  a  tribe  on  the  borders  of  Istria,  are 
described  by  Strabo  (IV.  p.  143)  as  half  Kelts,  half  Illyrians.  In  the  practice 
of  tattooing  their  bodies,  the  Illyrians  resembled  the  Thracians  (Strabo,  VII.  p. 
218,  Herodot.  V.  6) ;  the  custom  of  one  of  their  tribes,  the  Dalmatians,  to  have 
a  new  division  of  their  lands  every  seven  years  (Strabo,  VII.  p.  218)  resembles 
the  well-known  practicS  of  the  Germans,  only  advanced  somewhat  further  to- 
wards civilized  lite  ;  and  the  names  of  Teuta  and  Teutus  might  make  us  fancy  a 
connection  between  tliem  and  the  Teutonic  race.  The  author  of  the  Periplus 
ascribed  to  Scylax  speaks  of  the  great  influence  enjoyed  by  their  women,  whose 
lives  in  consequence  he  describes  as  highly  licentious  ;  but  Scymnus  Chius,  wri- 
ting about  a  hundred  years  before  the  Christian  era,  calls  them  "  a  religious  peo- 
ple, just  and  kind  to  strangers,  loving  to  be  liberal,  and  desiring  to  live  orderly 
and  soberly,"  a  character  which  often  marks  the  first  growth  of  the  virtues  of 
peace  amongst  a  people  newly  reclaimed  from  barbarism ;  while  they  yet  retain 
the  simplicity  of  their  earlier  state,  but  have  laid  aside  its  lawlessness  and  cruelty. 
These  happy  fruits  of  Roman  conquest  and  dominion  were  exhib:tecl  in  Illyria  in 


ADDENDA.  G55 


the  time  of  Scymnus  Chius,  as  at  a  later  period  they  were  displayed  among  the 
Cisalpine  Gauls,  who  in  the  time  of  Pliny  preserved  a  simplicity  and  purity  of 
manners  unknown  in  the  rest  of  Italy.  (Pliny,  Epist.  I.  14.)  But  at  the  time 
of  the  first  Illyrian  war,  the  Illyrians  were  as  yet  merely  barbarous,  dreaded  for 
their  ferocity,  and  with  that  low  sense  of  justice  or  true  nobleness  which  com- 
monly characterizes  the  barbarian. 


NOTE  D,  to  p.  463,  1.  3. 

The  Spaniards  value  the  harbor  of  Carthagena  so  highly,  that,  according  to 
their  proverb,  "  there  are  four  harbors  in  the  Mediterranean  : — Carthagena,  June, 
July,  and  August." 

.    NOTE  E,  to  p.  464,  1.  29. 

From  the  mention  of  Greeks  on  this  and  other  similar  occasions  (as  in  Livy, 
XXII.  57),  Niebuhr  concludes  that  the  prophecies  referred  to  cannot  have  been 
of  Greek  origin,  and  therefore  not  what  were  properly  called  "  Sibylline  books," 
but  rather  of  Etruscan  origin,  or  Latin,  some  of  which  were  kept  together  with 
the  Sibylline  books,  under  the  care  of  the  same  officers.  But  it  does  not  appear 
that  the  prophecy  and  the  method  of  evading  it  were  contained  in  the  same  books  ; 
nor  is  it  likely,  for  no  prophecy  would  seek  to  render  itself  nugatory.  If  the 
books  were  Greek,  they  were  likely  to  contain  prophecies  of  Greek  triumphs ; 
and  such  must  undoubtedly  have  been  the  meaning  of  the  declaration,  that  the 
Greeks  should  take  possession  of  Rome.  Prophecies  relating  to  the  Gauls  may 
have  been  of  Etruscan  origin,  dictated  by  that  fear  of  the  Gaulish  arms,  which 
the  Etruscans  had  learnt  in  earlier  ages,  when  the  Gauls  had  driven  them  from 
their  settlements  on  the  north  of  the  Apennines.  The  evasion  of  these  prophe- 
cies was  merely  the  commentary  of  the  Roman  pontifices,  such  as  was  generally 
practised  in  order  to  avert  a  prediction,  whose  authority  it  was  not  thought 
proper  to  deny.  Niebuhr  refers  to  a  similar  trick  practised  by  the  Apulians 
against  the  Brundisians.  An  oracle  had  declared  that  the  ^Etolians,  the  follow- 
ers of  Diomedes,  should  possess  Brundisium  forever ;  so,  when  the  Apulians  had 
expelled  them  from  Brundisium,  and  they  on  the  assurance  of  this  oracle  sent  an 
embassy  to  reclaim  it,  the  Apulians  put  the  ambassadors  to  death,  and  buried 
them  within  the  city;  thus  fulfilling  the  prophecy,  and  preventing  its  fulfilment 
in  any  other  sense.  (Justin,  XII.  2.) 


NOTE  F,  to  p.  465,  1.  23. 

Nothing  shows  more  clearly  the  great  rarity  of  geographical  talent,  than  the 
praise  which  has  been  commonly  bestowed  on  Polybius  as  a  good  geographer. 
He  seems  indeed  to  have  been  aware  of  the  importance  of  geography  to  history, 
and  to  have  taken  considerable  pains  to  gain  information  on  the  subject ;  but  this 
very  circumstance  proves  the  more  the  difficulty  of  the  task ;  for  his  descriptions 
are  so  vague  and  imperfect,  and  so  totally  devoid  of  painting,  that  it  is  scarcely 
possible  to  understand  them.  For  instance,  in  his  account  of  the  march  of  the 
Gauls  into  Italy,  and  of  the  subsequent  movements  of  their  army  and  of  the 
Romans,  there  is  an  obscurity,  which  never  could  have  existed,  had  he  conceived 
in  his  own  mind  a  lively  image  of  the  seat  of  war  as  a  whole,  of  the  connection 
of  the  rivers  and  chains  of  mountains  with  each  other,  and  of  the  consequent  di- 
rection of  the  roads  and  most  frequented  passes.  The  Gauls,  he  tells  us,  crossed 
the  Apennines  into  Tuscany,  and  advanced  to  Clusium  ;  and  thus  .placed  them- 
selves on  the  rear  of  the  praetor's  army,  which  had  been  destined  to  cover  th 


656  ADDENDA. 

Etruscan  frontier.  We  must  suppose,  then,  that  the  praetor's  army  was  posted 
between  Feesulse  and  Pistoria,  expecting  the  Gauls  to  cross  the  Apennines  nearly 
by  the  line  of  the  present  road  from  Modena  to  Florence  by  Pistoria ;  and  that  the 
Gauls,  instead  of  taking  this  line,  came  in  the  direction  of  the  modern  road  from 
Bologna ;  except  that  after  descending  the  main  chain  of  the  Apennines,  near 
Moncarelli,  they  followed  the  Val  Mugello,  or  Valley  of  the  Sieve,  to  their  left, 
and  thus  came  out  on  the  Valdarno,  about  half  way  between  Florence  and  In- 
cisa  :  from  thence  they  may  either  have  ascended  the  Valdarno,  till  they  crossed 
over  from  it  to  the  Val  di  Chiana  by  the  line  of  the  Valdambra ;  or  else,  as  is 
more  probable,  they  may  have  moved  at  once  in  the  direction  of  Sienna,  and 
then  crossed  from  Sienna,  by  the  upper  part  of  the  Val  d'Ombrone,  and  Monte- 
pulciano,  to  Chiusi  or  Clusium. 


NOTE  G,  to  p.  466,  1.  38. 

The  text  of  Polybius  (II.  25)  places  this  battle  at  Fcssulce  ;  this  should  clearly 
V  corrected  into  Rusalce.  The  Italian  names  of  places  in  our  manuscripts  of 
Polybius  are  continually  corrupt,  as  the  Constantinople  copyist  knew  nothing 
about  them. 

Note  H,  to  p.  466,  1.  1. 

In  Polybius,  the  Gauls  are  said  to  be  intercepted,  ifsgj  TgXajuiGJva  •?%  Tupf>^- 
vj'acr.  This  is  evidently  a  mistake.  Frontinus  (I.  2,  7)  places  the  scene  of  the 
battle  at  Poplonia,  which  is  far  more  intelligible. 


NOTE  I,  to  p.  466,  1.  20. 

It  was  probably  about  eighty  years  after  this  period  that  the  historian  Po- 
lybius travelled  through  Cisalpine  Gaul,  and  was  struck  with  the  unrivalled  pro- 
ductiveness of  the  country.  It  yielded  wine  and  all  sorts  of  grain  in  the  greatest 
abundance  ;  its  oak  woods,  scattered  at  intervals  over  the  plain,  fed  the  largest 
part  of  those  immense  droves  of  swine  which  were  annually  consumed  in  Italy, 
or  required  for  the  use  of  the  Roman  army ;  and  travellers  at  the  inns  were  pro- 
vided plentifully  with  every  thing  that  they  wanted  after  their  day's  journey,  at 
the  rate  of  a  quarter  of  an  obulus  for  each  person.  Such  are  the  fruits  of  the 
first  application  of  the  security  and  energy  of  civilization  to  a  soil  highly  favored 
by  nature.  The  earth  is  in  its  first  freshness  and  vigor  ;  the  woods  thinned,  but 
not  destroyed :  the  population  flourishing  and  increasing,  but  far  below  the  num- 
ber of  inhabitants  capable  of  being  maintained  in  comfort ;  and  whilst  the  vices 
of  barbarism  have  been  put  down,  those  of  corrupted  and  ill-watched  civilization 
have  not  yet  had  time  to  grow  up.  But  this  was  the  state  of  Cisalpine  Gaul 
after  it  had  been  subjected  for  more  than  half  a  century  to  the  dominion  of  Rome. 
It  must  have  presented  a  very  different  aspect  to  the  first  Roman  settlers  of  the 
year  534.  The  roads  or  tracts  were  cut  through  a  wide  extent  of  forest  and 
marshes  ;  and  only  a  small  space  of  the  most  inviting  character  had  been  hardly 
recovered  from  its  natural  wildness  by  the  lazy  and  careless  cultivation  of  the 
Gauls.  Towns  were  nowhere  to  be  seen  ;  the  population  was  scattered  about  in 
unwalled  villages,  if  the  name  of  village  may  be  given  to  a  collection  of  wretched 
huts,  so  devoid  of  the  commonest  articles  of  furniture,  that  "  man's  life"  spent  in 
them  was  literally  "  as  cheap  as  beasts'."  And  along  with  this  state  of  physical 
degradation,  there  was  the  total  absence  of  civil  society.  There  were  men  in  the 
country  ;  there  were  families,  bands,  and  hordes ;  but  there  was  no  common- 
wealth. One  relation  alone,  beyond  those  of  blood,  seems  to  have  been  ac- 


ADDENDA.  «5»J 

knowledged  ;  the  same  which,  introduced  into  Europe  six  hundred  years  after- 
wards by  the  victories  of  the  German  barbarians,  has  deeply  tainted  modern 
society  down  to  this  hour ;  the  relation  of  chief  and  followers,  or,  as  it  was  called 
in  its  subsequent  form,  lord  and  vassals.  The  head  of  a  family  distinguished  for 
his  strength  and  courage,  gathered  around  him  a  numerous  train  of  followers 
from  other  families  ;  and  they  formed  his  clan,  or  band,  or  followers,  bound  to 
him  for  life  and  death,  bestowing  on  him  those  feelings  of  devoted  attachment, 
which  can  be  safely  entertained  only  towards  the  commonwealth  and  its  laws,  and 
rendering  him  that  blind  obedience,  which  is  wickedness  when  paid  to  any  less 
than  God.  This  evil  and  degrading  bond  is  well  described  by  the  Greek  and. 
Roman  writers,  by  words  expressive  of  unlawful  and  antisocial  combinations 
("Factio,"  Ciesar,  de  Bell.  Gallic.  VI.  11 ;  Irougsia,  Polybius,  II.  17) :  it  is  the 
same  which  in  other  times  and  countries  has  appeared  in  the  shape  of  sworn 
brotherhoods,  factions,  parties,  sects,  clubs,  secret  societies,  and  unions,  every- 
where and  in  every  form  the  worst  enemy  both  of  individual  and  of  social  excel- 
lence, as  it  substitutes  other  objects  in  place  of  those  to  which  ns  men  and  citi- 
zens we  ought  only  to  be  bound,  namely,  GOD  and  LAW. 


NOTE  K,  to  p.  468,  1.  42. 

The  remova  of  the  freedmen  into  the  four  city  tribes  is  recorded  in  the  Epi 
tome  of  the  20th  book,  nearly  in  the  same  words  as  in  the  Epitome  of  the  9th. 
There  it  is  said,  "forensis  factio  cum  comitia  et  campum  turbaret  .  .  .  a  Q. 
Fabio  censore  in  quatuor  tribus  redacta  est,  quas  urbanas  appellavit."  In  the 
20th  Epitome  it  is  said,  "  libertini  in  quatuor  tribus  redacti  sunt,  cum  antea  dis- 
persi  per  omnes  fuissent,  Esquilinam,  Palatinam,  Suburranam,  Collinam."  The 
"  forensis  factio"  of  the  9th  book  is  said  to  have  consisted  of  "  humiles,"  "  hu- 
millimi ;"  and  they  are  called  also  "  forensis  turba,"  as  if  their  occupation  were 
described  rather  than  their  birth.  In  the  20th  book,  the  persons  removed  are 
called  simply  "  libertini."  But  libertini  in  general  must  have  followed  city  em- 
ployments from  the  necessity  of  the  case ;  few  can  have  had  landed  property. 
We  must  therefore  suppose  that  Fabius'  measure  was  considered  as  a  remedy 
for  a  crying  evil,  rather  than  a  general  rule  for  the  time  to  come  ;  and  that,  when 
slaves  were  set  free,  they  were  generally  entered  in  their  late  master's  tribe, 
which,  as  he  was  still  in  a  close  relation  with  them,  that  of  patronus,  would  be  the 
most  natural  course  to  take,  when  no  particular  political  excitement  was  stirring. 
But  that  such  an  excitement  was  stirring  in  the  years  immediately  preceding  the 
second  Punic  war,  appears  from  what  Livy  says  of  C.  Varro :  "  Proclamando  pro 
sordidis  hominibus  causisque  adversus  rem  et  famam  bonorum  primum  in  noti- 
tiam  populi,  deinde  ad  honores  pervenit."  XXII.  26.  Varro  was  praetor  in  536, 
and  before  that  time  had  been  quaestor,  aedile,  and  curule  aedile  ;  so  that  he  must 
have  come  into  notice  before  the  censorship  of  Flaminius.  Now  it  is  easy  to 
conceive  that,  under  such  circumstances,  the  aristocra«y  would  wish  to  lessen 
the  influence  of  the  poorer  citizens  in  the  tribes  ;  but  the  wonder  is,  how  C.  Fla- 
minius should  have  become  their  instrument  in  doing  this,  after  his  violent  con- 
tests with  them  about  his  Agrarian  law,  and  afterwards  about  his  recall  from 
Cisalpine  Gaul,  both  of  which  took  place  before  his  censorship.  Nor  could  hia 
colleague  have  done  it  against  his  will,  according  to  the  well-known  law,  "  Me- 
lior  est  conditio  prohibentis." 

The  solution  can  only  be,  that  Flaminius  was  a  very  honest  man,  and,  whilst 
he  liked  the  agricultural  commons,  did  not  like  the  populace  of  the  Forum.  He 
was  like  M.  Curias,  who  also  vehemently  upheld  an  Agrarian  law,  yet  sold 
as  a  slave  a  citizen  who  refused  to  serve  as  a  soldier.  He  was,  like  P.  Decius, 
the  colleague  of  Fabius  in  the  former  clearing  of  the  tribes,  yet  forward  as  a 
supporter  of  the  Ogulnian  law.  He  was,  like  Marius,  the  stoutest  opposer  of  the 
42 


858  ADDENDA. 

aristocracy,  yet  a  resolute  opposer  also  of  a  Lex  Frumentaria.  (Plutarch,  Ma« 
rius,  4.)  Perhaps,  too,  his  notions  were  wholly  against  giving  political  influence 
to  any  thing  but  agriculture  ;  and  his  support  of  the  Claudian  law,  the  object  of 
which  was  to  prevent  the  senators  from  becoming  merchants,  was  perhaps  con- 
ceived in  the  same  spirit  as  his  removing  the  freedmen  into  the  four  city  tribes. 
In  this,  and  perhaps  in  the  vehemence  of  his  temper,  he  seems  to  have  resem- 
bled Cato  the  censor. 


NOTE  L,  to  p.  478,  1.  25. 

The  question,  in  what  direction  this  famous  march  was  taken,  has  been  agita- 
ted for  more  than  eighteen  hundred  years  ;  and  who  can  undertake  to  decide  it  ? 
The  difficulty  to  modern  inquirers  has  arisen  chiefly  from  the  total  absence  of 
geographical  talent  in  Polybius.  That  this  historian  indeed  should  ever  ha^e 
gained  the  reputation  of  a  good  geographer,  only  proves  how  few  there  are  wl.  o 
have  any  notion  what  a  geographical  instinct  is.  Polybius  indeed  labored  with 
praiseworthy  diligence  to  become  a  geographer  ;  but  he  labored  against  nature  ; 
and  the  unpoetical  character  of  his  mind  has  in  his  writings  actually  lessened  the 
accuracy,  as  it  has  totally  destroyed  the  beauty  of  history.  To  any  man  who 
comprehended  the  whole .  character  of  a  mountain  country,  and  the  nature  of  its 
passes,  nothing  could  have  been  easier  than  to  have  conveyed  at  once  a  clear  idea 
of  Hannibal's  route,  by  naming  the  valley  by  which  he  had  ascended  to  the  main 
chain,  and  afterwards  that  which  he  followed  in  descending  from  it.  Or  admit- 
ting that  the  names  of  barbarian  rivers  would  have  conveyed  little  information  to 
Greek  readers,  still  the  several  Alpine  valleys  have  each  their  peculiar  character, 
and  an  observer  with  the  least  power  of  description  could  have  given  such  lively 
touches  of  the  varying  scenery  of  the  march,  that  future  travellers  must  at  once 
have  recognized  his  description.  Whereas  the  account  of  Polybius  is  at  once  so 
unscientific  and  so  deficient  in  truth  and  liveliness  of  painting,  that  persons  who 
have  gone  over  the  several  Alpine  passes  for  the  very  purpose  of  identifying  his 
descriptions,  can  still  reasonably  doubt  whether  they  were  meant  to  apply  to 
Mont  Genevre,  or  Mont  Cenis,  or  to  the  Little  St.  Bernard. 

On  the  whole,  it  appears  to  me  most  probable,  that  the  pass  by  which  Hanni- 
bal entered  Italy  was  that  which  was  known  to  the  Romans  by  the  name  of  the 
Graian  Alps,  and  to  us  as  the  Little  St.  Bernard.  Nor  was  this  so  circuitous  a 
line  as  we  may  at  first  imagine.  For  Hannibal's  object  was  not  simply  to  get 
Into  Italy,  but  to  arrive  in  the  country  of  those  Cisalpine  Gauls  with  whom  he 
had  been  corresponding,  and  who  had  long  been  engaged  in  wars  with  the  Ro- 
mans. Now  these  were  the  Boii  and  Insubrians  ;  and  as  the  Insubrians,  who 
were  the  more  westerly  of  the  two,  lived  between  the  A.ddi  and  the  Ticinus,  the 
pass  of  the  Little  St.  Bernard  led  more  directly  into  the  country  of  his  expected 
allies,  than  the  shorter  passage  into  Italy  by  the  Cottian  Alps,  or  Mont  Genevre. 


NOTE  M,  to  p.  481,  1.  2. 

Such  is  the  story  of  the  earliest  recorded  passage  of  the  Alps  by  civilized  men, 
the  earliest  and  the  most  memorable.  Accustomed  as  we  are,  since  the  com- 
pletion of  the  great  Alpine  roads  in  the  present  century,  to  regard  the  crossing 
of  the  Alps  as  an  easy  summer  excursion,  we  can  even  less  than  our  fathers  con- 
ceive the  difficulties  of  Hannibal's  march,  and  the  enormous  sacrifices  by  which 
it  was  accomplished.  He  himself  declared  that  he  had  lost  above  thirty  thou- 
sand men  since  he  had  crossed  the  Pyrenees,  and  that  the  remnant  of  his  army, 
when  he  reached  the  plains  of  Italy,  amounted  to  no  more  than  twenty  thou- 
sand foot,  and  six  thousand  horsemen  :  nor  does  Polybius  seem  to  suspect  any 


ADDENDA. 

exaggeration  in  the  statement.  Yet  eleven  years  afterwards  Hasdrubal  crossed 
the  Alps  in  his  brother's  track  without  sustaining  any  loss  deserving  of  notice ; 
and  "  a  few  accidents"21  are  all  that  occurred  in  the  most  memorable  passage  of 
modern  times,  that  of  Napoleon  over  the  Great  St.  Bernard.  It  is  evident  that 
Hannibal  could  have  found  nothing  deserving  the  name  of  a  road,  no  bridges 
over  the  rivers,  torrents,  and  gorges,  nothing  but  mere  mountain-paths,  liable  to 
be  destroyed  by  the  first  avalanche  or  landslip,  and  which  the  barbarians  neither 
could  nor  cared  to  repair,  but  on  the  destruction  of  which  they  looked  out  for 
another  line,  such  as  for  their  purposes  of  communication  it  was  not  difficult  to 
find.  It  is  clear  also,  either  that  Hannibal  passed  by  some  much  higher  point 
than  the  present  roads  over  the  Little  St.  Bernard,  or  Mount  Cenis ;  or  else,  as 
is  highly  probable,22  that  the  limit  of  perpetual  snow  reached  to  a  much  lower 
level  in  the  Alps  than  it  does  at  present.  For  the  passage  of  the  main  chain  is 
described  as  wholly  within  this  limit ;  and  the  "  old  snow"  which  Polybius  speaks 
of  was  no  accidental  patch,  such  as  will  linger  through  the  summer  at  a  very 
low  level  in  crevices  or  sunless  ravines  ;  but  it  was  the  general  covering  of  the 
pass,  which  forbade  all  vegetation,  and  remained  alike  in  summer  as  in  winter. 
How  great  a  contrast  to  the  blue  lake,  the  green  turf,  the  sheep  and  cattle  freely 
feeding  on  every  side  tended  by  their  shepherds,  and  the  bright  hues  of  the  thou- 
sand flowers  which  now  delight  the  summer  traveller  on  the  Col  of  the  Little 
St.  Bernard ! 

I  have  little  doubt  as  to  Hannibal's  march  up  the  Tarentaise  ;  but  the  Val 
d'Aosta  puzzles  me.  According  to  any  ordinary  rate  of  marching,  an  army  could 
never  get  in  three  days  from  the  Little  St.  Bernard  to  the  plains  of  Ivrea  ;  not 
to  mention  that  the  Salassians  of  that  valley  were  such  untameable  robbers, 
that  they  once  even  plundered  Caesar's  baggage,  and  Augustus  at  last  extirpated 
them  by  wholesale.  And  yet  Hannibal,  on  the  Italian  side  of  the  main  chain, 
sustains  little  or  no  annoyance.  I  have  often  wished  to  examine  the  pass  which 
goes  by  the  actual  head  of  the  Isere,  by  Mont  Iseran,  and  descends  by  Usseglio, 
not  exactly  on  Turin,  but  nearly  at  Chivasso,  where  the  Po,  from  running  N.  and 
S.,  turns  to  run  E.  and  W.  In  some  respects  also,  I  think,  Mont  Cenis  suits  the 
description  of  the  march  better  than  any  other  pass.  1  lay  no  stress  on  the 
Roche  blanche ;  it  did  not  strike  me  when  I  saw  it  as  at  all  conspicuous ;  nor 
does  the  XsuxoVerpov  mean  any  remarkably  white  cliff,  but  simply  one  of  those 
bare  limestone  cliffs,  which  are  so  common  both  in  the  Alps  and  Apennines 


NOTE  N,  to  p.  484,  1.  2. 

There  is  a  passage  in  the  third  volume  of  Niebuhr's  life,  in  a  letter  to  the 
Count  de  Serre,  in  which  he  says  that  Hannibal  at  the  Trebia  acted  like  Napo- 
leon at  Marengo,  throwing  himself  between  the  Romans  and  the  line  of  their  re- 
treat, by  Placentia  and  Ariminum.  I  believe  that  this  is  right,  and  that  Hanni- 
bal was  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Trebia  between  the  Romans  and  Placentia,  so- 
that  the  expression  in  Livy  is  correct.  The  Romans  had  several  emporia  on  the 
right  bank  of  the  Po,  above  Placentia,  Clastidium,  Victumviae,  &c.  From  these, 
their  army,  I  suppose,  was  fed ;  and  the  taking  of  Clastidium  thus  helped  to 
force  them  to  a  battle.  Polybius'  words  are  equally  clear  with  Livy's.  The  front 

31  "  On  n'eut  que  peu  d'accidens."    Napo-  luxuriant  about  the  village,  that  the  road  seem* 

Icon's  Memoirs,  Vol.  I.  p.  261.  to  run   through  an  ornamental  park.      And 

38  Even  as  late  as  the  year  1646,  Evelyn's  again  above  Sempione,  Evelyn  was  told  by  the 

description  of  the  passage  of  the  Simplon  in  country  people  that  "  the  way  had  been  covered 

September  can  scarcely  be  recognized  by  those  with  snow  since  the  creation;  no  man  remem- 

who  know  only  its  present  state.     He  speaks  of  bered  it  to  be  without."     And  he  speaks  of  the 

the  house  in  which  he  lodged  at  Sempione,  as  descent  towards  Brieg  by  the  old  road  as  being 

"half   covered  with    snow,"    and  says  that  made  for  some  way   "through  an  ocean  ol 

"  there  is  not  a  tree  or  bush  growing  within  snow."    Memoirs,  Vol.  I.  p.  220,  221. 
many  miles ;"  whereas  now  the  pines  are  so 


660  ADDENDA. 

of  the  Roman  centre,  he  says,  despaired  of  retreating  to  their  own  camp  xuXu<?- 
ju,£vo»  &a  TOV  tforajaov  xcu  <n}v  stfiyogav  xcu  tfucV^cxp^v  <rov  xara  xspaX^v  oja/S^ou  (the 
rain  having  made  the  river  deeper  than  it  had  been  in  the  morning:)  rygovvrss  SB 
<rag  <ra%sis  cl^ooi  jasr'clff'^aXs/a^  atf  sp£W£>]  c^av  sfc  nXaxsvrj'av.  It  is  still  a  diffi- 
culty how  Sempronius  could  have  been  allowed  to  effect  his  junction  with  Scipio, 
while  Hannibal  was  actually  lying  between  them  ;  but  I  suppose  that  he  must 
have  turned  off  to  the  hills  before  he  approached  Placentia,  and  so  have  left 
Hannibal  in  the  plain  on  his  right. 

NOTE  0,  p.  486,  1.  35. 

Niebuhr  in  the  same  letter  speaks  of  the  following  view  of  Thrasymenus 
as  absolutely  certain.  Flaminius,  with  Servilius,  was  originally  at  Ariminum, 
expecting  Hannibal  by  that  road.  But  when  he  heard  that  Hannibal  had  en- 
tered Etruria  by  the  marshes  of  the  Lower  Arno,  he  hastened  over  the  Apen- 
nines to  Arezzo,  eager  to  cover  the  road  to  Home.  He  moved  then  by  Cortona 
upon  Perugia  ;  but  Hannibal  turned  to  the  right,  and  followed  the  western  side 
of  the  lake  towards  Chiusi ;  then  turning  short  round,  occupied  the  defile  of 
Passignano,  and  spreading  out  his  right  upon  the  hills,  forced  the  long  Roman 
column  by  a  flank  attack  into  the  lake,  while  he  engaged  the  head  of  it  in  the 
defile.  Polybius  and  Livy  differ  decidedly  as  to  the  scene  of  the  main  battle : 
the  latter  represents  it  as  taking  place  in  the  defile  of  Passignano,  where  the 
Romans  had  their  right  flank  to  the  lake.  But  Polybius  says,  that  only  the  rear 
was  caught  there  ;  most  of  the  army  had  cleared  the  defile,  and  turned  to  the 
left  into  a  valley  running  down  at  right  angles  to  the  lake,  so  that  the  lake  was 
exactly  on  their  rear.  And  the  modern  road  does  so  turn  from  the  lake  tc 
ascend  the  hills  towards  Perugia :  the  only  difficulty  is  (I  have  been  twice  on 
the  ground),  that  there  is  nothing  that  can  be  called  a  valley ;  for  the  road 
ascends  almost  from  the  edge  of  the  lake :  still  it  is  true  that  the  hills  do  form 
a  small  comb,  so  that  an  army  ascending  from  the  lake  might  have  an  enemy  on 
both  its  flanks  on  the  hill-sides  above  it. 

NOTE  P,  to  p.  505,  1.  43. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  Latin  colonies  and  Hannibal's  want  of  artillery  were 
the  main  causes  of  his  failure.  The  Romans  had  in  these  colonies,  not  one  of 
which  he  ever  took,  fortresses  in  the  heart  of  the  countries  which  revolted  to  him. 
Thus  Apulia  revolted ;  but  the  Romans  still  held  Luceria,  Venusia,  and  Brundi- 
sium  :  Samnium  revolted  ;  but  the  Romans  held  ^Esernia  and  Beneventum ;  and 
so  on.  Casilinum  cost  him  a  siege  of  several  weeks,  but  the  Romans  recovered  it 
in  a  much  shorter  time.  If  he  had  engaged  Archimedes  as  his  engineer  in  chief, 
and  got  Philip  to  send  him  artillery,  he  would  have  done  far  better  ;  for  the 
Macedonian  princes  seemed  to  have  carried  their  artillery  to  great  perfection. 
As  it  was,  his  only  very  strong  arm  was  his  cavalry :  for  his  infantry,  veterans 
as  they  were,  could  never  beat  the  Roman  raw  levies  behind  works.  It  appears 
to  me  that  the  sieges  are  the  great  defect  of  Hannibal's  operations  in  Italy  ; 
and  thus  as  soon  as  his  army  moved  from  any  place,  the  inhabitants  who  had 
joined  him  were  at  the  mercy  of  the  Roman  garrisons.  And  their  colonies  were 
very  strong  garrisons :  Venusia  was  originally  settled  with  20,000  colonists. 


NOTE  Q,  to  p.  536,  1.  25. 

According  to  Livy,  Hannibal  collects  all  the  boats  which  are  to  be  found  on 
the  Vulturnus,  orders  his  men  to  provide  themselves  with  provisions  for  ten 
days,  and  crosses  in  the  night.  (XXVI.  7.) 


ADDENDA.  G61 

He  remains  on  the  right  bank  the  next  day  and  night,  then  moves  by  Gales  in 
Agrum  Sidicinum,  and  there  remains  one  day  plundering. 

He  advances  by  the  Latin  road,  per  Suessanum,  Allifanumque  et  Casinatem 
agrum.  He  then  remains  for  two  days  under  Casinum,  plundering  the  country 
in  all  directions. 

He  goes  on  by  Interamna  and  Aquinum  to  Fregellae,  where  he  finds  the 
bridges  over  the  Liris  broken  down  ;  he  ravages  the  ager  Fregellanus  with  pe- 
culiar spite  for  that  reason;  and  then  advances  by  Frusino,  Ferentinum,  and 
Anagnia,  in  Agrum  Lavicanum. 

From  thence  he  goes  over  Algidus  to  Tusculum,  descends  to  Gabii,  thence 
marches  down  in  Pupiniam,  and  pitches  his  camp  eight  miles  from  Rome. 

He  moves  his  camp  ad  Anienem,  three  miles  from  Rome,  and  there  estab- 
lishes stativa  ;  he  himself  advancing  along  under  the  walls  from  the  Colline  gate 
to  the  temple  of  Hercules,  to  look  about  him. 

On  the  next  day  he  crosses  the  Anio,  and  offers  battle  to  the  enemy  ;  a  storm 
breaks  off  the  action. 

Next  day  he  offers  battle  again,  and  there  comes  a  second  storm.  He  falls 
back  ad  Tutiam  fluvium,  six  miles  from  Rome. 

He  plunders  the  temple  of  Feronia,  and  marches  to  Eretum  :  from  thence  he 
goes  to  Reate,  Cutiliae,  and  Amiternum.  From  thence  through  the  Marsian  and 
Marrucinian  territory  by  Sulmo,  through  the  Pelignian  territory  into  Samnium, 
and  from  Samnium  into  Campania.  From  Campania  into  Lucania,  thence  into 
Bruttium,  and  thence  to  Rhegium. 

Here  are  traces  of  two  accounts  jumbled  together.  The  march  from  the  Vul- 
turnus,  as  far  as  the  camp  in  Pupinia,  eight  miles  from  Rome,  is  all  highly  con- 
sistent and  probable,  and  comes,  I  suspect,  either  from  Fabius  or  Cincius.  But 
the  advance  to  the  Anio,  the  crossing  it  to  offer  battle,  and  then  the  retreat  ad 
Tutiam,  belong  to  a  different  story,  that  namely  which  made  Hannibal  advance 
upon  Rome  from  Reate.  For  in  advancing  by  the  Latin  road,  or  the  Via  Ga- 
bina,  he  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  Anio  ;  and  if  he  crossed  the  Anio  to  offer 
battle,  he  must  have  been  between  Rome  and  the  Roman  army,  and  the  Roman 
army  would  have  been  between  him  and  the  Tutia.  This  then  is  all  absurd  and 
inconsistent. 

Again,  according  to  Livy,  Fulvius  had  heard  beforehand  of  Hannibal's  design, 
and  had  warned  the  senate  of  it ;  he  receives  an  answer  from  Rome,  selects 
15,000  foot,  and  1000  horse,  crosses  the  Vulturnus  on  rafts  after  a  long  delay, 
because  Hannibal  had  burnt  all  the  boats,  advances  to  Rome  by  the  Appian  way, 
and  arrives  by  the  Porta  Capena  just  as  Hannibal  had  reached  Pupinia.  Now, 
according  to  Polybius,  Hannibal  set  out  for  Rome  only  five  days  after  his  arrival 
before  Capua :  there  was  no  time  therefore  for  Fulvius  to  send  to  Rome  and  get 
an  answer  before  Hannibal  set  out.  Again,  Casilinum  being  in  the  power  of  the- 
Romans,  the  passage  of  the  Vulturnus  was  in  their  own  hands,  and  the  story 
about  the  rafts  is  an  absurdity. 

Appian  says,  that  Hannibal  marched  with  urgent  haste  through  many  and 
hostile  nations,  some  of  whom  could  not  and  some  did  not  try  to  stop  him  ;  and 
thus  he  arrived  on  the  Anio,  and  encamped  at  32  stadia  from  Rome.  The  Ro- 
mans break  down  the  bridge  over  the  Anio  ;  and  two  thousand  men  from  Alba 
Marsorum  come  valiantly  to  the  aid  of  Rome.  This  all  agrees  with  Cselius,  and 
supposes  evidently  that  Hannibal  advanced  through  Samnium  and  by  Reate. 
The  "  many  and  hostile  nations"  are  the  Pelignians,  Marsians,  Marrucinians,  and 
Sabines.  Thus,  too,  he  arrives  naturally  on  the  Anio ;  and  the  Albensians,  see- 
ing him  pass  through  their  country,  set  off  at  once  by  the  Valerian  road  to  Rome, 
to  be  ready  to  meet  him.  Had  he  advanced  by  the  Latin  road,  they  would 
have  known  nothing  about  his  march,  and  he  would  have  been  between  them 
and  Rome. 

Fulvius  then,  according  to  Appian,  hastens  to  Rome,  and  meets  Hannibal  on 


ADDENDA. 

the  Anio,  with  the  river  between  them.  Hannibal  ascends  the  right  bank  of  the 
river  to  turn  it  by  its  source.  Fulvius  ascends  the  left  bank  watching  him. 
Hannibal  leaves  some  Numidfans  behind,  who  cross  the  river  when  Fulvius  was 
gone,  plunder  all  the  country  round  the  walls,  and  then  rejoin  Hannibal.  Han- 
nibal goes  round  by  the  sources  of  the  river ;  and,  as  it  was  only  a  little  way  to 
Rome,  he  steals  out  by  night  with  three  squires  to  have  a  look  at  it,  and  then 
takes  fright  and  returns  to  Capua.  Fulvius  follows  him ;  and  Hannibal,  in  at- 
tempting to  surprise  his  camp  on  the  road,  is  sadly  foiled.  He  then  marches  off 
to  winter  in  Lucania ;  and  Fulvius  rejoins  Appius  before  Capua.  This  is  be- 
neath criticism ;  but  I  observe  that  the  story  of  Fulvius  being  too  cunning  for 
Hannibal  is  given  by  Livy  at  the  assault  of  the  Roman  lines  before  Capua,  and 
is  probably  as  true  of  one  as  of  the  other.  Again,  the  line  of  retreat  here  indi- 
cated is  by  the  Latin  road  ;  the  ascending  the  Anio  shows  this,  and  is  inconsist- 
ent with  the  retreat  by  Reate. 

Caelius  Antipater  had  expressly  given  Hannibal's  advance  upon  Rome  thus  : — 

From  Campania  into  Samnium,  and  thence  to  the  Pelignians,  that  is,  by  the 
present  great  road  up  the  Vulturnus  to  Venafro ;  thence  by  Isernia  and  Caste1 
di  Sangro  to  the  Five  Mile  plain ;  then  passing  by  Sulmo  to  the  Marrucinians  ; 
thence  by  Alba  to  the  Marsians  ;  thence  to  Amiternum  and  Foruli :  from  Ami- 
ternum,  by  Cutilise,  Reate,  and  Eretum,  upon  the  Anio. 

What  a  confusion !  which  neither  Nauta  nor  Prinsterer  meddle  with.  The 
road  from  Sulmo  to  Amiternum  is  simple  enough ;  descending  along  the  Gizio 
to  the  Aterno  or  Pescara  at  Popoli,  thence  ascending  to  the  high  upland  plain 
by  Navelli  and  Citta  Retenga,  and  so  by  Aquila  to  Amiternum,  S.  Vittorino. 
But  conceive  a  man, — to  say  nothing  of  an  army  in  a  hurry, — going  down  from 
Popoli  to  Chieti,  then  turning  back  to  Sulmona,  and  going  over  by  the  Forchetta 
to  Celano,  and  thence  by  Rocca  di  Mezzo  into  the  valley  of  Aquila.  All  this 
folly  arises  from  the  untimely  correction  where  the  MS.  gives  corruptly  in  Mar- 
rucinos,  Martinos,  Martianos,  Maceranos,  &c.  Ccelius  supposed  that  Hannibal, 
instead  of  descending  from  Sulmo  towards  Popoli,  turned  to  his  left,  and  crossed 
the  mountains  by  the  Forchetta23  to  Cilano,  and  thence  either  by  Rocca  di  Mezzo 
over  the  mountains  to  Aquila,  or  else  by  the  Cicolano,  and  down  the  valley  of 
Tornimparte.  Instead  of  Marrucinos,  the  better  condition  would  be  Marrubios, 
or  Marruvios  ;  the  people  of  Marruvium,  a  Pelignian  town  on  the  E.  or  S.  E.  shore 
of  the  lake  Fucinus. 

According  to  Polybius,  Hannibal,  five  days  after  his  arrival  before  Capua,  left 
his  fires  burning  at  night,  and  set  off  after  supper.  He  marched  by  -vigorous 
and  uninterrupted  marches  through  Samnium,  always  exploring  and  preoccu- 
pying the  ground  near  the  road  with  his  advanced  guard ;  and  whilst  all  at 
Rome  were  thinking  only  of  Capua,  he  suddenly  crossed  the  Anio,  and  encamped 
at  a  distance  of  not  more  than  four  miles  from  Rome.  He  intended  the  next  day 
to  assault  the  city ;  but  the  consuls  with  their  two  newly  raised  legions  en- 
camped before  the  walls.  He  then  gives  up  the  assault,  and  sets  about  plun- 
dering the  country  and  burning  the  houses  in  all  directions.  After  this  (how 
long  after  is  not  said,  nor  why,  but  we  must  suppose  after  Fulvius  had  arrived 
from  Capua)  the  consuls  advance  boldly,  and  encamp  within  ten  stadii  of  Hanni- 
bal. Then  Hannibal,  having  filled  his  army  with  plunder,  and  thinking  that  his 
diversion  must  now  have  taken  effect  at  Capua,  commenced  his  retreat.  But  the 
bridges  over  the  Anio  had  been  broken  down  ;  and  in  fording  the  river  he  was 
attacked  and  sustained  some  loss  :  his  cavalry,  however,  served  him  so  well,  that 
the  Romans  returned  to  their  camp,  a-r^axroi.  He  continued  his  march  hastily, 
which  the  enemy  thought  was  through  fear  ;  so  they  followed  him  close,  but 
keeping  to  the  higher  grounds.  He  was  moving  in  haste  upon  Capua ;  but  on 
the  fifth  day  of  his  retreat,  learning  that  the  Romans  there  were  still  in  their 

"  At  Eaiano.    This  is  still  a  carriageable  road.     Keppel  Craven  calls  the  pass,  Furca  Caruso. 


ADDENDA.  663 

lines,  he  halted  to  wait  for  his  pursuers,  and  turning  upon  them  attacked  their 
camp  by  night,  and  stormed  it.  The  Romans  rallied  by  daybreak  on  a  steep  hill 
which  he  could  not  force  ;  so  he  would  not  wait  to  besiege  them,  but  marched 
through  Apulia  and  Bruttium,  and  nearly  succeeded  in  surprising  Rhegium. 

Again  what  a  narrative  !  with  no  details  of  time  or  place,  jumping  at  once 
from  a  five  days'  march  from  Rome  into  Apulia,  and  merely  implying  that  Han- 
nibal's retreat  was  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Anio.  But  this  mention  of  the  Anio, 
connected  with  the  expression  "  marching  through  Samnium,"  seems  to  show 
that  Polybius,  like  Cselius,  made  Hannibal  advance  by  a  circuitous  route  upon 
Rome,  and  not  by  the  Latin  road. 

The  season  of  the  year  must  have  been  early,  according  to  the  Roman  calen- 
dar, not  later  than  April,  whatever  that  was  by  true  time  ;  because  the  levy  of 
the  two  city  legions  was  only  half  finished.  But,  unless  the  Roman  calendar 
was  at  least  two  months  behind  true  time,  how  could  Hannibal  have  passed 
such  defiles  as  that  of  Rocca,  Vail'  Osuira ;  or  such  passes  as  those  between 
Isernia  and  Castel  di  Sangro  ?  Would  not  the  snow  have  covered  the  Around 
at  such  a  season  ? 


APPENDIX 


I. — NOTE    ON   THE    TRIAL    AND    DEATH    OF    MANLIUS. 

ZONARAS,  whose  history  is  taken  generally  from  Dion  Cassius,  relates  that  Mariliu* 
was  holding  the  Capitol  against  the  government,  and  that  a  slave,  having  offered  to  be- 
tray him,  went  up  to  the  Capitol  as  a  deserter,  and  begged  to  speak  with  Manlius.  He 
professed  to  be  ccme  to  him  on  the  part  of  the  slaves  of  Rome,  who  were  ready  to  rise 
and  join  him ;  and  while  Manlius  was  speaking  to  him  apart  on  the  edge  of  the  cliff,  the 
slave  suddenly  pushed  him  down  it,  and  he  was  then  seized  by  some  men  who  had  been 
previously  placed  there  in  ambush,  and  was  by  them  carried  off  as  a  prisoner.  Then  he 
was  tried  in  the  Campus  Martius;  and  as  the  people  could  not  ocademn  him  in  sight  of 
the  Capitol,  the  trial  was  adjourned,  and  the  peop.fe  met  again  in  another  place  out  of 
sight  of  the  Capitol,  and  then  condemned  him.  The  scene  of  the  second  trial  is  said  by 
Livy  to  have  been  the  Peteline  Grove.  Now  we  find  that  on  two  other  occasions  after 
a  secession  assemblies  were  held  in  groves  without  the  city  walls,  and  not  in  the  Cam- 
pus Martius;  once  after  the  revolt  of  the  soldiers  and  secession  of  the  commons  in  413, 
in  this  very  Peteline  Grove  (Livy,  VII.  41),  and  once  after  the  last  secession  to  the  Jani- 
culum,  in  the  Oak  Grove,  "  in  Esculeto."  (Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  XVI.  }  37.)  Now  as  there 
is  little  reason  to  doubt  that  there  was  a  secession  also  in  the  disturbance  caused  by 
Manlius,  it  is  likely  that  when  peace  was  restored  the  terms  would  have  been  settled  in 
an  assembly  held  in  some  sacred  grove,  and  that  there  a  general  amnesty  would  be  pass- 
ed,  and  any  exceptions  to  the  amnesty  discussed  and  determined.  And  if  Manlius  had 
fallen  into  the  power  of  his  enemies  in  the  manner  described  by  Zonaras,  his  partisans, 
having  thus  lost  their  leader,  would  have  been  ready  to  submit,  and  could  not  have  op- 
posed his  execution,  if  it  were  insisted  upon  by  the  government  as  a  necessary  sacrifice 
to  public  justice.  The  story  of  his  trial  before  the  centuries  in  the  Campus  Martius  is 
every  way  suspicious,  and  may  possibly  have  been  invented  to  account  for  the  fact  of 
his  death  having  been  decreed  in  an  assembly  held  in  the  Peteline  Grove.  It  was  obvi- 
ous that  trials  before  the  centuries,  the  only  tribunal  which  could  legally  try  a  Roman 
citizen  capitally,  were  held  in  the  Campus  Martius ;  and  as  the  fact  of  the  secession  was 
more  and  more  glossed  over,  so  the  real  nature  of  the  assembly  in  the  Peteline  Grove 
would  be  less  understood ;  and  then  it  was  attempted  to  be  explained  as  a  mere  ad- 
journed meeting  of  the  centuries,  held  in  an  unusual  place,  because  the  deliverer  of  the 
Capitol  could  not  be  condemned  in  the  Campus  Martius,  where  his  judges  had  the  Capi- 
tol directly  before  their  eyes. 

I  may  observe  that  the  law  which  forbade  any  patrician's  residing  from  henceforth  in 
the  Capitol  strongly  confirms  the  fact  of  an  actual  secession.  Manlius  had  occupied  the 
citadel  as  a  fortified  position,  and  had  held  it  with  an  armed  force  against  the  govern- 
ment; and  this  pointed  out  the  danger  of  allowing  any  one  to  reside  within  its  precincts. 


II. ON    THE    LATER    CONSTITUTION    OP   THE    CENTURIES. 

THE  constitution  of  the  comitia  of  the  centuries,  as  it  originally  existed,  is  perfectly 
familiar  to  every  reader.  But  it  is  remarkable  that  this  well-known  form  of  it  never  ex- 
isted  during  those  times  of  which  we  have  a  real  history ;  and  the  form  which  had  suc- 
ceeded to  it  is  a  complete  mystery.  It  is  strange,  but  true,  that  we  know  how  the  cen- 
turies were  constituted  in  the  times  of  the  later  kings,  but  that  we  do  not  know  what 
was  their  constitution  in  the  time  of  Cicero  and  Caesar. 

It  is  quite  clear  that  the  old  constitution  of  the  centuries  gave  a  decided  ascendency 
to  wealth.  The  first  class,  together  with  the  centuries  of  the  knights,  formed  a  majorit) 


666  APPENDIX. 

of  the  whole  comitia.  Thus  every  election  would  have  been  in  the  hands  of  the  rich^ 
and  such  a  state  of  things  as  existed  in  the  last  years  of  the  commonwealth,  when  the 
aristocracy  had  no  other  decided  influence  than  what  they  could  gain  by  bribery,  is  alto- 
gether inconceivable. 

Again,  the  division  of  the  people  into  tribes  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  earlier  consti- 
tution of  the  centuries;  the  votes  were  taken  by  classes,  and  a  man's  class  depended  on 
the  amount  of  his  property.  But  in  the  later  constitution  the  votes  were  taken  by  tribes, 
and  a  man's  tribe,  except  in  the  case  of  the  four  city  tribes,  implied  nothing  as  to  his  rank 
or  fortune.  The  agents  employed  to  purchase  votes  were  called  divisores  tribuum ;  such 
and  such  tribes  are  mentioned  as  interested  in  behalf  of  particular  candidates  (Cicero  pro 
Plancio) ;  and  some  one  tribe  was  determined  by  lot  to  exercise  the  privilege  of  voting 
before  the  rest.  In  short,  the  tribes  are  mentioned  as  commonly  at  the  comitia  in  the 
Campus  Martius,  whether  held  for  trials  or  for  elections,  as  at  the  comitia  held  in  the 
Forum. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  division  by  classes  continued  to  exist  in  the  later  constitution. 
Cicero  speaks  of  the  comitia  of  centuries  differing  from  the  comitia  of  tribes,  inasmuch  as 
in  the  former,  he  says,  "  the  people  are  arranged  according  to  property,  rank,  and  age, 
while  in  the  latter  no  such  distinctions  are  observed."  De  Legibus,  III.  19.  The  cen- 
turies of  the  first  class  are  spoken  of  both  in  trials  (Livy,  XLIII.  16)  and  in  elections 
(Cicero,  Philippic.  II.  33) ;  and  in  the  second  oration  of  the  pseudo-Sallust  to  Caesar,  de 
Republica  Ordinanda,  the  author  notices,  as  a  desirable  change  in  the  actual  constitution, 
that  a  law  formerly  proposed  by  C.  Gracchus  should  be  again  brought  forward  and  enact- 
ed, that  the  centuries  should  be  called  by  lot  from  all  the  five  classes  indiscriminately. 
This  proves  not  only  that  the  division  into  classes  existed  to  the  end  of  the  common- 
wealth, but  also  that  the  first  class  continued  to  enjoy  certain  advantages  above  the 
others.  The  problem,  therefore,  is  to  determine  how  the  system  of  classes  was  blended 
with  that  of  tribes,  and  in  what  degree  the  centuries  of  the  historical  period  of  the  com- 
monwealth retained  or  had  forfeited  the  strong  aristocratical  character  impressed  on 
them  by  their  original  constitution. 

Various  solutions  of  this  problem  have  been  offered  at  different  times  by  scholars  of 
great  ability.  Octavius  Pantagathus  in  the  16th  century  supposed  that  each  of  the  five 
classes  had  two  centuries  belonging  to  it  in  each  of  the  tribes,  and  that  the  Equites  had 
one  century  in  each  tribe,  making  the  whole  number  of  centuries  to  amount  to  385,  out 
of  which  those  of  the  Equites  and  the  first  class  together  would  amount  to  105,  while 
those  of  the  other  classes  were  280 ;  so  that  the  two  former,  instead  of  being  a  majority 
of  the  whole  comitia,  stood  to  the  other  centuries  only  in  the  proportion  of  3  to  8.  This 
notion  of  seventy  centuries  in  each  class,  or  ten  centuries  in  each  tribe,  has  been  main- 
tained also  by  Savigny,  according  to  Zumpt;  and  by  Walther,  in  his  History  of  the  Ro- 
man Law,  Vol.  I.  p.  136.  This  also  is  the  opinion  of  another  living  authority  of  the 
highest  order,  who  has  expressed  to  me  his  full  acquiescence  in  it. 

Niebuhr,  on  the  contrary,  held  that  the  whole  division  into  five  classes  was  done  away 
with ;  that  each  tribe  contained  two  centuries  only,  one  of  older  men,  the  other  of  young- 
er; that  the  thirty-one  country  tribes  constituted  the  first  class  under  this  altered  sys- 
tem, and  the  four  city  tribes  the  second  class ;  and  that  besides  these  two  classes  there 
were  no  more.  He  held  the  aristocratical  character  of  the  comitia  of  centuries,  as  com- 
pared with  the  assembly  of  the  tribes,  to  consist  in  the  following  points :  that  the  ple- 
beian knights  voted  distinctly  from  the  rest  of  the  commons,  and  that  the  patricians  also 
had  their  separate  votes  in  the  sex  suffragia,  or  six  old  centuries  of  knights ;  2d,  that 
the  centuries  of  each  tribe  were  divided  according  to  their  age,  one  of  older  men,  and 
the  other  of  younger ;  3d,  that  the  proletarians,  or  those  who  possessed  property  under 
four  thousand  ases,  were  altogether  excluded ;  and  4th,  that  the  auspices  were  necessa- 
rily taken  at  the  comitia  of  centuries,  and  that  they  were  thus  subjected  to  the  influence 
of  the  augurs.  Niebuhr  held  also  that  the  prerogative  century  could  only  be  chosen  out 
of  the  tribes  of  the  first  class,  and  never  out  of  the  four  city  tribes. 

Zumpt,  in  a  recent  essay  on  the  constitution  of  the  comitia  of  centuries,  read  before 
the  Prussian  academy  in  1836,  maintains  that  the  old  centuries  of  Ser.  Tullius  subsisted 
to  the  end  of  the  commonwealth  without  any  material  alteration,  except  that  those  of 
the  first  class  were  reduced  from  eighty  to  seventy.  He  then  supposes  that  two  of  these 
centuries  were  allotted  to  each  of  the  thirty-five  tribes,  together  with  three  centuries 
from  the  four  remaining  classes;  and  of  these  three  one,  he  thinks,  was  taken  from  the 
fifth  class,  and  two-thirds  of  a  century  from  the  second,  third,  and  fourth  classes.  Thus 
the  richer  citizens  still  retained  an  influence  in  the  comitia  more  than  in  proportion  to 
their  numbers,  although  much  less  than  it  had  been  in  the  original  constitution  of  Ser 
Tullius. 


APPENDIX.  667 

Lastly,  Professor  Huschke,  of  Breslau,  in  his  work  on  the  constitution  of  Ser.  Tul- 
dus,  published  in  1838,  agrees  with  Niebuhr  in  supposing  that  the  whole  number  of 
senturies  was  reduced  to  seventy,  each  tribe  containing  two,  one  of  older  men  and  the 
other  of  younger;  but  these  seventy  centuries  were  divided,  he  thinks,  into  five  classes; 
so  that  about  ten  tribes,  or  twenty  centuries,  would  contain  the  citizens  of  the  first 
class,  a  certain  number  of  tribes  would,  in  like  manner,  contain  all  the  citizens  of  tho 
second  class,  and  so  on  to  the  end :  some  tribes,  according  to  this  hypothesis,  consist- 
ing only  of  richer  citizens,  and  others  only  of  poorer. 

But  I  confess  that  all  these  solutions,  including  even  that  of  Niebuhr  himself,  are  to  me 
unsatisfactory.  If  the  first  class  had  contained  thirty-one  out  of  the  thirty-five  tribes, 
while  each  tribe  contained  only  two  centuries,  we  should  hear  rather  of  the  tribes  of 
the  first  class,  than  of  the  centuries;  whilst  on  the  other  hand  the  positive  tesv^nony  of 
the  pseudo-Sail ust,  who,  according  to  Niebuhr  himself,  could  not  have  lived  later  than 
the  second  century  after  the  Christian  era,  to  the  existence  of  five  classes  down  to  the 
time  of  the  civil  war,  seems  to  be  on  that  point  an  irresistible  authority. 

It  appears  to  me  to  be  impossible  to  ascertain  with  certainty  either  the  number  cf  the 
centuries  in  the  later  constitution,  or  their  connection  with  the  five  classes.  To  guess 
at  points  of  mere  detail  seems  hopeless,  and  positive  information  on  the  subject  there 
is  none.  But  we  know  that  the  comitia  of  centuries  differed  from  those  of  the  tribes 
expressly  in  this,  that  whereas  all  the  members  of  a  tribe  voted  in  the  comitia  tributa 
without  any  further  distinction  between  them,  and,  as  far  as  appears,  without  any  sub- 
divisions within  the  tribe  itself,  so  in  the  comitia  of  centuries  the  members  of  the  same 
tribe  were  distinguished  from  each  other ;  the  older  men  certainly  voted  distinctly  from 
the  younger  men,  and  probably  the  richer  men  also  voted  distinctly  from  the  poorer : 
so  that  the  centuries  were  a  less  democratical  body  than  the  tribes. 

In  the  account  given  by  Polybius  of  the  composition  of  the  Roman  army,  we  find 
traces  at  once  of  the  existence  of  something  like  the  old  system  of  classes,  and  of  the 
changes  which  it  must  have  undergone.  All  citizens  whose  property  exceeded  four 
thousand  ases,  were  now  enlisted  into  the  legions,  whereas  in  old  times  none  had  been 
required  to  provide  themselves  with  arms  whose  property  fell  short  of  twelve  thousand 
five  hundred  ases.  But  one  hundred  thousand  ases  still  appear  to  have  been  the  quali- 
fication for  the  first  class ;  and  it  is  remarkable  that  the  peculiar  distinction  of  this  class, 
the  coat  of  mail,  was  the  same  as  it  had  been  in  the  oldest  known  system  of  the  classes. 
All  distinctions  of  arms,  offensive  or  defensive,  between  the  second,  third,  and  fourth 
classes,  seem  to  have  been  abolished :  but  the  fifth  class  still,  as  in  old  times,  supplied 
the  light-armed  soldiers  of  the  legions,  or  the  velites. 

But  however  much  of  the  old  system  of  the  classes  was  preserved  in  the  later  con- 
stitution of  the  centuries,  the  difference  in  the  political  spirit  of  the  tribes  and  centuries 
is  scarcely,  I  think,  perceivable.  We  do  not  find  the  votes  of  the  centuries  ever  relied 
upon  by  the  aristocracy  to  counterbalance  the  popular  feeling  of  the  tribes.  It  might 
have  been  conceived  that  a  popular  assembly,  where  wealth  conferred  any  ascendency, 
would  have  been  decidedly  opposed  to  one  o'f  a  character  purely  democratical;  that  the 
centuries,  in  short,  like  our  own  House  of  Commons,  during  more  than  one  period  of 
our  history,  should  have  sympathized  more  and  more  with  the  senate,  and  have  coun- 
teracted to  the  utmost  of  their  power  on  the  Campus  Martius  the  policy  embraced  by  the 
tribes  in  the  Forum.  But  this  is  not  the  case;  the  spirit  of  the  Roman  people,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  senate  and  the  equestrian  order,  appears  to  have  been  much  the 
same  whether  they  were  assembled  in  one  sort  of  comitia  or  another;  the  centuries 
elected  Flaminius  and  Varro  to  the  consulship  in  the  second  Punic  war,  although  their 
opposition  to  the  aristocracy  seems  to  have  been  one  of  their  chief  recommendations ; 
and  in  later  times  the  centuries  elected  many  consuls  who  advocated  the  popular  cause 
not  less  violently  than  the  most  violent  of  the  tribunes  elected  by  the  tribes. 

The  cause  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  great  wealth  of  the  equestrian  order  and  of  the 
senate,  which  drew  a  broad  line  of  separation  between  them  and  the  richest  of  the  ple- 
beians, and  thus  drove  the  members  of  the  first  class  to  sympathize  with  those  below 
them  rather  than  with  those  above  them.  While  the  possession  of  the  judicial  power 
was  disputed  by  the  senate  and  the  equestrian  order,  it  was  only  after  many  years  that 
any  share  of  it  was  communicated  to  the  richest  of  the  plebeians.  Thus  it  is  probable 
that  the  middle  classes  at  Rome,  as  elsewhere,  repelled  by  the  pride  of  the  highest 
classes,  were  forced  back,  as  it  were,  into  the  mass  of  the  lower ;  and  entered  as  bitterly 
into  all  measures  gulling  to  the  aristocracy,  as  the  poorest  citizens  of  the  tribes. 

If  this  be  so,  the  question  as  to  the  exact  form  of  the  comitia  of  centuries  in  later 
times,  however  curious  in  itself,  is  of  no  great  importance  to  our  right  understanding 
of  the  subsequent  history.  For  whether  the  influence  of  the  first  class  as  compared 


668  APPENDIX. 

with  that  of  the  lower  classes  was  greater  or  less,  it  does  not  appear  that  the  chaiaetei 
of  the  comitia  was  altered  from  what  it  would  have  been  otherwise ;  the  first  class  was 
as  little  attached  to  the  aristocracy  as  the  fourth  or  fifth.  After  the  unsuccessful  at- 
tempts  of  so  many  men  of  ability  and  learning,  I  have  no  confidence  that  I  could  ap- 
proach more  nearly  to  the  true  solution  of  the  problem ;  and,  in  fact,  there  seem  diffi- 
culties in  the  way  of  every  theory,  which  our  present  knowledge  can  hardly  enable  us 
to  remove.  I  must  at  present  express  my  belief  that  the  exact  arrangement  of  the 
classes  in  the  later  comitia  of  centuries  is  a  problem  no  less  inexplicable  than  that  of 
the  disposition  of  the  rowers  in  the  ancient  ships  of  war. 


III. OF    THE    ROMAN    LEGION    IN    THE    FIFTH    CENTURY    OF    ROME. 

THE  accounts  of  the  Roman  legion  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  of  Rome  are  full  of 
perplexity.  Nor  is  this  to  be  wondered  at,  for  as  there  were  no  contemporary  histo- 
rians, and  as  the  military  system  afterwards  underwent  considerable  changes,  the  older 
state  of  things  could  be  known  only  from  accidental  notices  of  it  in  the  stories  of  the 
early  wars,  or  from  uncertain  memory.  How  little  help  in  these  inquiries  is  to  be  ex- 
pected from  Livy,  may  be  understood  from  this  single  fact:  that  although  he  himself  in 
two  several  places  (I.  43  and  VIII.  8)  has  expressly  stated  that  the  ancient  Roman  tac- 
tic was  that  of  the  phalanx,  yet  in  no  one  of  his  descriptions  of  battles  are  any  traces 
to  be  found  of  such  a  system ;  but  the  sword  and  not  the  pike  is  spoken  of  as  the  most 
efficient  weapon,  just  as  it  was  in  the  tactic  of  the  second  Punic  war,  or  of  the  age  of 
Marius  and  of  Caesar. 

Livy,  however,  has  preserved  in  one  place  a  detailed  account  of  the  earlier  legion,  as 
it  existed  in  the  great  Latin  war  in  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century.  And  Polybius, 
as  is  well  known,  has  described  at  length  the  arms  and  organization  of  the  legion  of  his 
time,  that  is,  of  the  latter  part  of  the  sixth  and  the  beginning  of  the  seventh  century  of 
Rome.  I  shall  notice  the  similar  and  dissimilar  points  in  these  two  accounts,  and  then 
see  how  far  we  can  explain  the  changes  implied  in  them ;  and,  finally,  notice  some 
statements  in  other  writers  which  relate  to  the  same  subject. 

Both  accounts  acknowledge  the  existence  of  four  divisions  of  fighting  men  in  the 
legion :  the  light-armed  (ypoc-^fynxor,  Polyb.  rorarii,  Livy),  the  hastati,  the  principes,  and 
the  triarii.  But  to  these  there  was  in  the  older  legion  a  fifth  added,  the  accensi,  or  su- 
pernumeraries ;  who,  in  ordinary  cases,  were  not  armed,  but  went  to  the  field  to  be 
ready  to  take  arms  and  supply  the  places  of  those  who  fell. 

In  both  accounts  the  hastati,  when  the  legion  is  drawn  up  in  order  of  battle,  are 
placed  in  front  of  the  principes,  and  the  principes  in  front  of  the  triarii.  But  in  the  old 
legion  the  greater  part  of  the  light-armed  soldiers  are  described  as  stationed  with  the 
triarii  in  the  third  line,  and  only  about  a  fourth  part  of  them  are  with  the  hastati  in  the 
front.  Whereas,  in  the  later  legion,  the  light  troops  are  divided  equally  among  the 
three  lines. 

Again,  in  the  older  legion  the  triarii  were  equal  in  numbers  to  the  hastati  and  princi- 
pes, respectively,  each  division  consisting  of  somewhat  more  than  nine  hundred  men. 
Whereas,  in  the  later  legion,  the  triarii  were  never  more  than  six  hundred  men  ;  while 
the  hastati  and  principes  were  regularly  twelve  hundred  each,  and  sometimes  exceeded 
this  number. 

In  the  older  legion  the  light-armed  troops  carried  each  man  a  pike,  "  hasta,"  and  two 
or  more  javelins, "  gsesa.'  These  were  the  arms  of  the  fourth  class  in  the  Servian  con- 
stitution, "  nihil  praeter  hastam  et  verutum  datum :"  verutum  and  goesa  alike  signifying 
missile  weapons  or  javelins  as  opposed  to  the  hasta  or  pike.  But  in  the  later  legion, 
the  light-armed  soldier  carried  no  pike,  but  had  a  round  shield,  nappr;,  and  a  dirk  or  cut- 
lass, firf%aif)a,  together  with  his  javelins. 

In  the  older  legion  again  the  hastati,  principes,  and  triarii,  all  bore  the  arms  of  the 
second  and  third  classes  in  the  Servian  constitution :  that  is  to  say,  the  large  oblong 
shield,  "  scutum,"  the  pike,  and  the  sword,  "  gladius."  But  in  the  later  legion,  the  has- 
tati and  principes  had  both  dropped  the  pike,  and  were  armed  instead  of  it  with  two 
large  javelins,  of  about  six  feet  in  length,  which  Polybius  calls  focal,  and  which  were  no 
»ther  than  the  formidable  pila. 


APPENDIX.  669 

Further,  we  have  a  remarkable  notice  that  there  was  a  time  when  the  triarii  alone 
carried  pila,  and  were  called  pilani,  while  the  hastati  and  principes  still  carried  pikes.3 

Again,  the  older  legion  was  divided  into  forty-five  maniples  or  ordines ;  fifteen  of 
hastati,  fifteen  of  principes,  and  fifteen  of  triarii ;  but  as  the  triarii  were,  in  fact,  a  triple 
division,  so  their  maniples  contained  one  hundred  and  eighty-six,  or  possibly  one  hun- 
dred and  eighty-nine  men  each,  while  those  of  the  hastati  and  principes  contained  only 
sixty-three  men  each. 

In  the  later  legion,  the  hastati,  principes,  and  triarii  contained  ten  maniples  each ;  and 
those  of  the  two  former  divisions  consisted  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  men  each,  while 
those  of  the  triarii  contained  only  sixty.  The  light  troops  were  divided  into  thirty 
divisions,  one  of  which  was  added  to  each  maniple  of  the  heavy-armed  troops,  in  just 
proportion  to  its  respective  strength ;  that  is,  that  twenty-four  light-armed  men  were 
added  to  each  maniple  of  the  triarii,  and  forty-eight  to  each  maniple  of  the  hastati  and 
principes.  It  may  be,  however,  that  the  divisions  of  the  light-armed  troops  were  all 
equal :  in  which  case  they  would  have  raised  each  maniple  of  the  triarii  to  one  hundred 
men,  and  each  maniple  of  the  hastati  and  principes  to  one  hundred  and  sixty. 

In  the  older  legion,  each  maniple  contained  two  centurions;  that  is,  it  consisted  of 
two  centuries.  Therefore  the  century  of  the  old  legion  consisted  of  thirty  men. 

In  the  later  legion  each  maniple- also  had  two  centurions;  but  the  maniples  being  of 
unequal  numbers,  the  centuries  were  unequal  also ;  the  centuries  of  the  triarii  contained 
thirty  men  each,  as  in  the  older  legion,  but  those  of  the  hastati  and  principes  had  each 
sixty. 

On  comparing  these  two  forms  of  the  legion,  it  is  manifest  that  in  the  older  there  is 
retained  one  of  the  characterestic  points  of  the  system  of  the  phalanx,  or  of  fighting  in 
columns,  the  keeping  of  the  light-armed  or  worst-armed  men  mostly  in  the  rear.  The 
old  legion  consisted  of  a  first  division  of  about  nineteen  hundred  men,  of  whom  only 
three  hundred  and  fifteen  had  inferior  arms;  and  of  a  second  division  of  nearly  twenty- 
eight  hundred  men,  of  whom  only  nine  hundred  and  thirty  were  well  armed;  nine  hun- 
dred and  thirty  were  light  armed,  and  the  remaining  nine  hundred  and  thirty,  the  accensi, 
were  not  armed  at  all.  Nay,  it  appears  doubtful  whether  even  the  triarii,  properly  so 
called,  were  quite  equal  to  the  hastati  and  principes;  for  in  the  Latin  war  it  seems  to 
be  a  mistake  of  Livy's  to  suppose  that  they  carried  pikes;  they  appear  at  that  time  to 
have  borne  only  pila  and  swords,  and  were  therefore  less  fitted  than  the  hastati  and 
principes  for  the  peculiar  manner  of  fighting  then  in  use  in  the  Roman  army. 

But  even  in  this  earlier  form  of  the  legion  there  seems  to  have  been  some  change 
introduced  from  a  form  still  earlier.  The  mixture  of  light-armed  soldiers  in  the  front 
ranks  of  the  phalanx,  unless  we  are  to  suppose  that  they  were  always  thrown  forward 
as  mere  skirmishers,  and  had  no  place  in  the  line,  seems  to  show  that  a  modification  ol 
the  tactic  of  the  phalanx  had  already  been  found  necessary,  and  that  the  use  of  the 
javelin  instead  of  the  pike  was  already  rising  in  estimation. 

This  alteration  seems  to  derive  its*  origin  from  the  Gaulish  wars.  The  Gauls  used 
javelins  themselves,  and  the  weight  of  their  charge  was  such  that  the  full-armed  sol- 
diers of  the  Roman  legions  we're  not  numerous  enough  to  withstand  them  ;  it  became 
of  importance,  therefore,  to  improve  the  efficiency  of  the  lighkarmed  soldiers,  and  at 
the  same  time  to  enable  the  Roman  line  to  reply  to  the  Gaulish  missiles,  if  the  enemy 
preferred  a  distant  combat  to  fighting  hand  to  hand. 

That  something  of  this  sort  was  done  is  directly  stated ;  but  as  usual  the  accounts 
are  conflicting  and  inconsistent  with  themselves.  Dionysius  makes  Camillus  say  to  hia 
soldiers,  that  whereas  "  the  Gauls  had  only  javelins,  they  had  arrows,  a  weapon  of 
deadly  effect."  'Aim  \fiyxns  <5r<rrd?,  S^VKTOV  /3Aoj.  Fragm.  Vatic.  XXX.  Plutarch  says 
that  Camillus  instructed  his  soldiers  "to  use  their  long  javelins  as  weapons  for  close 
fight,"  ro?j  Wo?j  paKpols  Sia  xctf>&s  xprjvQat,  Camill.  40,  and  in  the  next  chapter  he  describes 
the  Gauls  as  grappling  with  the  Romans,  and  trying  to  push  aside  their  javelins,  which 
evidently  supposes  them  to  have  been  used  as  pikes.  And  yet  in  the  very  sentence  be- 
fore he  talks  of  the  Gaulish  shields  as  being  weighed  down  by  the  Roman  javelins,  which 
had  run  through  them,  and  hung  upon  them,  rods  M  Qvpcovs  ovuKE-xdpQai  Kal  papvvcvOai  r&v 
iioauv  tyeXxonivuv  (Camill.  41),  a  description  applicable  only  to  weapons  thrown  at  the 
enemy,  and  not  used  as  pikes. 

A  passage  i*  Livy  seems  to  offer  the  solution  of  this  difficulty.  When  the  Gauls 
attacked  the  Roman  camp  in  their  invasion  of  the  Roman  territory  in  the  year  405,  only 
ten  years  before  the  Latin  war,  the  triarii  were  engaged  in  throwing  up  works,  and  the 

2  Livy  says  that  the  hastati  and  principea  were  called  ler)  and  Ovid  (Fasti,  III.  129)  call  the  triarii  expressly 
ar-tepila'ui  -VIII.  8.  Varro  (Ling.  Lat.  V.  §  Ed.  Mill-  pilani. 


670  APPENDIX. 

hastati  and  principes  covered  them.  Then,  as  the  Gauls  advanced  up  hill  to  attack  the 
Roman  position,  "  all  the  pila  and  spears,"  "  pila  omnia  hastseque,"  "  took  effect,"  says 
Livy,  "  from  their  own  weight ;  and  the  Gauls  had  either  their  bodies  run  through,  or 
their  shields  weighed  down  by  the  darts  that  were  sticking  in  them."  VII.  23.  It 
appears,  then,  that  both  the  pilum  and  hasta  could  be  used  as  missiles;  but  both  also 
could  be  used  as  pikes,  for  the  pilum  was  six  feet  in  length,  and  therefore  it  is  very 
possible  that  Camillus  may  have  shortened  the  spear  of  the  hastati,  to  render  it  avail- 
able as  a  missile,  and  also  strengthened  and  lengthened  the  pilum  to  make  it  serve  on 
occasion  the  purposes  of  a  pike. 

Thus  the  hastati  and  principes  were  armed  with  swords,  with  large  oblong  shields, 
scuta,  and  with  spears,  hastae ;  but  the  large  shield  already  fitted  them  for  a  more  inde- 
pendent and  personal  mode  of  fighting  than  that  of  the  phalanx,  and  the  spear  might  be 
used  as  a  javelin,  no  less  than  as  a  pike.  The  Samnite  wars,  following  so  soon  after- 
wards, decided  the  Romans  to  give  up  the  tactic  of  the  phalanx  still  more  entirely :  the 
spear  which  might  be  used  as  a  javelin,  but  was  more  fitted  for  close  vight,  was  now 
given  only  to  the  soldiers  of  the  third  line ;  while  the  pilum,  which  might  be  used  as 
a  pike,  but  was  properly  a  ftiissile,  was  taken  from  the  third  line,  and  given  to  the  sol- 
diers of  the  first  and  second  lines.  At  the  same  time  those  citizens  whose  properties 
were  rated  between  four  thousand  ases  and  twelve  thousand  five  hundred,  and  who 
were  not  formerly  required  to  provide  themselves  with  arms,  were  now  called  upon  to 
do  so,  and  therefore  the  accensi  are  no  more  heard  of;  while  the  rorarii,  who  seem  to 
have  belonged  to  the  fifth  class  of  the  old  Servian  division,  and  to  have  gone  to  battle 
with  no  other  weapons  than  slings,  were  now  called  upon  to  provide  themselves  with 
light  arms  of  a  better  description,  and  became  the  velites  of  the  new  legion.  Why 
the  triarii  should  have  been  also  reduced  in  number  does  not  certainly  appear ;  except 
that  as  the  whole  Roman  tactic  was  now  become  a  very  active  system  of  personal  com- 
bats along  the  whole  line,  it  was  necessary  to  have  as  many  men  as  possible  available 
for  the  two  first  divisions,  and  that  the  mere  reserve,  which  was  not  to  form  any  part 
of  the  fighting  force,  except  on  emergency,  should  be  kept  low,  and  confined  to  the 
older  soldiers  who  had  no  longer  sufficient  activity  to  be  employed  in  the  constantly 
moving  battle  of  the  regular  line. 

Niebuhr  has  attempted  to  explain  the  number  of  centuries  in  the  legion,  and  of  men 
in  each  century,  by  a  reference  to  the  varying  number  of  tribes,  and  to  the  centuries  in 
the  classes  of  the  Servian  constitution.  But  his  explanation  does  not  seem  to  me  sat- 
isfactory; and  the  question  is  not  essential  to  our  understanding  of  the  military  char- 
acter of  the  legion.  It  may  be  observed,  however,  that  the  germ  of  the  division  of  the 
legion  into  ten  cohorts,  may  be  traced  already  in  the  legion  of  the  time  of  Polybius, 
as  a  tenfold  division  existed  in  it  in  each  of  the  three  lines  of  the  hastati,  principes, 
and  triarii.  A  cohort  then  would  be  merely  one  maniple  of  each  of  these  three  lines; 
a  miniature  legion,  presenting  the  same  variety  of  force  on  a  small  scale,  which  the 
legion  itself  did  on  a  large  scale.  And  thus  the  cohorts  of  the  legion  of  four  thousand 
two  hundred  men  would  consist  of  four  hundred  and  twenty  men  each,  as  afterwards 
in  the  imperial  legion  they  consisted  properly  of  six  hundred  men  each. 

Sallust,  it  is  well  known,  makes  Ccesar  say  that  the  Romans  had  borrowed  their 
arms,  offensive  and  defensive,  from  the  Samnites.  (Bell.  Catilinar.  51.)  And  although 
the  Samnites  are  not  named,  yet  the  order  of  time  seems  to  show  that  they  must,  partly 
at  least,  be  intended,  where  Diodorus  says,  Fragm.  Vatic.  XXIII.  1,  that  the  Romans, 
having  first  adopted  the  tactic  of  the  phalanx  in  their  wars  with  the  Etruscans,  after- 
wards exchanged  it  for  the  system  of  fighting  in  cohorts  (<nreipa~is  being  a  certain  correc- 
tion for  -ntioalS)  which  has  no  meaning  at  all),  and  with  the  large  oblong  shield,  Svpeoic, 
because  the  nations  whom  they  subsequently  encountered  used  this  tactic.  And  it 
probably  is  true,  that  the  peculiar  form  of  the  Roman  legion  was  owing  to  the  wars 
with  the  Gauls  and  Samnites,  which  led  to  the  total  disuse  of  the  phalanx,  and  to  the 
perfecting  of  those  weapons,  such  as  the  swoid  and  the  javelin,  which,  in  the  system  of 
the  phalanx,  are  of  the  least  importance. 


THE   END. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  UBRARY 


